*** Torfan, Sagh Erroghtid ***

"The discovery of the mass effect - and technology to exploit it - has been the greatest technological revolution our species has had since the domestication of fire. Its applications are everywhere, but most significantly, it has liberated us from our planetary cradle. We are now free to roam the galaxy, with its four hundred seventy three billion suns and their attendant planetary systems."

The instructor for this particular N7 class was a tiny, shriveled woman from an Earth university called CalTech. She looked to be somewhere between 70 and 200 years old, but she hurtled around the front of the classroom like a gazelle. She was also blisteringly intelligent, and had been involved with more element zero research than any three other researchers combined. Of the first ninety-something papers on the subject after the Mars discovery, over half of them had her name on them.

She waved a hand toward the soldiers seated around the room. "And although they tell me that you lot aren't engineering types, I'm actually here to brief you about mass effect technology, and how you can use it…creatively. While it's true that you could find out generally how mass effect drive cores work, one of the things that most navy engineers would rather not discuss about their precious drives is that a mass effect core actually breathes."

It was hard to tell who was actually interested, but all eyes were still on her.

"The reason element zero is so powerful and yet not radioactive is because it is constantly replenishing itself by exchanging fractional spin with proximal baryonic matter. The effect scales asymptotically by mass, but for a marble-sized lump of eezo, it's most detectable and significant within ten to twenty centimeters, and it's subject to the usual inverse-square law, but it shortens half-life by orders of magnitude, making them decay into unstable isotopes. That's why the experimental mass effect drive cores over…oh, about 430 kilos…were having expensive parts replaced each day: the eezo itself actually wears them out keeping itself energized, and at a ridiculous rate. It was hell trying to figure out how to build them correctly."

The soldier in a PVR seat near the back of the room didn't bother to raise a hand. "Didn't the asari tell us about that sort of thing, ma'am?"

"Hah!" The professor barked a bitter laugh. "No, they came to keep us from blowing ourselves up with it. Or them. They mostly made us figure this stuff out for ourselves, though I'll admit there's a benefit to building something yourself: You know how it works inside and out. There's a…oh, damn." The VI was having trouble keeping up with the improvised parts of her talk; she slapped irritably at the controls, backed up to the previous diagram.

"Well, whatever. You're not engineers, so you don't need to know why this stuff does what it does; you may have been left behind when I started talking shop about element zero. But all that stuff I was telling you about Bill Inman and gluon-mediated spin exchange…that's why the distance between the drive core and the inner shielding is called the Inman Gap. The higher the core exchange value at enabling charge, the bigger the gap you need.

"But the important thing to know is that it's not a vacuum in that gap." She pointed into the blue-tinted holographic illustrations of five classes of large ships, where radial centre of a yellow-glowing disk was aligned with the thrust axis of the ship, larger ships having larger core disks. "To keep drive cores in big ships like carriers and dreadnoughts from eating their own support systems every few days, there will always be venting totals of at least eight percent of the drive's core outer surface area, with a maxima thickness of 4.6 centimeters per kilo." Illustrations of technical diagrams kept pace with her as she spoke, highlighting relevant particulars and then sliding away from the centre of the room, but still remaining visible on the attendee displays.

"You can put whatever filtration or shielding on it that you like, but it's got to be open for venting when the drive is decharged. It's from this that the core replenishes the contents of the Inman Gap, which keeps crews safe from the effect, and that's why it must be exchanged frequently. There are lots of reasons not to want the used material floating around the ship, either, and they add up to why we don't just pump ship atmosphere in. You'd all start dissolving like sugar sculptures in water." She snorted derisively, muttered, "It's probably the constant low-level exposure to this stuff that's made the asari physiology so robust and persistent. And those…dinosaur things."

The space at the front of the room almost didn't seem big enough for her as she charged from one side to the other, gesticulating to add to her lecture. "Big vents are harder to hide, easier to protect, and they're more efficient. But more vents means there's less opportunity for clogging. Lighter elements have less inertia, so they are easier to scoop up while discharging the core." She looked around the room at the attendees, realized she did not see the spark of understanding. "So you see, children, there is a second reason why this should be done at a gas giant: greater quantities of atomically lighter elements move more quickly through the vents." She cackled to herself, as if prompting them to laugh with her.

