In neat, careful lines, the telepaths of the Tau Atrea settlement were re-entering the bunker they had vacated mere hours ago. Robert sensed apprehension and fear mixed with grim determination to resist. This was true even with the children, as he watched Husn and Maina guide even smaller and very scared children toward the door, quietly nudging their younger charges with love and affection, keeping them calm.

He turned back as Colin and Gene monitored the mobilization from their command center. "What kind of defenses do you have?" he asked.

"Not much. We have a ship carrying supplies and our primary defensive systems and it's due in a few hours. All we have right now are some small arms, an anti-beaming field generator, and a deflector shield for the bunker...We also have a telescope attached to a tracking system." Colin said, contemplating a large closet at the back of the room while pulling a pair of heavy assault rifles from the weapons locker by the control panel, handing one to Gene.

You thinking what I'm thinking? Gene asked his husband. Not that he needed to.

I did it before in '48. I see no reason why it can't work a second time. Colin confirmed.

Robert nodded and re-opened his commlink to Lucy. "Lucy, what's the status of that ship?"

"Still on approach."

"Can you tell us what kind of ship it is? Profile? Mass?"

"It's probably at least cruiser sized, going by the wake of its hyperspace signature, although I can't tell you anything more. It could be an actual cruiser, a carrier, a really big armed transport…"

"Can you get me the nearest Alliance ship?"

"The Earth Confederacy cruiser Shiloh. But she's at least eight hours away at her best warp speed."

"Summon them anyway. Use my command codes if they resist. And keep me informed. I want to know what it is the moment that ship arrives." Robert lowered his arm.

Talara responded as soon as the text showed on her screen. "The Shiloh is responding. ETA is 8 hours, thirty-five minutes." As Talara spoke Lucy felt her discomfort. "They won't be here nearly fast enough. With everything they've put on this ship, why didn't it get equipped with a jump anchor?"

"That kind of tech can't be risked on missions like ours," said Lucy. "Not regularly anyway." She triple-checked her course and speed information. "We won't make orbit until that ship does. Think you can handle the weapon controls too?"

"I can try."

Lucy turned the chair and reached over to take Talara's arm. "It'll be okay," she assured her student.

"Will it? There is something dark coming," Talara said. "I can feel it. Suffering and terror."

"I do too." Lucy felt Talara's worry and projected her own confidence. "And we can face it together. Remember your training."

"I… I do. It's just…" Talara shook her head. "I'm worried I'll let you down, Lucy. That I'm too weak. I failed on Germania. I couldn't hold that cannon long enough. Tra'dur had to be saved by another."

Lucy responded with a reassuring smile. "Honestly, Talara, back when I'd only been in training for a month, I'm not sure I could have held that gun so long either. Don't let what happened undermine your confidence. You can do this. In your heart, in your swevyra, you know this."

Talara closed her eyes. Her face slowly changed to show determination. "I can do this," she said. "I can do this." Her uncertainty faded, pushed away. "I can do this."

"That's the spirit," Lucy assured her.

The evacuation into the bunker was complete. The outer blast door was ready to be sealed and locked with the press of a key, turning the entire bunker into an isolated atmosphere. Robert looked to Colin. "And when is your ship scheduled to arrive?"

"Four hours too late. We need it here in minutes." He flipped a switch on the control panel and opened up a channel to every comm device in the bunker. "I need every adult with a rating of P8 or greater to meet just outside this bunker. We're going to play an old trick."

"Dad, let me help!" came Zara's voice both over the comms and from just out of sight down the short corridor to the inner blast door. Colin mentally cursed himself for not feeling her, but she knew how to mask herself and he had other things on his mind. She was already pitter-pattering down the hall and Gene intercepted her.

"Zara, I can't let you outside." Gene told her in no uncertain terms. "If anything happens to us, we need a mindshredder inside to protect everyone else. That means you."

"But!" she protested but Colin cut her off by wrapping his arms around her. In this, she was just like any other kid. She was terrified of losing the people she loved and wanted to make sure it didn't happen. They were terrified of losing her, of risking her being consigned to slavery again if they couldn't fight off whatever was coming.

"I know. I love you too. More than anything in any world. But we have to keep you safe, and these guys could be bad. We don't know what they have with them." Tears were running down both their cheeks and Gene had joined them in a family hug. Adults were already coming up the stairs from deeper inside. All of them armed.

"Get downstairs. We'll move heaven and earth to get back. We'll become telekinetic gods if we have to. Go." With one final kiss from both of them Zara reluctantly, painfully, retreated deeper inside the bunker.

As this discussion finished, Lucy's voice came over the comm. "Robert, what are your orders?"

"Be ready to engage if at all feasible, if not standby and wait for the Shiloh or a chance to intervene. There are civilians down here, if the worst comes to it, you evacuate as many as you can. Dale out."

Everyone's attention turned to the sensor data that Lucy was relaying to them. Robert felt a sentiment from Gene, a suspicious consideration that these were Hawk's people. Robert shook his head at that. No, I don't think so. Although I am always prepared to be disappointed…

Two things happened in quick succession. One, the sensor data showed the ship emerge from hyperspace. Then, almost immediately, the signal from Lucy cut. Robert consulted his omnitool. "They're jamming us. Complete comm blackout on about every channel."

"Of course they are." Colin croaked, still holding Gene's hand as they let their minds intermingle and calm the other's fear and despair.

A light activated on one of the stations. Gene reached over and pressed a key. On one of the screens the image shifted to show a Human male. His hair was perfectly dark and immaculately kept. Fine dark garments were visible on his shoulders. His skin was nearly marble in its white tone. His eyes were not normal Human coloration. They glittered like twin carnelian stones, part of the haughty look on the being's face. The voice spoke English in an unfamiliar accent. "To the psions dwelling on Tau Atrea 3. I have a proposition to make to you."

"We're listening." Colin replied, his voice had turned hard, not showing an iota of fear.

The figure smiled. "I am not an unreasonable man. I make you this offer. Give to me one third of your adults and children, and I will allow the rest of you to live in peace. I am certain they will prove quite sufficient profit to justify my expenses for the journey."

Slavers don't work that way. They'll keep coming back again, and again. Like fucking bed bugs, or Herpes. Not one. Not one single solitary soul. It wasn't Colin, or Gene, but both in consensus.

"I'll make you a counter-offer. Leave orbit now, or I'll plant a nightmare inside your mind so terrible and so deep that the only way you'll ever find peace is by clawing out your own fucking eyes before castrating yourself with your teeth."

