The assembled rescuers and rescuees heard that. There was no hiding the disappointment and worry it brought. Their fates were in the hands of the Maimonides crew.

"Alright, we need to fall back to the cargo bay, we definitely haven't killed the entire prize crew yet. I can still feel them and they're gearing up for a fight." Colin told the men and women who were under his command. "Police the weapons, we can use them to arm everyone else." Just in case. He didn't know if there were more cybertroopers so the ability to fill an area with plasma could be useful.

The weapon of the officer cybertrooper who went down in the galley was the first assigned. The point team, under Bayer, quietly moved weapons that were intact and undamaged away from the fallen beings who'd carried them, allowing the telepaths behind them to pick the weapons up. Priority went to those with firearms training such as the security detachment and ship's crew. The first to get weapons were the four Psi Corps midshipmen.

Albert couldn't have been more than nineteen, and was only just starting to fill out. His brown eyes looked like they'd seen far too much and yet he didn't seem haunted or disturbed by it. The other one was Fatima, of middle eastern extraction, she worse a black hijab with copper and silver patterns swirling patterns that matched her naval uniform. Sam was a young black male and when he did speak his accent was clearly American but couldn't be localized beyond that. The last, and clearly the one in command was Machteld.

"Thank you," she said slowly and carefully to Crewman Singh as he handed her a pulse rifle "for coming to get us." Her pronunciation had only a slightest hint of a German accent, but it was almost as if she had difficulty recalling words and so spoke slowly to give herself time. He heard a voice in his head when he wondered about it, it seemed like it might belong to Sam, but there was an undercurrent of two other voices inside it.

She had a temporal lobe seizure last year. She understands English just fine, but her secondary Brocca's area got damaged. She's relearning English vocabulary.

"Oh." Crewman Singh replied to the explanation before he turned back to Machteld. "You're welcome." She nodded in return and checked over the pulse rifle like someone who was very familiar with weapons in general, just not that one. The rest of the telepaths were doing the same.

"Some first command this is." Machteld remarked a bit ruefully. "We don't have a naval college, so we've been learning ship operations on the job." She explained, then she paused trying to think of a term. "A milk-run to Federation space and we almost get made slaves again…"

"But now we're immune to sleepers for a while." Albert reminded her "And we're going to make the bastards pay."

"The Minbari have a term…" Fatima chimed in. "It translates to The Application of Terror. Wherein someone whose power has been taken from them teaches the wrongdoer the depth of their mistake and regains their own power. It's been incorporated into our operational doctrine."

Crewman Singh was left in an uncomfortable silence at the vehemence of that statement and the implications of it. He'd seen what Colin could do, how much control a combat telepath could exert over someone when they had a mind to do it. He didn't want to think about what these four might do to someone for the crime of trying to enslave them again and his mind turned away from the thought.

The attack was coming. All of the telepaths could feel it. The growing sense of desperation and fear. The prize crew were moving into position, their minds full of fatalist despair. There were a few voids among them, indicating the presence of cybertroopers, but not many.

Colin held up his hand from the front of the column, and everyone stopped. "They've cut us off. We're about to be hit. Take up a defensive position and leave the humans to the Corps, focus all heavy weapons on cybertroopers. We'll back you up in gestalt once the humans are dealt with." That also meant interrogation. These people were slaves. Why fight so desperately if they'd failed? Why not just surrender and be taken prisoner? Were the cybertroopers acting like Soviet commissars? Did they have families at risk? What was it?

Remember that. He reminded the young Psi Corps officers. They're likely being coerced. Kill them because you have to. We reserve the Mora'dum for the Aristos and willing collaborators.