"But this means that one way you can get a mass effect drive to self-destruct is by feeding those vents a steady diet of alkali metals. Toss a handful of powdered cesium into a drive's Inman Gap, you won't live to tell the tale. But stick a button of that stuff near a vent, and that drive will sniff its way to destruction. And the bigger the core, the bigger the boom. The exponential character of this curve might make it possible to nova a star, but there are less expensive ways to obliterate a planet."

She stopped pacing, turned and faced them, tapped the omnitool she wore on one wrist, and then aimed that same finger at them, squinting angrily.

"I'm being nagged by this thing to remind all of you that what I'm about to tell you is one of the most classified and esoteric secrets of the past century." The ancient woman stalked across the front of the room, intent on an innocuous-looking red cylinder about the size of a small sausage. She picked it up and tossed it casually in one hand, held it up and toward the twenty-odd soldiers in the room. "This is a drive siphon. Almost any Alliance MFO has the exotic feedstocks to make them, but they are Schedule Four materials, and you'll need approval from Trident that'll go on your record, not the MFO's."

Construction requirements and instructions downloaded, added Shepard's VI.

"Discovering this was an accident. Earth scientists had been struggling with muon-catalyzed d-t fusion for centuries because they couldn't generate muons fast enough to make it work. But then we discovered the Prothean archives on Mars, and started building mass effect drives. One of the first things one of my lab rats noticed was that the same process that leached fractional spin from drive components can be slowed, stopped, or steered through epitaxial ceramics. Ceramics!" She waved her arms dramatically. "The first few times it happened, it was because we didn't know this, and the ME core we were working on started to get hot – glowing red hot – and we had to purge the whole assembly. We thought the UN director was going to have our heads because we kept losing the damned things."

"But one time, we got it out and the core cooled off on its own. Days we spent, trying to figure out why. Finally, we realised it was the insulation in the lab gear that happened to be in proximity at the time had slowed the effect and gave us time to eject it. A linac we were using to monitor gravitational effects, can you believe it? The damned thing would have blown us all into next month but for that monitor!"

She shook the siphon at them like a battle trophy. "And this is the result. Put one of these within breathing distance of your core's Inman Gap, or even inside the plumbing, and within a minute of that drive coming online, this will start throwing off muons. And it doesn't just mediate d-t or even d-d fusion, it mediates a general fusion reaction inside any mass effect-exploiting drive core with whatever molecular elements it finds, at least as far up the periodic table as iron." She gave them a look that suggested this was the punch line to some esoteric joke, "Don't ask."

"Unlike every other element, alkaki metals, especially cesium, react to element zero's attempt to extract fractional spin by passing the effect on and emitting muons. The spin exchange is passed on to other nearby elements, which has other implications. But as far as you'll probably care, the ceramic casing provides shielding that deflects the mediation until needed. It doesn't stop it, but it slows it down by…oh…three orders of magnitude, or something like that."

She pumped the siphon at them in time with her words, as if thumping them over the head with it. "This is how we scuttle ships, this is why we try to sabotage drive vents, and this is why your Chief Engineers will get really quiet about the Special Orders Block. Because inside each block is one of these, ready to blow the ship to hell. In seconds. Or instantly, if you can shove it right into the core."

Another soldier asked, "How come we had to figure this out? You said the asari were showing us how to not blow them up."

"Oh, this all happened before we discovered the Charon relay and started the First Contact War. There was over a decade of research before we built our first FTL drive, and there was lots to do in the inner solar system before we got all the way out to re-exploring the planetescimals to find that stargate thing.

"And I'd bet my life the aliens knew how to do this, but didn't tell us…so we're not telling them we know." She made a fist around the siphon, practically sneering at it. "I've learned to hate these things. Drive cores aren't designed to contain a fusion reaction, they're ceramic, like I said, and mostly held together with pixie dust and happy thoughts. You could pick one up yourself if you could get under it, but they're fragile as soap bubbles.