The figure sighed. "Oh well. I tried to be reasonable. I will take you all, then. And you, psion, I think I will keep you for my personal use. I look forward to breaking you."

"I'm Robert Dale, a Paladin of the Alliance," Robert spoke up. "You heard them. Get out of here or face the Alliance fleet when they get here."

The figure's red eyes glistened with interest. "The Alliance founder. I have heard of you." His lips curled into a smile. "An interesting bluff, but I am quite aware of your fleet's deployments. We will have our cargo and be gone before your ships arrive." The smile grew. "And I do wonder how much you will fetch on the markets. We have contacts who would pay handsomely..."

At that point, Gene cut the line in disgust.

The sensors for the compound shifted. Robert looked at the display and noted, "It looks like they're launching landing craft. Dropships of some kind. Company's on its way."

The two Psi Cops minds were in sync as they rushed toward a closet. Colin opened it and they both started maneuvering an object through its door. A large telescope, top-of-the-line civilian grade. Robert was no expert, but he figured it could spot ships in lunar orbit.

"You'd be right!" Colin replied with forced cheer. "Materials are upgraded, but with enough telepaths…"

"We'll have a ground-to-orbit battery." Gene finished for him.

Given what he'd just experienced with the minds of four telepath children, it wasn't hard for Robert to guess what the plan was. But the idea of it, that seemed ambitious. Yet he sensed confidence in Colin, the confidence of someone who was repeating a prior accomplishment.

"Battle of the Line." Colin informed him as he and Gene reached the door. "My brother, myself, and fifty other telepaths took out a Minbari ship from TeepTown with a 'scope just like this one. We weren't the only ones. Military division and Metapol seized control of several observatories."

Robert followed them, as did a line of telepaths led by Max. They stepped out into the cooling air of the early evening.

"Alright everyone, we've drilled for this." Gene told the assembled crowd of telepaths that included Max, two doctors still in scrubs, a very worried looking teacher backslash social worker Robert knew as Mrs. Saunders, and twenty other adults. They all linked hands while Colin connected to the tracking system on the telescope to the bunker's sensor array. When he was done, he took position at the eyepiece with his hands on the controls. Gene formed the bridge between the rest of the assembled telepaths and his husband, and their minds snapped together like clickbricks forming a Great Gestalt.

Robert could feel their minds coalescing. There was a ripple through the Flow of Life, like a stone thrown into a river sending ripples across the surface of the water. The psionic power they were gathering was incredible and quite terrifying. He actually swallowed with the recognition that if the place had been hostile, they would have easily shredded his mind or given his brain a massive stroke while he was still in a distant orbit had he gone in uncloaked.

The telescope adjusted position to point directly at the cruiser, and the collective consciousness found a point between serenity and incandescent rage. Gazing through the telescope's optics with a singular will they reached outward, past the atmosphere and through the Van Allen Belt into the void of space like a grasping hand.

They found their target on the cruiser-mothership, all they had to do was find a wellspring of godlike arrogance, pride, and sadism. Merely touching that mind hurt and they all collectively recoiled from it in pain and surprise. This was not an undefended mind, but one not entirely unlike their own; and powerful. They noticed something else, their discomfort and pain caused him immense sexual pleasure and gratification. Robert felt their collective exclamation mark as they all realized what he might have planned; whatever transcendent joy they had in their mental joining disappeared in favor of wrath and they redoubled their assault.

The slaver didn't fight back, he couldn't fight back, but he could and did try to keep them out. He threw up barrier after barrier in a multilayered defense that was difficult but not terribly time consuming to breach. Robert saw telepaths bleeding from their nose and the small capillaries in their eyes as they strained to breach his defenses, their own stress and pain fed back into the intense pleasure their enemy felt so much that it distracted him from defending himself just enough that they could break through. It took about thirty seconds and his third orgasm to scan him but when they did they knew what he was, where he was from, what he planned to do, what he had done before. Also who gave him the location.

In that moment, all two dozen telepaths understood the meaning of the word "Jihad", and waged holy war upon his very being, against the concept of his existence.

The first thing they did was burn out the pleasure centers of his brain, hyperstimulating them until the neurons died. Then they slowed his subjective perception of time so that seconds would feel like weeks, and seized control of his motor cortex and forced it to contract every skeletal muscle in his body at full force. Muscles tore, tendons snapped, ligaments gave way. Bones subjected to shearing stresses shattered at their growth plates, his diaphragm contracted so hard it broke ribs. It wasn't enough. Not for a lifetime of pleasuring himself by torturing telepaths. Colin directed them toward every part of his brain responsible for the processing and perception of pain, and they stimulated those neurons to the edge of cell-death, and kept them there. Then, it was enough. Only then did someone in the Gestalt suggest they could possibly go too far, and the other others listened. They ended it through the quick and simple expedient of ripping his consciousness to pieces like a school of piranha, then pulled out just before the door opened. From the time they breached his defenses to his death only ten seconds had elapsed.

Colin's fingers retrained the telescope again, and found another target in the pilot of one of dropships, but their scan hit null-space. It was as if his mind was largely void, with parts missing. Yet, clearly the mind was conscious and sapient, capable of moving and thinking of its own will, albeit perhaps a heavily straightjacketed will. It took them time to find a route in to do what they needed to do, precious time. When they did it was with a spastic motion to the left that sent the dropship careening into another. Shields already strained by atmospheric entry were taxed beyond their capacity and the hulls touched, stresses beyond safe limits tore both apart and they exploded in the upper atmosphere.

Colin's efforts to locate another with the telescope proved unnecessary. The dropships were becoming visible to the naked eye. They were blocky craft, made for hovering in atmosphere and relying on power to achieve flight in the same. Each was a dull brown color and had a worn appearance, one even being dented along the side.

While the gestalt attempted to find another way to attack the brains of their operators, Robert focused his own powers on the lead dropship. There was crew aboard and he felt the presence of life, but it was a dull presence. The life was barely a candle compared to the usual light from a sapient being. Robert shuddered at the last time he'd felt such a thing, the sensation leading to memories of the Cybermen tromping about Canary Wharf.

With just enough time to take down one, Robert quieted his emotions and focused his power around him. Recalling Druni's example and explanation for her technique, he clenched his fists and then extended his middle and index fingers forward, as if making a miniature gun gesture in each hand. His will reached into the air and began separating the latent electrical charge around him, splitting the positive from the negative charges. Crackling lightning formed around his hands as he circled them around, splitting more and more positive and negative energy.