"Take up positions," Bayer called out, as did Tasandi, still watching the rear with his team. With her head throbbing Wendy did what she could, standing with a team that would watch the port flank. Those telepaths who were armed put their bodies between angles of attack and those who weren't armed. There were a few low-rating aides and clerks who didn't have the ability to reach out and harm other minds, they all crouched low in out of the way positions. It wasn't the humans they were concerned with. When it came to a fight in close quarters with this many telepaths with mundanes there was no contest at all. It was the cybertroopers. The whole point was for non-combatants to minimize their own threat profile so they didn't get specifically targeted.

It was pretty clear to the Alliance security personnel that the Corps drilled for this. For their part, the Maimonides teams called on their own training in protecting non-combatants and defending a moving group. Approach lines were covered with fire teams of rifles and shotguns, moving on as the entire group did.

When the attack did come, they were ready for it. Pairs of humans clad in light battle armor, twenty in total, popped out from behind doorways leading to the passenger cabins along the sides of the corridor. They didn't have line of sight before the engagement started so it took them a second to get sights on targets and start squeezing off rounds.

Machteld was a P11, and even though the other three weren't as powerful, they were still in a constant gestalt. The minds of the Eubian slave troopers who made up the prize crew wouldn't actually attend to any of their targets. They saw everything just fine. If they were trying to avoid running into the telepaths and Alliancers in a hallway they'd do it without realizing it, but their minds just skittered off everyone like lidenfrost. There was a collective exclamation of confusion as they shook their heads trying and failing to clear the log-jam in their heads. They knew something had to be wrong, they knew they were under attack, there just wasn't anything they could do about it. A few of them managed to fire off shots but they went wild and didn't hit anything but the walls and floor.

Each of the commercial telepaths including Indiri picked a target and scanned them. Ironically, the weaker telepaths couldn't use the precision attacks that other telepaths could, the best they could do was a general attack on the mind; which they did. Six collapsed into tonic-clonic seizures as the telepaths rummaged through their memories for useful intelligence. Where they'd gotten the aerosolized sleepers, how they targeted ships for interdiction.

The stronger telepaths including Max and Astrid swept their gaze across those who were left, thirteen in all. They were given relatively gentle treatment, put to sleep in every sense of the term. They collapsed to the floor and were still, sleeping but not breathing, their minds allowed to slip into the void while unconscious.

Colin, for his part, picked out the one that all the others had looked to when they first lost track of their targets. Their leader. He slipped into Yeter Karga's mind and created a simulacra of a grassy field completely disconnected from her actual surroundings.

"Hello. I'd say this isn't personal, but you're trying to make my people into providers so it kinda is. I can call off the dogs, keep your compatriots alive and take them prisoner, you don't have to fight a battle you can't win."

Colin could catch the bewildering thoughts through the woman. She looked down on him by long experience in her society as a psion, a mere provider, and now she also feared him, for being able to do this to her, to pull her from reality. "You are psions. It… it is your place… just as serving is my place," she stammered. Confusion at why he was even offering to spare her filled her mind, and with it, the sure knowledge that capture was not to be accepted. "If you are as compassionate as you claim, you will submit, or you will kill us."

"According to whom?" Gene's mind said in the fabricated reality, his mental voice booming from somewhere else. "The hedonistic monsters you serve? They're not Gods, they're just men with no conscience who get their rocks off torturing people. Our place," and he meant both of them "is exactly what we decide it is. Surrender is perfectly legitimate, you'll be well-treated."

"They are our masters, and the masters of our families," Yeter said, trembling. "And our masters have ordered us to bring them new providers and not be taken. If we are…" She couldn't speak it. It was too horrible. But she'd seen it, and through her mind Colin and Gene saw it. The executions. The tortures. The lucky had their minds completely reprogrammed for loyalty, or were turned into Razers - cyborg soldiers. And she could imagine the result if she were taken. The fate of her spouse. Her children. Her siblings. All would suffer from the wrath of her master for failing so utterly.

"And we won't consign our people to their ministrations. Killing you won't stop that. It's going to happen anyway. The only thing it will stop is your awareness of it. But you can help us strike back. In this universe, telepaths - psions as you know us - have our own society, and we will not permit your masters to continue to exist. You can help us put an end to that suffering and your life can have meaning. The suffering of your family can have meaning."