"These damned things blow up our lovely drive cores, and when they do, that few hundred grams of eezo makes a tiny tear in spacetime itself. I don't know if the damage ever gets repaired, and it was like losing Queenie to see one of those drive cores go up on purpose." She noticed few puzzled looks and added, "Oh, it's from a vid…before your time. Seems like they remake it every hundred years or so for all the children who haven't cried their eyes out over losing the best dog ever. The first one was Old Yeller, then they remade it as a VR when I was a kid, but they changed it up, and I swore I'd never get a dog because I would never be able to do that…"

She looked up, seemed to remember where she was, and turned suddenly. "Never mind. This is all sabotage stuff. Not as if you could use it to attack a ship in a firefight; no one's crazy enough to try to vent their cores in combat. Even if they opened the outer ports, you couldn't get close enough. But we had to know it could work when we wanted it to.

"Here, catch." She flung the siphon toward the attendees; a marine in the front row shot out a hand and grabbed it out of the air. The old scientist nodded approvingly. "You kids really are top of the line, aren't you? Good. Never lose that edge."

She turned to the side and continued, "How you get the siphon in there, or how you make it stick where you need it, are problems that will vary with each ship or situation, but if you can't get into the ship's engine room, stick one of these upstream the filtration of a drive intake, and you can have it start throwing muons. Depending on how you tweak the siphon design, you'll have between fifteen seconds and nine or ten hours.

"You'll have to balance the time requirements when building it, because the reaction is controlled by emission rate, which is inherent in the design you have fabricated and the flowrate/density. Design a slow leak to be sure you get away, and they'll have plenty of time to locate it and dig it out. Design a fast leak, and your next of kin will get the Star of Terra with your name on it.

"Chief Engineers are aware of this exploit, and ship Captains on anything smaller than a cruiser are only told what it is but not how it works. No one who knows wants to talk about it, and there are sensors that can watch for it because it's so incredibly dangerous. Remember: The faster, the better…if you're trying to sabotage it. But the slower, the better…if you're trying to survive it."

# # #

Though there was no way to hide the muon spray from being detected, Shepard had been considering the best possible way to hide the drive siphon itself from engineering sensors ever since hearing about it. The simplest way seemed to be a shielding material. There were several metamaterials that omnitool fabricators could work with, but it was true, the most effective shield almost had to be made with heavy-duty exotics requiring a desktop fabricator.

He had arranged to have it made before he left for Torfan, already encased in the shield, even though it would be in addition to the weight of the sensor pack. The result was a 3-kilogram cylinder about the size of a relay runner's baton. Two small biosolenoids (synthetic muscles) on each end would push the two caps off the ends of the shielding when activated, which would start the process.

But to get to the drive vents, he would have to cross a catwalk at least once, which would leave him almost completely exposed. With so much of his tech malfunctioning, he couldn't scan for batarians that might see him, nor expect to stay cloaked for as long as it might take. He backed into a cluster of equipment that hid him fairly well, and twisted his helmet off so he could look and listen on his own.

He invoked a Superman mode from his omnitool, enhancing all his senses by way of his suit's still-working sensors, and post-processed by his implant. The world around him seemed to flash once, the sound of the vents still trying to replace the silo's air were briefly too loud. The power draw rose, and his damaged ASP began to generate slightly more heat.

On the balcony above, two pirate technicians emerged from a door on the cruiser, operated some equipment on the wall of the silo, and returned to the ship.

Shepard subvocalized, Victor Indigo, are you still connected to the base network? How long until the cruiser is ready for launch?

Connected at 10.7/29.7
Cruiser ready for launch in minimum 12:30.

Right, he realized, parked on its tail, the ship would always be scramble-ready.

This would work for him, because there was little or nothing to be done outside the ship before launch, and less chance he would be seen. With the announcement, he thought it likely the crew would stay inside until launch so as not to be left behind. So it was disturbing when several armed troops entered the silo above him and took up positions near the main enclosed gangway that connected the cruiser with the balcony. They were in uniform, which made it almost certain that this operation was batarian military with regular troops, not the freelance pirates that the Hegemony continued to claim they were.