As the dropship came over the horizon, Robert felt an instinctive pull that guided his right hand in the moment before he finally released his will. The two separated charges crashed together under his guidance. A bolt of cerulean lightning erupted from the fingertips he was pointing skyward. It crackled across the distance and savaged one of the dropships, easily overwhelming its anti-small arms shields and destroying the things aboard it. The burning craft crashed to the ground outside of the compound.

And like that the dropships were over the compound. One approached from each cardinal direction. They had no external armament, presumably to more easily pass as cargo haulers. Even before they switched to hovering, the doors along the sides were opening. Forms dropped from them, falling thirty, even forty meters to the ground without the aid of a zip line. Robert pulled his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it, the green blade shining in readiness at his foes.

Which he recognized. The gestalt could feel that recognition, and his small sliver of brief uncertainty before discipline and necessity drove that doubt away.

The figures were not felinoid, like a Dilgar or Rr'timm or Caitian, but they looked like they could be feline, with slender, muscled bodies that promised speed and agility. Their skin made one think of Turians with its scaly look and the ash gray color of it. Eyes that were blue and yellow in coloration stared dully ahead, save where they were covered by visors or replaced by ocular implants, with their heads leaner than the heads of Humans and similar species. The tops of their heads were covered in metal, not simply helmets but plates grafted onto their skulls. They had armored suits of black and dark blue, some still marked with a beige four-fingered claw much like the ones on the ends of their two arms. Some had clawed prosthetics, others had entire arms replaced. The same was true of their legs.

Robert knew what they were… because they were made to counter people like him, in the name of their Emperor, whether they wanted to or not.

Coserian cybertroopers, he thought, for the benefit of the telepaths behind him. Combat cyborgs made by the Coserian Empire to fight the metaphysically-gifted. He brought his knowledge to the forefront of his thoughts, of a decadent, authoritarian empire that expanded, conquering and enslaving species until it was finally held back by the Gersallian Interdependency and their allies, the Dorei, brought low and driven back from their conquests decade by decade until they arrived at the point they were now, an Empire divided by civil conflict and factionalism.

The cyborgs raised their weapons toward them as they took positions to surround and contain the group. One of the dropships hovered ominously over the bunker entrance building, its troops landing to cut off their retreat.

At that point, chaos erupted.

Brilliant sapphire energy struck the dropship, pulses that chewed into the craft and opened it up, destroying some of the cybertroopers within. Moments later an azure-sheened shuttle slammed into the same dropship. Both vessels went flying into the far perimeter wall, which they destroyed upon impact.

Three of the cybertroopers had already landed in front of the bunker, blocking their retreat. But just as the shuttle started its attack run, one of the troopers let out a loud screech as fluid seeped from a sudden, violent wound in its chest. The other two reacted with superhuman speed, just for another to have an unseen force cleave through its arms, dismembering it. The last fired blindly as a voice reached into their minds. Get to the bunker!

The gestalt was breaking up as the command came from Becca. Telepaths, again independent, took cover and began pouring fire into the cybertroopers with a variety of weapons, all of them throwing hard slugs; everything from newer H&K assault rifles to Gene's M-96 Mattock and Colin's M-15 Vindicator. The Psi Cops, slipped in and out of a combined state without even needing physical contact, and with such close proximity a pair of P12s didn't need to target a mind or use a weapon to kill a cyborg. They switched between firing and reinforcing each other's minds to blow out ocular implants or disable delicate circuitry in cognitive processors. The others put their own bodies between the medical telepaths and harm, and began a disciplined withdrawal toward their own bunker.

At the same moment they engaged the nearest cybertroopers, Robert turned to his left. He couldn't deflect fire from each and every enemy, so he went on the attack. With little time to prepare himself he threw as large a wave of invisible force as he could manage without harming the others. The lack of preparation meant there was no focusing it, no controlling what it hit and what it didn't, save keeping it from spreading beyond the arc he'd already chosen, roughly 170 degrees or so ahead of him and thus away from the telepaths. The wave of raw force generated from the Flow of Life slammed into the troopers, sending them flying meters away, and kept going. Some of the un-repaired or unfinished structures collapsed like they'd been struck by a blast wave, and even those structurally sound still took visible damage. This was, needless to say, not his intention, but the attack had been wild and in the time he had that couldn't be helped.

Even as his wave of force did its work, a solid bolt of blue light slammed into the ground among the remaining cybertroopers to Robert's right. It detonated with the force of a grenade. It killed the cybertrooper it detonated under; others around it were thrown off their feet, damaged or partly disabled. A second later another shot of the same kind landed among the enemy, destroying or damaging more of their number. Robert felt that now-familiar anger: Hawk was nearby.

All of this happened in the space of maybe five seconds, a rapid series of actions that bought valuable space for the defenders. The cybertroopers not damaged or destroyed by the sudden attack were returning fire in earnest now. Robert's lightsaber became a green blur, catching incoming bolts of blue light. But he could deflect only so many and some of the fire struck the telepaths around him. It did not kill, however, but immobilized; Robert and the others immediately realized the enemy was out to capture, not kill.

The telepaths continued to return fire, the medical telepaths working to aid comrades back to their feet. From his perch on a nearby building, Hawk opened fire again, this time with his weapon set to rifle fire. Streams of blue pulses rained down on the cybertroopers. Robert already knew where Hawk was firing from - the top of what was going to be the community center - and turned his attention to the cybertroopers directing their focus that way.

Behind him, the telepaths formed a cordon around the bunker, assuming a defensive position and keeping up fire while the medical telepaths brought the stunned and wounded through the blast door. Robert moved to his right, putting himself in a position to intercept fire from the thickest remaining group of cybertroopers.

The sudden attack by Hawk and Becca may have saved them from being encircled and taken down immediately, but even then they didn't have a lot of time. The cybertroopers were recovering. Their combat systems were re-calculating threat assessment and their repair systems were bringing damaged portions of their bodies back online. Those he had blasted away with the wave were recovering and moving back toward the bunker. That was the entire purpose of their design: superhuman resilience and speed, not to mention accuracy.

Robert's lightsaber spun in the air, intercepting incoming fire that was starting to become overwhelming. He sent one of the plasma bolts right back to the shooter, damaging its weapon and arm. A wave of force, far less powerful this time, briefly knocked over others. He backed up until he could deflect the incoming fire, at least from the right side of the blast door. The left side was another matter.