Yeter laughed. "You sound like Skolians. But their night has come. It will come to all who oppose the Emperor, and the mighty fleets that await his command. Don't delude yourself into believing you can defeat the Concord. Nothing can." Every word was spoken with utter conviction. Yeter believed nothing could stop the Aristos. She'd seen what happened to those who thought otherwise. "Kill me, psion, or submit. I will not disappoint my master by being your captive."

"We have multiple universes of people who won't permit your masters to exist. They can be defeated Yeter. However, if you insist on dying… I'll still get everything I would from your cooperation. I'd rather not take it from you, but I will." He could also force her to cooperate and surrender, but he hated completely suborning who someone was.

He sensed her choice without her having to verbalize it. Nothing he could say would change her mind. So he took all the information from her mind. It wasn't kind, there was no way a deep scan could be except that he made sure she wasn't conscious for it. When it was done and he'd torn as much as he could about the Eubian Concord and its plans for the Skolian Empire from her mind, he induced a coma and caused her heart to gradually slow and eventually stop, euthanizing her.

Colin finished his work just in time to hear Untarm Tasandi's report. "Cybertroopers to the rear, they're coming from the galley!"

"How many?" asked Wendy.

"At least six! Energy signatures for more!"

"That many?" Despite her headache Wendy was already considering what that meant. "Maybe that's all of them."

"Maybe… Tasandi, can you do a fighting retreat? Slow them down while you withdraw toward us?" Colin asked "We'll come from behind and support you." He couldn't interdict that many. The corridors would restrict return fire and he couldn't fight six at once to interdict them.

"The Gods as my witness, we'll hold, get your people to the cargo hold!" was the response.

Plasma bolts filled the space in the path of the Maimonides, which executed another turn as tightly as the science ship's impulsors could manage. Some of the bolts missed, some still struck, and the ship's shields flared blue at the impacts. Phaser fire from the port-facing phaser banks and array retaliated, meeting the ruby light of their foe's protective field.

"Shields down to twenty percent," warned Oparan. "Damage to multiple decks from bleedthrough damage."

"We've lost one of the phaser cores," added Rodrigo. "Effectiveness of our fire is down. We can't achieve shield penetration."

Nasira's mind was racing. The boarding teams were coming under attack and needed to be evaced. But she couldn't do that until they were free of enemy fire. Even if the enemy eventually battered down their shields, the Maimonides would take crippling damage from any fire they took. She noted the drifting, lifeless cruiser they'd already disabled. It would provide cover, but the other ship was too nimble, it could too easily maneuver around it. "Suggestions?"

"Devote all power to the engines and hope for the best?" Philippe made the proposal, but he clearly didn't believe much in it. For obvious reasons. The enemy fire was simply too accurate, and the Maimonides was no attack ship, capable of weaving around said fire.

"It would be nice if we could blind them," Tasina said. "Maybe if we targeted their sensors?"

"Standard fire through their shields will take too long," replied Rodrigo. "Otherwise it is a good idea…"

"There is more than one way to pluck the kreek," said Treepk. She made a little chirping noise off bemusement. "Captain, a subnucleonic beam might scramble their targeting sensors."

The term struck a chord with Nasira. She could remember something about such beams. They interfered with a ship's systems broadly. While they wouldn't completely jam some sensors, they would cause everything electronic to go haywire. It might give them enough time… "Do what you must to make it happen," she ordered Treepk.

"Aye sir. Reconfiguring systems. This will take a little time."

The ship shook again. Latamrilam couldn't evade every shot. "Shields now at sixteen percent," noted Oparan.

"Divert power to the shields," Nasira ordered.

"Doing so," Tasina answered.