The tube gangway they guarded allowed personnel and equipment to be loaded between the horizontally-planed base and the vertically-planed cruiser. Inside the gangway, the gravitational vectors were joined in one quarter-turn of a helix. The Alliance used a similar system under similar circumstances, and it was expensive. Clearly this was also part of how the batarians were keeping the operation well-hidden.

From his dark nest of pipes and tech, Shepard watched the guards frequently during the almost three minutes it took for him to analyse the scanner data he had of the cruiser. They seemed entirely focused on their balcony level, and never looked into the rest of the silo. There were perhaps twelve balconies that ringed the silo; only one of them was below him.

When he saw where the drive intakes were, he realised that keeping the vents safe from sabotage had also been kept in mind by the designers. The main gangway and its guards were visible to Shepard, and he would be visible to them on the north side of the silo, but if he could hang from the catwalk frame, he could approach the vent almost invisibly from the south side.

Working quietly, he slipped out of the ASP and helmet; it was dead weight at this point, and the data he had gathered with it was safely in his suit's DCE. He would not notice the decreased load, but the exoskeleton supercaps would last longer.

He crawled to the underside of the catwalk to make the most of its cover. Dangling beneath it, he spent precious seconds crossing the catwalk to the ship, and doing so slowly and quietly enough that he would not be noticed. His VI's analysis indicated the various catwalks lined up with service points, and they would lever up before the ship was lifted to the surface for launch.

Hidden from the guards and operating lights, he directed his omnitool to directing him to the drive intakes, but without being able to use his hands, it was slow going. He worked his way around the cruiser from under the encircling catwalk.

The inner ring had a 2-meter gap that he could not cross from below. Another service gangway extended directly to the vents from the north side of the outer ring. It was too far to jump, and he would make a lot of noise even if he could do it. The guards would look down, and he'd have a firefight on his hands.

Damn.

Continuing to be wary of detection, he worked his way back to the south side of the balcony. It was bad enough that he would have to rely on moving slowly across the most exposed catwalk with just active camouflage, he wasn't going to risk crawling back up on the balcony where he might be seen from above.

# # #

Sagh Erroghtid and his three cohorts had been assigned the honour of guarding the Lady Bundoo as she bestowed the Ultimate Favor: return to the Origin, Blessings of the Maker, Bliss of Paradise.

Though conditioned virtually all of their lives to the truth of the Maker, there were almost always members of the lower classes who would panic at the thought of not being able to serve any longer before Ultimate Judgement. There were always some that would attempt to secure passage on Lady Bundoo's ship. If Favors or threats would not suffice, they might simply attempt to walk aboard, slipping in behind an actual crew member, either with or without their knowledge.

Sagh would receive Special Favor for his duty of ascertaining that those who boarded the cruiser were indeed the crew of Golezh.

He knew the truth of the Maker. Knew it well enough to have seen the contradictions, the outright fabrications, and the power structure that had resulted. He had used it as his mother had shown him, exploited the exploiters when able, spoken the right words when it did nothing meaningful, shown himself to be Worthy in word and deed, even if he was Rogue in his heart.

That he had earned the position of High Guard was testament to the fact that he had successfully maintained this charade for his entire adult life.

He also knew that Lady Bundoo's command to depart would almost certainly mean his death. The base was badly damaged, their supplies were low already, and unless another Mighty-born assumed claim to the now-abandoned base and its crew, they would be left to fend for themselves without so much as a shuttle. And with three cohorts, it was unlikely any one of them would be able to kill all others and board the ship.

As Sagh stood with weapon ready to defend the Lady's ship from any interlopers, most of the crew was involved in removing something fairly large from the base. It was under a loose-hanging tarp, and it seemed like every crew member had been called to action to transfer it, but the most significant thing about it was that it was strongly suggestive that Lady Bundoo had no intention of returning. He would have to think of something in the next few minutes.

In his mind, he searched desperately for an alternative. As he did, his eyes searched the silo for something to inspire an idea.

Which was when he saw motion below. A lifetime of second-guessing had made Sagh cautious almost to the point of paranoia; looking down, he moved his weapon slightly and pretended to be checking its settings. As the other guards continued to monitor the transfer of large equipment, making sure that no unauthorized entry was committed, Sagh saw an infrared source on a catwalk distantly below.