Hawk's fire stopped just as enemy fire seemed to converge on his location. Moments later a cybertrooper at the base of the building fell back, as if knocked down by something landing on it, blood and fluid pouring from wounds thanks to Hawk's nanite blades. A nearby cybertrooper lost an arm, a third one a leg. Their fire started to converge around them, drawing away shots that were threatening to overwhelm the retreating telepaths. But there was no indication they hit him.

Behind Robert, he felt a sudden instinctive panic from a familiar mind. A curse in Yiddish went through his mind, telling him Max had been hit. Two more telepaths went down in the following second, stunned, with fire increasing to their left.

Becca materialized beside Robert, a pulse pistol in one hand while the other had silver material flowing out from her wrist, forming a tower shield that was blocking incoming fire. This enabled her to protect the telepaths behind them. Her pistol barked again and again, hitting some cybertroopers but missing others as they swiftly shifted their positions to evade.

The medical telepaths emerged from the bunker, rushing to the aid of Max and the remaining fallen. Robert and Becca were joined by Hawk, who materialized between the two and generated an even larger shield with the nanites streaming from both arms. "Get your asses going, people!" he shouted. "There's more coming!"

And indeed there was. Robert could feel them, more of those flickering candles of minimal life. The slavers had launched more dropships and they were almost to the compound.

The encouragement proved unnecessary. The final stunned telepath was brought in, leaving just those three and the Psi Cops. Get in! Colin urged them mentally.

One by one they fell back toward the door. As they slipped in, Colin and Gene provided the cover fire. Gene aimed and fired in short three round bursts from just inside the door, taking one cybertrooper in the throat and face with hypervelocity projectiles. Colin was a bit less practiced with a gun, and managed to hit center mass of one, knocking it over but he wasn't sure if he killed it.

Becca went through first, at Hawk's urging. Hawk fell back second, continuing to spray fire with the Psi Cops. Robert's lightsaber continued to intercept the incoming fire until he was at the door.

Before he could step back into it, a bolt of plasma struck him in the right foot. This was not a stun shot - evidently the troopers firing on him hadn't bothered - and the hit sent pain rippling through the extremity of his limb. The pain and shock of the hit caused him to trip backwards into the bunker, but his lower legs and feet were still on the outside.

Hawk turned and opened fire with his rifle right inside the doorway, providing the necessary cover fire for Colin to reach down to grab Robert.

A bolt of plasma smashed into Hawk's shoulder, sending him falling back with a pained cry. The shot was full-powered and fried the entire joint. It also meant the door, aside from Colin, was now open, and several cybertroopers rushed toward it with inhuman speed.

Becca stepped up into the portal, pistol firing rapidly. Cybertrooper after cybertrooper went down from damage, their shots hitting her tower shield. Her act gave the necessary time for one of the telepaths in the bunker to engage the structure's deflector shield.

Colin got Robert past the threshold of the blast door as the leading cybertrooper leaped forward, a blade emerging from its forearm as it did, clearing the deflector just before it snapped into place. Becca shot it in the head.

But physics were physics. It still flew onward until the blade struck home, smashing through the nanite shield and impaling Becca at the edge of a lung. She made a little gasp as pain shot through her body. The blade exited her back, spewing blood into the bunker receiving area. The momentum of the impacting trooper knocked her back until both fell within the bunker, the cybertrooper's feet at the edge.

Now fully inside, Robert made a motion with his hand, pulling the remains of the attacker inside so that Gene could slam the blast door shut. With the day saved Robert grimaced and looked down at his foot. The armored boot had absorbed much of the damage, but a small hole showed where enough of the energy from the bolt had drilled through to damage the area just forward of his ankle. As wounds went, it was hardly life-threatening, but it was still mildly painful and, for the moment, debilitating.

Both Becca and Hawk were a different story. Hawk's shoulder would likely need surgery but it wasn't immediately life-threatening, Becca's stab wound was. Judging from its position it had nicked her lung, and he internally debated what to do about the cybertrooper still on top of her.

"I'll get Mr. Hawk wrapped up, you're better with medicine than I am." Gene told his husband as he got the medical kits out and passed one to Colin. His only real concern was to prevent infection.

Before Gene could approach Hawk held a hand up. "No need." As he spoke, the burn on his skin seemed to recede, replaced by pinkish flesh. He rotated the arm once before kneeling down beside Becca. She coughed up blood and started pushing at the dead cyborg on top of her. Hawk grabbed it and helped pull it off. Becca screamed as the blade in her chest was pulled free, ripping through her as it did.

"The hell!?" Colin protested, removing the blade was the worst thing you could do until you were in a surgical theater. He was going to cut the hand off at the wrist and leave it in, and put in a one-way valve for the pneumothorax.

"Getting the blade out immediately is what we needed," Hawk insisted, and it was clear why. The blood flow was already receding from the wounds. "Now the nanites can seal the injuries. Still, we need to get her patched up. With that much damage it's going to take them a bit to completely heal her."

"Alright then…" Colin agreed, adapting. "Her lung is the biggest concern, with the external wounds closing, the lungs will leak air into the pleural cavity…"

She coughed. There was more blood, but she seemed slightly stronger. After a moment's consideration she concentrated and winced. Silver material punched through her flesh near the lung and formed a hollow tube. "There," she said hoarsely.

Gene looked over at the nanite chest tube while Colin picked his jaw up off the floor. "Well that's just handy…"

"It's Darglan tech for you," Robert said, familiar with how well their nanites worked. He looked down at his injured foot. "And it's better than what we found back in the day. Makes me wish we had them."

Hawk smiled wolfishly at him. "I bet you do, Alliance man."

Gene turned his attention to Robert. "Ouch. Plasma burn. I know all about those." Robert got the impression he knew them too well. "Those guns aren't too dissimilar to our PPGs," Gene remarked. "Colin is cross-trained in medical… our surgeons are working on our wounded, but we should be able to do something about the hit to mobility." He closed his eyes and sent a telepathic message.

"There are worse places to be shot," Robert said, smiling despite the need to hobble over to a chair helpfully provided by another of the telepaths. Nearby Max was starting to move again, gingerly. As he sat in it, he said, "It's better than being shot in the ass."