Merciful Christ, please let this work…

Machteld was having trouble speaking quickly enough so Fatima took over "It's our duty to protect the rest. We can't just retreat. Colin, we can help you, you know we can." His first name was used with an easy familiarity, and the you was plural. Colin felt Gene's apprehension. He didn't want to put them in harm's way, but he also knew it was the best chance at success.

I don't like this, but the decision is theirs and yours.

I don't like it either but… six cybertroopers minimum? Without help it's gonna be bad down there.

"Are you sure?" He asked. Relative to everyone else, they were near the back of the formation.

"Of course we are. We're responsible for every soul aboard our ship." At that, Colin nodded and removed an injector from his belt pouch and slotted it into his omnitool. He called up its holographic display and tapped in a command; the integrated injector pierced the skin of his wrist into a blood vessel and he felt the pressure of the counter-agent being forced into the vein. It took a moment for the blood to get to his heart, then his lungs, back to the heart, and then up through the aorta to the carotid arteries and then to his brain; inoculating him against the effects of the drugs saturating the atmosphere. Then he reached his hands up and pressed the button to terminate the magnetic seal of his helmet, twisting it slightly to pop the air seal. With a hiss of escaping atmospheric pressure he took the helmet off exposing the back of his neck.

"Set up a defense in depth, array yourselves along this corridor, down its length." While Machteld took her left glove off, he glyphed the Alliance personnel what he had in mind. A staggered formation with overlapping fields of fire down the hall. If the cybertroopers made it past Tasandi, they would have to come up this passage and everyone could hit them, but they wouldn't be able to disrupt the entire formation in melee combat, and would be forced to engage one at a time. More than that, the Alliancers could retreat in leap-frog under cover fire the whole way down. Given the space they had to work with, it was a superior defensive deployment to a firing line.

Chief Bayer snapped to obey, directing his troops with hand gestures to where each one should position themselves.

"Everyone else get to the cargo bay." Colin turned to the small Psi Corps security detachment. "You're the last line of defense, if they get past us…" They all knew what that meant. Dulce et decorum est pro fratribus mori. The head of their security detachment, a chinese male P8 named Huang nodded and put words to it. The only words that mattered. It wasn't despairing, or bleak. Just a matter of fact.

"The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father, sir." then he directed the four under his command to start shepherding everyone to the rear and thus to the bay. Colin and the other telepaths went with them a little way, but stopped at the rear of the Alliancer's formation.

"Seid ihr alle bereit?" He asked Machteld, but the pronoun was plural. She nodded.

"Ja. Wir sind immer bereit." Machteld put her hand on the back of Colin's neck and joined her perpetual gestalt consciousness with his.

The six cybertroopers rushed forward into a hail of slugs from Tasandi's team. The lead one froze up even before the first slug struck - and broke through - its energy-attuned deflector field, locked into place by the telepaths behind them. Colin and Gene directed the communal entity, the strange and invigorating combination of being individual and yet a collective mind, and with their experience from Tau Atrea immediately located the critical implants to short out.

Even as the first one succumbed, those behind it registered the telepaths as the greater threat. This calculation was an understandable one, but it was also a mistake, as the Crusader shotguns in the hands of Tasandi's team roared repeatedly. The second cybertrooper in the line crumbled, its limbs blown to pieces. It drew yet closer, dragging itself across the floor. The final shot came from Security Officer Kale, who put a slug through the creature's damaged skull to finish it off before it got too close. She immediately held the gun up, giving it a vital moment to cool, while two more of the team continued opening up on the third now that it was held in place by the gestalt.

It was at this point that everything went wrong.

The second cybertrooper exploded.

The bomb within it wrecked the corridor and, in the process, generated the blast wave that knocked Tasandi and his team back by a meter. Weapons fire came on, thick and vicious, as two more cybertroopers joined their remaining four companions in charging forward. The speed they had was inhuman. The gestalt grabbed the lead one, then tried to take a second, but in the seconds they had left they couldn't do anything close to grabbing them all. They had to fall back.