There was no way aboard Golezh from there. None of the crew would be allowed to perform an inspection or service alone. The thing's weird, skull-topping fur was obvious, as the figure wore no helmet: This alien faced its fate without fear.

It's one of the humans, Sagh realized. Thoughts and emotions collided. It wears no helmet!

It was facing an enemy on equal terms. It knows Honour.

Whether the Maker was fabricated or not, the Pillars of Strength apparently transcended species.

Sagh glanced from one cohort to the next. They were friends, at least as good as he expected to find in the ranks of the Worthy. But they would go meekly to their deaths, and they would take him with them.

He stole another glance down below. The human was crawling carefully and quietly up on the balcony from underneath, then moving out of sight.

This human was doing what Sagh dared not. It deserved better than Lady Bundoo did. It deserved any assistance Sagh could provide.

The door in the silo wall hissed open; the Lady's Herald came through. "Our Lady approaches; is Golezh ready for launch?"

"It is," Sagh replied.

"Then make clear Her way." Again, louder: "Make clear Her way!"

Flowing robes and feather-like sequins, a clatter of jewelry and body decorations, the Lady Bundoo appeared at the door, strode around to the enclosed gangway. The Herald trotted ahead of her into the cruiser, announcing her arrival to the Golezh crew.

Now to choose, Sagh thought. End the interloper and hope that Bundoo favors me with transport off this doomed base? Or end with a flash of rebellion? End the Bundoo as patrons of my clan? He had few family left who could be hurt in retaliation, and since he was already buried, it would be meaningless if they were. If the Hegemony cannot withstand opposition in honour, then it should be brought down by all.

As Bundoo approached, Sagh's grip tightened on his weapon. He thought about the human below, probably sabotaging the ship. To save his family's patron would surely be worth his life.

And yet he knew Bundoo would not see it that way. She was his patron Lady, to be defended with his life. Any guard was so sworn, it was their role until death. What else was there for him to do but give his life for hers?

The Mighty-born have no reason to change.

There is nothing left to be lost.

I may not see it, but I would be a part of it. I could set Khar'Shan back on the path of Honour, or at least serve it by ending the Bundoo.

The Lady Bundoo hurried past him without so much as a look.

I am already buried, he thought. Now is the time to end her. We can join our forces with those of the crew and become pirates, feared by the entire Traverse…

He could see far enough into the gangway to know the inner door had begun to close; one of the crew sounded the launch alarm and started the gangway sliding away from the cruiser.

His indecision had decided for him.

As the leader of the High Guards, Sagh was the last to leave the silo. He glanced quickly down toward the human, but did not see it. He dared not look for it again without risking calling attention to it.

# # #

Shepard's arms ached. Even with his training, a daily regimen of exercises, and the self-healing power joints, it had been a challenge to get to the ship's hull and then back while dangling from the service catwalk in a combat suit. If he'd still been wearing the ASP, it probably would have been impossible.

Once on the balcony again, he was able to move more easily; he adjusted his suit's camouflage manually, and moved slowly to minimize his chances of being seen.

All he had to do was toss the siphon as far into the core vent as possible. But to do that, he had to get to the vent.

He moved up against the wall, adjusted his camouflage again as he circled the cruiser's tail.

Time was too short, and the vents would be obstructed by the catwalk if he stayed under it; he'd have to risk the service catwalk to get there in time. He worked his way back to the balcony, and climbed up on it again, powered up his active camouflage and headed slowly toward the vent.

Marked with batarian characters that his ARO had overlaid with translations, the vent itself came into view, easily four meters above the end of the catwalk. A warning horn sounded, and lights on the wall began to flash yellow; the catwalk began to tilt up with him standing on it. But the catwalk motor was only strong enough to lift it unloaded; the motor began to grind as it managed only to lift about fifteen degrees. Above, service connectors released from the hull of the cruiser, hoses and cables falling away as actuators began the process of casting off. He had waited too long; the ship was about to launch. He needed to get out of the silo if he didn't want to be cremated in the launch blast.