"How the hell did you even manage to deflect those shots? We can sense electromagnetic fields, that thing doesn't emit them." Colin asked while he took off Roberts boot. An EMT who looked like he was of Japanese extraction came up from the lower levels to assist.

"That's a good thing. If I'd had a Gersallian lakesh or similar weapon, which does use an EM field, I'd have never been able to deflect their fire," Robert said. "Their bolts explode when subjected to EM fields. But they didn't expect something like the lightsaber. Lightsaber deflection works differently." The thought made him think of Lucy, since she'd know more on how to explain it. He checked his omnitool while Colin and the EMT finished getting to his wounded foot. "Still being jammed," he said. "But they can't jam me." He focused inwardly for the Flow of Life, and through it sought out the familiar sense of Lucy's presence in it.

There you are, he sensed Lucy reply. Whoever these people are, they're employing jamming even the Aurora would be hard-pressed to deal with.

Yeah. We're all fine here. Everyone's in the bunker and the deflector shield is up. All we have to do is wait until their reinforcements show up.

He felt a tinge of worry from Lucy. And they're okay with you…?

They are.

You feel hurt.

Plasma bolt to the foot. Coserian cybertroopers.

Crap. Lucy's sentiment was loud and clear on that. Better than a plasma bolt to the ass, I guess. What do you want me to do?

Stay in orbit and monitor the situation. That ship could outgun the infiltrator, so I'd rather not risk it. But do what you think is right, Robert answered her.

Roger that. Keep in touch.

Robert let the connection go.

"I would like to take this moment to thank you all." Colin said.

"Yeah. Mr. Hawk, I'm afraid I owe you an apology as well. I've thought some uncharitable things, but you came back when it counted and I think we'd have a lot more dead siblings if you hadn't." Gene followed up soberly.

Hawk glanced up from where he was looking over his rifle and grunted an acknowledgement. His shoulder was still healing, but it looked almost completely restored. Robert recognized Hawk's weapon as the same model of rifle they'd recovered from his campsite at Earth C1P2 during their first encounter.

Don't get us wrong, there's a good chance we'll have to kill him. Just not today. Gene 'cast over to Robert, and it was clear 'we' was the Psi Corps.

You're right about the brain damage and it's worse than you think. At the rate he's going, he'll stop being a person long before he dies. Long before he can't use technology anymore. At that point, even we won't be able to reconstruct him and justice won't be relevant anymore. The only ethical thing will be… At that, Colin glyphed a mental image of a labrador retriever and a shed.

If it does come to that, and you can't do it… we will. We owe him that, at this point. Gene concluded, not meaning the Psi Corps, but himself and Colin personally.

Robert nodded quietly at that. He sensed a slight presence at the edge of his mind and looked toward Becca. She was frowning at him, and then toward them as well. Robert could tell she'd realized what they proposed, and the prospect was making her upset.

You were there for that conversation Becca. Colin told her.

She glyphed back acknowledgement. Unhappy acknowledgement.

"I thought you were leaving," Robert said, looking at Hawk after the quick telepathic exchange.

"That was my plan," Hawk said. "We'd just gotten back to the shuttle and were preparing to launch when I picked up that incoming ship. So we stuck around. Glad we did, and just as glad that asshole in orbit made it so easy to listen in on your conversation." His eyes flashed with anger, but there was a sly grin on his face. "Killing slavers is like killing Nazis. It never gets old. And I'm personally going to ram my blades into that red-eyed bastard's guts and slice him in half."

"That'll be a little difficult. He's very very dead." Gene replied with a satisfied grin.

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "What, you mind-scragged him from here?"

"Catch that telescope outside? That's why there were so many of us out there. We can extend our range and don't strictly need line of sight that way. Came in handy when the Minbari were going to bombard Earth into oblivion, figured we'd give it a second shot." Colin explained.

Robert didn't need telepathy or his own talents to notice the brief wince on Hawk's face. He'd perhaps heard things about this ability, but Robert suspected he was just now realizing that Gene's earlier observation that they would have received lobotomies if this place were a black site was no idle boast.

"In fairness, you need at least one person who's trained very well in attack probes to get the best work out of it, and a sensor system...or a sky full of enemy ships so thick they could block out the sun."

Hawk grunted. "Thanks for sharing," he said. He gave another look at his rifle's display. "Fifty percent. I told Ken we needed to improve the charge cell," he grumbled.

Becca smiled slightly. "And he told you that the Darglan already pushed the technology to its limit." To that, she was answered with a "harumph".

"How do the deflectors look?" Robert asked. Gene got up and looked at the display of their shielding system.

"They haven't been bombarded yet. Don't know how long they'll last if I don't know the energy yield of their weapons though, and a bombardment carries other issues."

"I doubt they'll hit us with anything that might kill us all on accident," Hawk observed acidly. "They want slaves, not Kentucky fried telepaths."

"No, but they could take the shield down and cut through the blast door. I wouldn't want to fight those things in close quarters. We're both fencers, we have monomolecular rapiers, but against cyborgs..." he paused and realized what he'd just said. "Christ, I'm living in a science fiction now." Gene grumbled.

"In close quarters those things are monsters," Robert said. He remembered how Druni described her fight with just one, albeit one of the "officer" cybertroopers. In the end she only survived by splitting the energy in the air to create lightning, the same technique that got her thrown out of the Order of the Silver Moon. The same technique he had just used to shoot down a dropship.

"They threw her out of her order for that?" Colin asked, wrapping up Roberts foot.

"This is what you get for remembering crap around telepaths, Dale," Hawk pointed out, chuckling.

"Our house…" Gene grinned.

Robert gave Hawk a brief look of irritation before nodding. "It has to do with the religious view many Dorei cultures have of these powers. Lightning is traditionally associated with darkness, with using the power in anger to harm or destroy. Lightning has also been used by those fallen into darkness as a means of torture." Robert showed them memories of the fight with the SS at the Führerhaus, the lightning his foes channeled at him that his own power and lightsaber reflected. "Granted, that kind of lightning isn't what we use. It's channeled from the Flow of Life bent to negative, destructive intent. All I did was split positive and negative charges in the environment and cause them to come back together in a way that generates a lightning bolt."

"I approve of the religious loophole," Max butted in with a wry smile. "But there is a definite metaphysical distinction there. I take it the Dorei don't see that as relevant?"

"The Silver Moon's leadership thought it a bad sign anyway and insisted she refrain from using it. Instead Druni left the order and went out on her own. Although she's still defiantly loyal to them. Don't ever bring up some of the fiction about the Order's practices around her, or she will give you a punch to the arm."