Tasandi's team tried, but they were in no position to fight back as the cybertroopers were on them. Kale died first, a blade going through the back of her neck as she struggled to her feet. The telepaths heard her confused, terrified scream as she was pulled to the Beyond by the force of death itself. Tasandi saw the blade coming for him and tried to turn away, but wasn't fast enough to keep it from plunging through his lung to pin him on the floor. Blue blood billowed from his mouth, bubbling away, while his opponent seemed satisfied that he was no longer a threat and removed the blade. He heard the cry of another of his people, Crewman Okonkwo, as a blade pierced the man's heart.

Within seconds, Tasandi's team were down, undone by the unexpected immolation of their cyborg foes.

The teams behind them opened up as the telepaths cleared their line of fire. "Fall back!" Wendy called out to Colin, to everyone. "Don't let them get close!"

Given the speed of the enemy, that was easier said than done.

The next reached a position held by Kretulo and Duchamp before going down. They rushed backwards, firing on the next as fast as their shotguns dared, but that didn't save them from being hit by the blastwave as another fallen cybertrooper exploded.

The explosions, the screams, everything made Wendy's injured head hurt. It was like each thought had to go through mud. It was Bayer who got on the tac comm to the Maimonides. "This is Chief Bayer, we need immediate beamout! I repeat, immediate beamout requested!"

"We're working on it, Chief," replied Philippe.

"Work faster!" Wendy shouted into the line.

Wendy's demand came as another plasma bolt struck the Maimonides. Its faltering shields failed to hold the blast back, allowing the energies of the shot to strike the azure hull. The impact blackened and warped the material, breaking some of it and creating a breach in the hull.

"Hull breach, Deck 8, Section G," Oparan said. "Forcefields are in place, but I'm not sure how much longer the system will hold.

"Are you ready with that beam yet?" Philippe asked Treepk.

"Modifications are nearly complete," replied Treepk. "If we hit their sensor assembly, it should disrupt their sensor returns for half a minute, perhaps ten seconds more."

"That's going to be a small window to beam everyone back," noted Philippe.

"We'll make do," Oparan promised. "I have teams on the runabouts and shuttles just in case." After another impact he confirmed, "Shields are now at thirteen percent effectiveness, even with the system at full capacity. Cohesion loss will start after the next couple of impacts."

Latamrilam was already motivated to do his utmost to keep the ship moving, and seemed to redouble his efforts in maneuvering the Maimonides around incoming fire. He took irregular courses and changed the ship's relative attitude swiftly, endeavoring to throw off the enemy's tactical officer and, for the most part, succeeding. Only glancing blows were hitting on the shields of the Maimonides.

From the science station Treepk have out a triumphant cry, a keening noise through her beak. "Modifications complete. I need the helm to bring the sensor pod's forward emitter to bear on the enemy ship. And the range must be no more than fifty kilometers."

That was fairly close, as starship combats went. "Take us in, Mister Latamrilam," Nasira ordered immediately.

The ship shook again as it came about under the Gersallian's control. "Shields at ten percent," warned Oparan.

"Divert all shields to the bow!" Nasira ordered as an answer. It was a risk, but it would likely buy them the extra hit or two they needed.

The Maimonides was on a direct course for the slaver ship, her phasers blazing away as she approached. Rodrigo fired the torpedo launcher as well with a full spread. Although the torpedoes did degrade the enemy shields quite effectively, they did not drop, and the weakened phaser fire was ineffectual. The return fire was as heavy as the enemy could manage and Latamrilam was straining everything to keep the Maimonides moving on course while evading the incoming fire, using every thruster for his maneuvers.

"One thousand kilometers. Nine hundred. Eight… six… four hundred." Oparan counted down the distance while Treepk prepared to activate the beam.

A plasma shot slammed into the bow, a direct hit. The shields flickered and faded. "Forward shields down to ten percent. Two hundred kilometers, one hundred…"

Oparan reported fifty, purely for the others. Treepk noted the distance on her own and triggered the beam. "Activating subnucleonic beam."