Hell with it, it's right here. Unconsciously, he gritted his teeth. I will kill this thing.

The catwalk kept trying to lift, the drive vent getting slightly closer.

But his suit's DCE still had high-resolution data from the ASP scan, and his VI used it to verify the drive core's relative location, rendering a wireframe diagram on his ARO of where to place the siphon and how to orient it on the louvers.

Unfortunately, it would require that he be able to fly.

Again, no time to panic, only time to act. He jumped backward to where the catwalk was hinged, giving the lifting motor a chance to tilt it up. Pulling the cylinder from his leg pocket, he held one end of the drive siphon's shielding firmly against his breastplate, twisting the other end as far as it would go. Even after he got it close enough to the vent, it would take a few seconds before the cesium started generating muons at a respectable rate, and it would take still more time to climb to its maximum.

Most likely, the vents would be closed. No exchange of the Inman Gap material, no destabilized core. He hoped the muons would be moving slowly enough to collect inside the duct, and the first exchange would send the batarian cruiser's core supercritical.

When the ramp was pointing directly toward the vent, he launched himself up it, hoping the motor would hold it at that angle long enough for him to toss the siphon up and in.

There was no handrail, so he clawed his way up the vented catwalk as the air around him thundered and began to burn. Even with much of the atmosphere escaped, he could feel heat on face and ears; at the end of the catwalk, he pulled himself up fast enough to put a foot on the end and launch himself toward the vent.

His left hand slipped between the louvers, and the power joints gave him a solid grip on the trembling ship. He could see the overlay of how to orient the siphon and a warning that muons were highly toxic as he slid the rod between the louvers, glanced down at the catwalk and saw it had jammed at about 40 degrees up.

He looked up into the louvers again, and released the siphon; it did not immediately fall out.

Assuming the adhering surface had a good grip, he opened his left hand and pushed away from the cruiser with his legs, leaping as far toward the silo wall as he could. The power armor helped, but he landed on the catwalk; the weight of the powersuit falling from that height being greater than the load-bearing capacity of the tiltable catwalk, Shepard's impact crushed the hinges, sending the moving portion of the catwalk to the floor of the silo.

But he managed to catch the end of the cantilever; getting a second hand on it, he pulled himself up and over the edge, then sprinted toward the balcony.

As the silo's emergency vents reached their maximum capacity, flames began to roil upward from the bottom of the silo. Its walls, already weakened by loss of internal pressure, deflected and shimmered in heat haze, trembled visibly. The effect was more apparent when Shepard looked down to check his footing; through the metal grid catwalk the walls of the silo rippled in heat haze as waves of orange and red combustion rose up toward him; his cognitive overclock made it look like a liquid of swirling red and orange.

Squinting from the heat, he saw his helmet rattling around inside the equipment cage where he had briefly sheltered; he felt the hair on the back of his head just starting to burn by the time he managed to get a grip the helmet and smash his head into it.

A sudden burst of churning air, even at half an atmosphere, shoved him against the wall, then the floor. His zero-gee training was almost helpful as he tried to stay on his feet. The noise would have been deafening, but his eardrums were already burst. His hand caught hold of a protuberence where his fingers were able to get some purchase; but for the exoskeleton's remaining strength, it would have pulled his arm out of its socket.

Keep moving!

Crawling, he found his way to the nearest door. Panic strength and exoskeleton servos helped him get to his feet and pull it open; the explosive force slammed it shut behind him.

There was merciful silence for a moment as he began to take stock. The corridor he was in continued to shudder as the cruiser lifted off. He felt a blast of cool air from the helmet vents as it pressurized. Continuing along the creaking and rattling accessway, he noticed his armor was smouldering, but not aflame. His ARO informed him that in addition to the cracked ribs, he had a concussion, and his left ankle was sprained, one of his left shinbones broken. It seemed like everything hurt; he used his omnitool to control his implant, further attenuating his sensation of actual pain to an awareness of damage.

It was a balancing act: Keep the pain from interfering with his activity, but remain aware of damage so as not to inflict further injury.