"Speaking as someone whose own family is subject to various fictions, I'll just consider them irrelevant." Colin replied. "You're all done, by the way. Bet you didn't feel the skin graft…"

Robert shook his head. "I didn't. And thank you again."

"My pleasure. But I just did the patching up, Hikaru did all the actual work…" Colin motioned toward the EMT who'd emerged earlier but hadn't actually touched him.

"Thank you, Hikaru," Robert said to the Corps EMT.

"My specialty is pain management" Hikaru said, taking distinct pride in his work. "The pleasure is mine."

"So, they're out there, we're in here. And that's not going to last forever," Hawk pointed out. "They've probably got several more dropships worth of cyborgs at least, and we took those things by surprise." He grinned. "So any plans on dealing with the problem?"

"We have a ship four hours away with enough firepower to vaporize their cruiser and a full complement of marines." Gene replied. "So unless they have something that can get through our shield, best course of action is to wait it out."

"I thought you'd say that," Hawk said.

His tone made it clear he didn't like that idea, and Robert sensed his desire to go on the offensive. "These things aren't a game, Hawk," Robert said. "You caught them by surprise, but they're fast and tough and the officers are usually trained to handle enemies with special abilities in one-on-one fights. They're more than a match for either of us in a normal fight." Unless I'm willing to just give up controlling my power, and then this compound may not survive.

But if they have minds that need to be trained… they might be more vulnerable to us. Was the dual-thought of the Psi Cops.

You are T10s. I would say so as well, added Becca. She was still in some pain, it seemed, but she was paying attention.

There was a brief thought that flitted through Hawk, more of a feeling, that they knew nothing of what he or Becca could do, neither his current allies nor the cybertroopers outside. That feeling was quickly pushed away as if it were a dangerous one beyond considering. "Well, I'm on board for waiting," Hawk said, although he didn't seem happy about it.

"And we should have an action plan in case they can breach the shield. We have armor and kinetic barriers in our armory, should be good against their weapons. I'll go break them out." Gene said and headed downstairs only to find his daughter there waiting just inside the inner door. Before Gene could even react, Zara pounced, throwing herself bodily into his chest. Had he not managed to spin around and drop down to one knee with her in his arms the impact probably would have knocked him over.

"DAD!"

"OOF!" was all he could get out as the wind was knocked out of him. Colin caught the commotion and got up to join them, creating a telepath sandwich with his daughter as the non-bread ingredients.

"Hey! Glad to see us alive, huh?" Colin asked the question he already knew the answer to. She didn't cry that time, she was too happy to cry.

"Clearly." she managed to actually say "I...felt you break that guy. Just about everyone did. You okay Dad?" Robert could tell she meant both of them. Somehow, they always knew who she was referring to but this time it was both.

"We think so?" Gene speculated.

"What the hell was he?" Zara asked.

"A monster. No, really. I don't have a word other than that for what he was. For what his people are. They enslave telepaths and feed on torturing them..." Colin shuddered.

What?

"Yeah. Just touching his mind hurt. All of us. Strong defenses too. I can't really say much more it was all kind of a blur and I need to sort myself out." Colin replied to her unspoken disbelieving query.

Robert felt the anxiety coming from beneath their feet. "Is everyone alright?" he asked. "Nobody is panicking?"

"No, no panic." Zara replied. "They're just worried."

"A lot of the people here were kids on Earth during the Battle of the Line. They've got some memories of being stuck in a hole awaiting bombardment from orbit." Gene said to clarify. "But they've also been through it before. I suspect a good number will suicide before they're taken though…"

"Right." Robert frowned. "Well, we're in for the long haul. That's what sucks about being the besieged side. They act, we react. Although maybe you can thin their numbers through your cameras."

"I was just thinking that, yeah. We have the breathing room needed to assess individual weaknesses in here." Colin replied and kissed Zara on the top of the head. "Alright sweetheart, we need to get geared up properly. Body armor and barriers." He let her go with a final burst of affection that Robert could feel across the room, and Gene did the same.

"Okay dad, I'll let you go get badass. Can I stay up here for a while?"

"Might as well… unless they start burning through the door or take the shields down. Then you book it down into the bunker, got it?" Gene agreed after a brief mental back and forth with Colin. She let them both go downstairs and looked at Becca, Robert, and Hawk. Robert she knew and grinned at, but Hawk got the brunt of her penetrating gaze.

Hawk met it and then glanced at Robert. "Dale, she's all yours. I'm not a damn babysitter."

Becca gave him a bemused look. Robert sensed the reply in her mind. Liar. Ken and Janice told me otherwise. Realizing he'd sensed her thought, she looked to him and mind-cast, James babysat his younger cousins for years while growing up. From what everyone else says, he was a big softie.

And now look at him, Robert lamented.

"How many kids do you know who can kill with their mind?" she asked dryly with that same affected thousand-yard stare. She glyphed Becca a cheeky grin overlying that stare to let he know that she'd never actually done that.

Hi! Good to meet you! You know, I don't think I've ever appreciated until just now how useful being able to have two conversations at once can be. Zara mind-cast at the other telepath.

The result was a small bemused chuckle from Becca. She glyphed a reply showing the full nature of her amusement.

While he was not privy to the conversation between his trainee and the little girl, Hawk could tell something was being exchanged. As soon as a bewildered expression appeared on his face, Robert started laughing.

Lucy eased back on the drives as they approached orbital space of Tau Atrea 3. Ahead of them the slaver ship was keeping a geostationary orbit. Lucy tapped a key to zoom in the display of the targeted ship. It definitely looked like a custom job. Four hundred meters long and a hundred and sixty wide, the engine drives were from an S0T5 civilization - Cevaucian, Lucy thought - while the ship bore a passing resemblance to Coserian armed cargo ships. On top of the S0T5 and N2S7 pieces, the deflector shields were Arcturan knockoffs from D3R1.

But the weapons were Coserian, that was certain, and Lucy looked over the data on them. It told her what she already suspected; the infiltrator would pose no threat to the cruiser in a fight. She would have to run if they were spotted.

On the screen another group of dropships departed the cruiser's port side bays, bound for the planet. Talara gave her a bewildered look. "Shouldn't we engage?"

"Not yet," she said. "They're still under a deflector shield. More cybertroopers won't do anything about that."