The beam that shot out from the sensor pod was faint, barely visible, and tinged with purple light. It struck the visible sensor gear toward the bow of the cruiser. immediately Latamrilam pulled the Maimonides to starboard and twisted the ship, easily avoiding a possible collision. Treepk reported, "The beam went through the shields. The active sensor tracks I'm getting from them are all over the place. Their firing accuracy must be down to less than five percent."

Nevertheless the ship shook. "Glancing hit, damage to Deck 18, Section I," Oparan said. "Shields are already lowered, commencing transport."

"Helm, put that crippled cruiser between us and our friends. Maintain evasive pattern. Ops…"

"Retrieving the captives now!"

The chattering and booming of gunfire continued from down the hall. Huang and his four other Security division telepaths had formed a firing line at the door, stacking as many crates and other objects in the door into an improvised breastwork. Max, Astrid, and Indiri joined them on the line while the commercial telepaths behind them tried to stay out of any arcs of fire. They could hear the sounds of gunfire getting closer, but it was well-ordered withdrawal; not a pel-mel rout.

Then the explosions and screaming started. The gunfire slackened and while Huang couldn't hear the mind-screams he could hear the frantic footfalls and cries to fall back. Another explosion, more screams as men and women died. Several Alliance soldiers came down the hallway at a dead Sprint and stopped, they turned and opened fire to provide cover for those coming behind them. Two more ran past and took up a position behind the two others.

"Watch your fire, don't risk shooting the mundanes." Huang cautioned. He couldn't see through the smoke, none of them could risk firing. The whole corridor reeked of ozone and metal, with the distinct smell of burning mammal flesh and death. Huang forced himself not to care, even as it stung his eyes. Another explosion, more screams. Another two came out of the smoke under the cover fire of the first four, the first set withdrew and threw themselves into a firing position behind the barricade.

The last of the mundanes were Chief Bayer carrying Lieutenant Manchester's unconscious but still-living form in a fireman's carry. He had a nasty wound across his chest but he didn't let that stop him.

The Midshipmen were next, retreating rapidly on the back foot and under cover fire, providing it as they went firing into the smoke somehow. He could feel Coordinator Meier by that point. He was still alive, but obscured by the acrid cloud and as near as he could figure from the their obvious gestalt consciousness was that they were looking through Colin's eyes to provide close support, but he couldn't tell what Colin was doing. That's when he saw it. Whoever it was driving Colin's body, it wasn't Colin anymore. He was never that graceful. Whoever that was moved like water, fending off four cybertroopers at once, taking advantage of the fact that they weren't perfectly coordinated to engage in a fighting retreat. He had an omniblade extended from his left hand like a main gauche; sidestepping and deflecting the memory metal blades of the cybertroopers, never meeting force with force. Whatever it was, whoever that was, Colin's body couldn't keep it up. He was flagging, starting to slow down. The shield impacts from what he simply wasn't fast enough to parry became more and more frequent. The midshipmen provided what support they could, the mundanes were throwing themselves behind the barricades and turning to open fire as well, but none of them could risk sending a high velocity round down range now that Colin-and-not-Colin was engaged in such desperate close quarters fighting. He could have taken killshots, taken advantage of openings; but he didn't.

He can't kill them, they'll self-destruct. He's just buying time. Machteld's voice came in his mind. Gene was always a better fencer than Colin was…

What? But Gene is on the Fenrir, how?

They're like us. Machteld replied. Before you ask, it does extend this far.

Just then, Huang, Indiri, Sam, and four of the commercial telepaths disappeared in a flash of white light and a sharp buzzing sound, as did several others in the hold.

Danke Gott, Machteld thought. Sie müssen nur noch ein paar Sekunden kaufen.

The pain filling Untarm Tasandi's chest wasn't just from the wound the memory metal blade of the cybertrooper left in his torso. He coughed and felt the blood bubble up his throat in a fountain of blue fluid.