With suit sensors gone, I'll have to be sharp without augmentation. The spare O2 went into his aidkit pocket, reminding him of Jordan, and the rest of the team. Is anyone still alive? A status light showed his comms offline.

Jordan! He had to get back and try to help.

The biosuit was still functional, though badly baked. In the controlled atmosphere of the intact part of the base, he began to feel where he had exposed skin. Not enough to keep him from venturing out an airlock, even at the 87% integrity that his omnitool displayed on his ARO.

His Gorgon-3 still reattached to the pack successfully. Likely Jordan's rifle is history. Probably as well; it was heavier.

He lifted the combined weight of pack and rifle with his left hand, pulled it over his right shoulder and snugged its metallised webbing into place. Suit omnitool interface systems are damaged. Sensor pack is rubbish. Comms are out. I have Jordan's magazine, which should still work in my weapon.

Combat radar is out. He looked up quickly, checked the hall for hostiles. I'll need Medi-goo if I want my ears working again. Can't do it here.

He checked the map still in memory and started toward the corridor, focusing on the task of getting back to Jordan.

# # #

Mahnahg was not strong of body, but strong of mind. It didn't bring the same acclaim and glory, but his superiors knew how valuable he was aboard Golezh.

At least, he thought so.

Lady Bundoo's requirement for a "scramble" (quick) departure had set the entire department on edge: All stations depended on Engineering to provide power, light, and air. All of it had to be coordinated, synchronized like an assault to make it all work. Mahnahg was not the Lord of Engineering, but he was a Master now, and would be Lord one day. For now, he made sure to keep his section running and capable.

The "scramble" launch had been from within the silo, not waiting for the lifter to take the cruiser to the surface first. Traditionally, this meant that a Lord or Lady was abandoning the fortress and did not expect to return. Such a launch usually did extensive damage to the silo, though she was hardly the first to have left Torfan in this way. The abandonment would be quickly known to the other Clans, who would be free to lay claim to and take command of the fortress.

Though this was common knowledge, it did not concern Mahnahg in the least; his home was aboard Golezh. Now that Golezh was safely launched, he resumed his prowl through the engine room, looking for things amiss. He had found it a most reliable way to stay alert to anything wrong.

On his second pass by the Power Supply Control and Monitoring Station, he stopped and scowled at a display. "Ter Kwowz, is the Core Temp climbing?"

The younger Engineering tech looked quickly at the relevant display. "Yes, Gom Mahnahg; Sensor Third Bank looks higher. Could it be variance in the device?" The rating checked the four indicators, squinted his greater eyes at it. "Wait, it is climbing." He selected a control system, locked it to that panel, and adjusted the settings. All four meters dropped together.

He watched it closely, occasionally glancing at his superior. "It's still climbing." After a moment's silence, the rating turned to Mahnahg. "Mighty One?"

Mahnahg frowned. "We cannot reduce power to the core while we are still so deep in Torfan's gravity well, but…" He stopped, walked to the core itself, put a hand on the shroud.

Kwowz adjusted sensor controls, core tuning, and venting. Venting! That will surely work. He increased internal venting, watched Sensor Three slow its rise, and looked up. "Mighty One, venting to storage reduces the excess."

Mahnahg looked up at him. "Can we make it to the gas giant to vent the core?"

Kwowz took measurements, ran them through his computer. "Yes, Mighty One, but…only if the increase remains constant. I shall disable Venting, Third Bank."

Mahnahg strode across the engine room, spoke to his intercom. "Command, Engines."

"Command bridge here. I listen."

"Command, there is a heat buildup in the core. I suspect debris from the in-silo launch, but it may be sabotage. We must get to the gas giant to purge the vent immediately."

Kwowz had not taken his eyes off the display. He stood and interrupted, "Gom Mahnahg, the overheat still grows!"

*** Glossary ***

ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay

Biosolenoid: application of synthetic muscles that can repair itself if damaged, has an incredibly low power draw, and works best in situations where something has to move, but be less detectable than metal

DCE: Distributed Computing Environment

UN: United Nations

VI: Virtual Intelligence, another term for "weak," or task-specific artificial intelligence