"Then we will do…"

Both went quiet as they felt it. A mental cry from the ship, a being - likely a telepath - in extreme pain. Another cry joined it. Talara swallowed. "Someone's being hurt over there."

"Yeah." Lucy drew in a breath and focused herself inward. She couldn't stand by and allow that suffering to continue. But neither could she risk herself needlessly.

A small smile came to her face. "I know what we're going to do. Hold on."

Talara nodded, continuing to mind her station as Lucy triggered the impulsors again. The ship quickly closed the distance.

Zara was torn. Nanites weren't unknown, she knew that Shadows used them as armor on their ships and she knew about nanotechnology generally, but these Darglan nanites could form chest tubes spontaneously. On the other hand, the Flow of Life was just… she was still trying to wrap her head around the concept.

"Captain Dale" She started. "How does sensitivity to the Flow of Life spread? I mean, we haven't had that in this entire universe until interuniversal contact. Not that I know of anyway."

"There's no known way to spread it intentionally," Robert confided. "Even heredity isn't a guarantee of sensitivity, although there seems to be fairly even odds of being sensitive if a parent or other relative is." He shrugged. "Every group I've heard of has their own theories. Most of the Dorei orders, and the Miqo'te, believe those with sensitivity are divinely chosen. Among the Zigonians of S0T5 the belief is that Creation itself is alive and chooses who has these powers. The Gersallians believe it's simply something innate that can't be guessed. The lowest born or highest, any can have it. Swenya herself was born to itinerant travelers in a poor village."

"Hmm." She considered "Interesting but not what I meant. I mean that it's new here. In this universe, as far as I know. So, would a cosmic force that crosses barriers between universes not, you know, be absent for the eons before we made contact with other realms of existence?"

"You're assuming that the Flow of Life didn't exist in this universe before we arrived," he said. "That's not how it works. The Flow of Life is generated by life, especially sapient life. It's been here all along. But even those sensitive to it often never learn how to fully use it, not unless the potential is shown to them. If I'd never met Meridina, I would likely have never begun to tap it myself. At most, I'd have had a few dreams of possible futures, maybe a few instinctive insights here and there."

"Sounds like mumbo jumbo to me," Hawk opined, running a check on his rifle.

"Given you were able to access Darglan tech, Hawk, even you might be sensitive." The reply Robert received for that observation was a snort of derision.

"I'm an empiricist." Zara replied to Hawk in a tone that made it clear she questioned who the adults in the room were. "Clearly someone who can throw lightning around and connect others to the life-force of the cosmos is doing something interesting."

"She's wicked smart." Colin remarked from the periscope with an affectionate thought in his daughter's direction. "Also sassy."

"A kid after my own heart," Hawk replied. "But whatever this stuff is, it's not for me."

"He's not the most spiritual," Becca remarked from where she was sitting nearby.

"Speaking of lightning actually, how did you do that? Moving things with your mind I can grasp, we have telekinetics even if most of them are insane but that goes a bit beyond anything I've ever seen."

"I split the positive and negative charges in the environment around me," he answered. "Then I directed the result. It's not easy, but I've practiced on the holodeck enough to get the basics." And dealt with Tom griping about the damage to the chamber...

Robert could sense an exclamation mark in Zara's head as she grasped an implication of that. Atomic nuclei were not heavy at all. "Hey Dad?"

"Yeah little monkey?" Colin looked back at her.

"I've had an idea. Most telekinetics are limited by the Newtons they can exert, right?" She asked. Colin could sense where she was going with it.

"I see where you're going, good idea but I'm not sure they'll have the focus and mental discipline to do it. We can look into it though, might be worth trying. Isidora might be able to manage becoming a tesla coil though…"

"It can be dangerous," Robert warned. "If the charges aren't precisely controlled, the resulting lightning could go anywhere. Even into yourself."

"I'll write her a message. Let her know to try it with static shocks and go from there." Zara said, nodding sagely in response to the danger warning. "She might be a little off, but she knows her limits."

Colin chuckled warmly, letting Gene take over on the periscope, with their minds still joined it didn't matter whose eyes they used. Colin did pause though, concentrating on something outside.

"Still frying cyborgs?" Hawk asked.

"HA! Got you, you bastard!" Gene shouted exuberantly.

Colin laughed along with him before replying. "Yes."

"Yeah, I wanted to help them out but no. They said my childhood was messed up enough without me attacking things that used to be people." Zara grumbled.

I agree, was Robert's immediate mental reaction.

"Hey, we taught you how so you could if you ever got into trouble without us there to protect you. You're not in trouble yet, and we're right here." Gene admonished her.

We can compartmentalize and not suffer moral injury. She would, even if they're not really sapient anymore. Colin informed Robert and Becca. They still have a face.

"Anyway, one more question before I start in on nanites… how do you handle the telekinesis? Ours, well, our friend Isidora is pretty sane, but it takes a toll. She can sense and affect inertia and momentum but the human brain doesn't handle it well."

"I told you how my life force is connected to the universe through the Flow of Life," Robert explained. "It responds to my will. For example…" Robert held up a hand toward her. For Zara, there was a sensation of the floor not quite being as solid as it had been. She looked down to see she was being lifted from the ground, her feet currently five centimeters above the floor. At ten centimeters the ascent stopped.

"This is so cool!" was the only thing she could think to say, but then floating there, she got a wicked grin on her face. "So basically, you're not the one doing the...heavy lifting…" Gene laughed and kissed her on the head from across the room. Colin groaned.

"No. And a good thing. I have it on good authority from Cat that the reaction force of what I can do would probably crush my brain." Robert seemed to be quietly focusing to maintain the effect. He just as gently let her down. "To be honest, two months ago I wouldn't have tried that. I didn't have enough faith in my fine control. Not everyone with sensitivity could."

"Well you're doing just fine now, and splitting charged particles takes a lot of finesse…" she encouraged him. "So… are those nanites networked? Can they be hacked?"

The question was obviously directed at Hawk. He grunted, "No."

Becca glyphed that a successful hacking of the nanites was unlikely, but that they are networked.

"Huh. Because they're smart enough to do complex things and that requires programming and communications. Earth Alliance nanites can only do the one job. But anything that communicates and has code can be compromised."

"Well, it's not like Hawk's going to admit it, is it?" Robert asked playfully.

Hawk's response was to lift his left hand, the back outward, and send a single sliver of silver material up between his inner knuckles.