I am dying, he thought, while nearby more cries came from the others. The cybertroopers' self-destruct meant that the entire defense line was compromised. His comrades were dying, as were the people they'd come to save.

"Jel," he rasped weakly. "Jel." No. No!

Later some of the telepaths would remember feeling the desperate, dying mind, alien and yet so familiar. They did not understand the words, but they understood the meaning behind them.

Laga, Holiest of Holies, Divine Mother of All, I beg you, help me! The Shadow and the Void are before me! Help me please!

Tasandi's wounded body protested when he turned. His arms threatened to fail as he lifted himself to his knees. His legs didn't want to work. But he could not let his dying body hold him down. His comrades needed him. Even now he could hear the buzz of the transporters. His comrades and the former captives only needed seconds to escape this place.

Let me do this, Divine Mother. Let me strike against the Shadow and the Void! Blue blood surged through his throat and out his mouth in a violent cough while his hand ran over the grenades on his belt, one by one, before pulling his turakan. With all that remained of his will, Tasandi charged ahead, wobbling but not falling.

The cybertroopers were too busy with Colin to see him coming. His shaking hand nearly missed, but nevertheless the blade found the neck of one of the troopers. The curved blade was sharp enough to cut through flesh and even some of the electronics, but Tasandi lacked the strength to make the blow a decapitation. Indeed, he made no effect on the spine at all, and the cybertrooper remained intact. The blow did draw its attention and a pause, as its target assessment protocols reviewed the damage while deciding whether Tasandi or Colin was the greater threat.

Tasandi laughed at it in the moment his strength gave out. He lurched into it, holding onto the trooper in his final seconds, never actually hitting the ground.

Gene knew what Tasandi was about to do, and threw Colin's body backward, twisting in mid-air he hit the deck in a roll and then crouched, minimizing the area of his husband's body that would be exposed.

And then every remaining grenade on Tasandi's belt went off.

Both Tasandi and the cybertrooper he was holding were annihilated; its self-destruct charge didn't explode, but was destroyed. The other three took such damage that they sympathetically detonated, the shockwaves and shrapnel slammed into Colin's kinetic barrier and it collapsed, finally transferring momentum to his body and sending him flying tail over teakettle to slam bodily into the barricades. Stars exploded in his and Gene's eyes and the last thing they both perceived before light bathed their vision and their connection cut out was Tasandi's soul passing beyond the portal with a joyous song in his heart.

On the viewscreen the crippled slaver cruiser continued a slow and lazy drift. Nearby the abandoned Zhang Qian was doing the same. "We're recovered everyone," Oparan said.

"Raise shields. Status of the enemy cruiser?" Nasira asked.

"The beam's effect is fading. Their systems are recalibrating. Targeting sensors are already locking on."

"Then get us out of here," said Nasira. "Initiate jump drive. Find us an anchor to get us within range of Teyan Station on our next jump."

"I'm doing so now," Oparan said. "Setting jump anchor for Teana in Falaen space. Initiating."

After several seconds, Nasira noted that no vortex was forming. "Commander?"

"It appears the last strike to the hull damaged the projectors for the jump drive. I cannot initiate jump."

It's always something. Nasira was quick to turn her attention to Tasira. "We need warp power back, now."

"The final generator repair is still finishing," answered the Asari. "Estimate two minutes to warp power."

Nasira responded by smacking her intercom key. "Iktas, we don't have two minutes."

"And we don't have a temporal device to slow down time to do it in less."

Treepk cut in. "The enemy cruiser is moving to intercept. They will have a shot on us in five seconds."

The report ended Nasira's retort to Tagiya before she could say it. "Stay on the crippled cruiser, as closely as you can!"

"Aye sir," said Latamrilam.