"Hey! There are children present! Think of The Children!" and everyone could hear the trademark symbol in Zara's voice.

Robert chuckled at that. There was a light-hearted giggle of amusement from Becca as well. A sound that he suspected she rarely made.

"So they're smart nanites, they can be programmed, probably hacked even if you don't know how, and you don't understand the technology. This seems like a Grey Goo scenario waiting to happen, why would you agree to that? The risk seems pretty high. Useful, but… risky." Zara both asked, and commented.

"They're too useful not to use," was Hawk's reply. "The Darglan thought so too."

Robert narrowed his eyes at that. Given the more advanced nature of said nanites and Hawk's weapon, not to mention the Avenger being built for war, he had a strong suspicion just what that Facility Hawk found had been used for. The Darglan would have been desperate enough to try anything to fight the Darkness...

"Besides, that's why we use their brainwave infusions," Hawk said. "It lets us understand the tech. My cousins have made damn sure these things won't go haywire on us."

"No, they just go haywire on other people and harm you indirectly." Max finally spoke up. "Programming is, ultimately, only as good as the programmer. Hassan taught me that much before he shipped out."

Robert wondered what he meant, but he had an idea of that when he noticed the forlorn look on Becca's face. Please tell me you're being careful, he thought. Those things shouldn't be used more than once every six months.

I have had two, she admitted. Five months apart.

He cringed in reply. At least it was just two, but he didn't know how soon damage would set in. Then don't have another one for a while. Make sure.

I will avoid it if at all possible she assured him. Although it was not the assurance he wanted.

The screens in the control area showed another series of dropships landing. The ones so far had only deployed more cybertroopers, making up for damaged or destroyed ones. But these dropships had something else being unloaded. Robert stood up, feeling confident with his injured foot, and strolled over to get a better look at the feed. They had with them a cylinder of sorts, containing the guts of what looked like a projector. Robert looked it over and a sudden, horrible realization came to him.

The other telepaths felt it. 'What's wrong?" asked Becca.

Sensing the curiosity of the others, Robert let his mind compare what he was seeing to imagery from a recording on New Caprica. While the housing was different, they were clearly the same thing. "Reich weapons," he said. "Torpedo energy projectors. Specifically the kind used in Reich shield-disrupting torpedoes."

"Great. Nazis, the gift that keeps on giving." Gene said.

Before anything further could be said, the first of the devices was set on a stable platform and activated. A beam of light connected it to the bunker's protective field, which began to flicker and distort at the impact point. Inside the building their screens showed them what was happening. Steadily the bunker's protective deflectors were losing coherency. They had maybe ten minutes before the shield fell.

Perhaps even less, as even more of the weapons came online, weakening the shield further.

"Well, I think we're going to need a new plan," Robert said, watching one of the screens show the deflector's increasing loss of strength.

Various forms of deflector shielding existed in the Multiverse. Some could be tuned to allow things out without lowering shields, and such was true for the D3R1 deflectors. But virtually all required shields to be lowered, at least sectionally, to allow things back in.

As the infiltrator approached the slaver cruiser, Lucy spotted what she hoped to find, what she knew she would find. A line of dropships were flying in to return to the cruiser. "Hold on," she instructed Talara, kicking the infiltrator into a high-energy maneuver that brought it toward the line of dropships.

Not just toward, but within. Talara watched with silent apprehension as Lucy nudged the ship right into the line, ensuring they would get through the small hole formed in the deflectors. There was barely a meter of clearance on either end. This was a feat no pilot could pull off with complete confidence.

No pilot, that is, save Lucy. She could feel the energy within her guiding her movements, allowing her to remain in place all the way in. At the bay the line split up, relieving them of the risk from behind, each dropship landing. A line of cybertroopers was present at each bay, awaiting embarkation. The infiltrator remained just outside of the open bay, unable to fit with the dropship ahead in place. Lucy fired lateral thrusters gently and lined them up with the middle section of the bay, facing the door directly.

"Talara, the pulse guns. Set them to automatic targeting, all dropships and cybertroopers."

"Doing so now." Talara relayed weapons control to her station and programmed the targeting systems to attack the targets Lucy listed. "Ready."

Lucy, meanwhile, used a free hand to relay plasma cannon control to her station. She targeted the dropship ahead. "Decloak and open fire… now."

With a stab of her finger Talara disengaged the cloaking device. Power surged into the weapons' capacitors. Half a second later every weapon fired.

The sapphire pulses from the plasma cannons utterly wrecked the dropship ahead, turning it into a fireball. The shockwave struck the cybertroopers and knocked them away. The lighter pulses from the pulse guns ripped into the other dropships, destroying their engines, before the turrets on the bottom of the ship started tracking and shooting the cybertroopers still standing.

Lucy triggered the forward plasma cannons again, vaporizing much of the carcass of the dropship ahead. This gave her room to land the infiltrator. By the time she did alarms were going off on the cruiser. She activated the ship's sentry mode and tied it to both of their omnitools before releasing her harness. Talara was already loose and running toward the rear of the ship. They went through the cargo bay, Talara grabbing a pulse rifle and grenade bandolier as they did. She pulled it on as they charged from the cargo bay. The pulse guns and the prior havoc of the infiltrator's main guns had already removed most of the cybertroopers. Talara shot one down with her rifle while Lucy threw two more out into space through the open bay door. Once they had a moment, she used her omnitool. The infiltrator cargo ramp closed behind them. "The ship is sealed," she said. "And the pulse guns should make short work of anything that threatens the ship."

"Giving us time to save any prisoners?"

"Exactly." Lucy pulled her lightsaber from her belt and ignited it. Talara admired the way her teacher looked, like a heroine of old in her purple armor, blue robe, and the blue light of her lightsaber burning bright. Her dark curly hair was left free to fall to her shoulders. If the armor was only slightly different I could imagine she was a Paladin of Voltron, like in the legends, Talara thought, although having actually met a Paladin of Voltron, she knew the legends and art her people made of them were not quite accurate.

The cargo bay door was sealed by whatever alarm went off. Talara expected Lucy to cut it open with her lightsaber, but instead Lucy held her omnitool up to the controls. "Hacking app, courtesy of the Paladin Special Operations Office," she said to Talara. A moment later the door opened. They entered a hall and immediately came under fire, fire that Lucy's lightsaber began batting back at the source. Talara followed her, firing down the other end of the corridor to suppress enemies there. "This way!" Lucy shouted.