The Maimonides kept close to her initial opponent, using her hulk to mask herself from the foe stalking her. Plasma bolts streamed ahead of and behind them, in some cases barely missing. The ship had the advantage of the interior lines, allowing the Maimonides to better dodge the incoming fire.

"This won't last," said Philippe. "We need to pull away and give time for Tagiya to finish."

"We wouldn't last long enough to get them with another beam." Nasira considered tactical for a moment before saying, "I want options."

"They're adjusting their course. It looks like they're turning into their circle… wait, they're firing…" Treepk looked over her readings again. "They're firing on their own ship!"

"Pull away!" Nasira ordered. "Now!"

The reasoning for her order proved obvious a moment later, as flames started shooting from the hulked ship, and with them, emerald plasma bolts.

"They're shooting through their own people!" Philippe's horror was obvious.

"Engineering, we need warp now."

In Main Engineering Tagiya looked over the displays and sighed. The warp generator repair on the port nacelle was taking longer than he'd hoped. The complications there were the more agravating. For one, the interdiction field ruptured one of the coolant lines in three places, requiring over two minutes of manpower-time to fix and adding to the repair time. And they had to replace another connector due to a burn-out in the component. Throw in a blown plasma valve...

"Goddess, what a mess," he muttered. He believed the Captain that they didn't have the time to finish that repair. They needed the warp drive back now. "Main Engineering to Nacelle 2 Chamber. Chief Laurens, we need warp power immediately."

The Human woman on the other end answered promptly. "We're doing final checks now. One minute to completion."

"We may not have a minute."

"Understood. Doing what we can, sir."

In truth Tagiya wasn't sure there was anything they could do to hasten their progress. They were already doing this the fast, dirty way, such that the ship's warp systems would only be capable of Warp 6 at best. Cutting further corners meant vital systems went unchecked. If even the slightest flaw was not detected and they tried to generate a warp field, the entire system would fully blow out, and they would be stranded.

Granted, if it took too long, or the enemy managed a lucky hit, they would be stranded anyway.

Nasira watched with horrified fascination as the cruiser that captured the Zhang Qian was battered to bits by their own comrades, just because they were in the way. Finally the shooting finished, only because the other ship moved free enough to open fire on the Maimonides.

Latamrilam resumed his evasive maneuvers. The Maimonides twisted and "lifted" its bow, relative to the attacking ship, and he put the ship into a high power roll to throw off targeting. At tactical Rodrigo resumed firing the phasers, although not at the enemy cruiser. As plasma bolts shot for the Maimonides, his phaser beams intercepted the most threatening, breaking the bolts up. Nasira noted his initiative with approval.

Latamrilam, meanwhile, put on his own initiative, using maneuvers to evade fire while not allowing the enemy ship to bring them into a side arc, thus presenting more of the slaver ship's cannon emplacements. He put them on the horns of a dilemma: pursue and keep only their bow weapons on the Maimonides, or turn to present more weapons and see the Maimonides expand the distance between the two.

This did limit his maneuvers somewhat, of course, and the enemy gunnery officer was soon taking that into account, firing into their possible flight paths to contain their maneuvers. Rodrigo's efforts to use the aft-facing phasers to deflect the incoming shots was adjusted to as well, as the gunner started putting quantity of fire over quality. Multiple lower power shots meant more of them posted some threat to a ship with failing shields.

A plasma bolt crashed into the rear of the primary hull, just above the top of the drive and between the warp nacelles. It barely missed one of the impulsors and blew out a small area of Deck 12. "Rear shields down," Oparan said as the ship's shaking ceased. "Primary shield generators are overloaded."

"Secondaries are already on, but strained. Tertiary generator damaged," added Tasina.

By the time she spoke another bolt struck them, this one at the very stern of the ship.

"Hull breach, Deck 17, Section Q," Oparan reported. "Forcefields holding, but we have casualties."

Nasira swallowed and nodded. She checked the time.

The last hit was one all of Main Engineering felt. "Section Q hit," one of the engineer's mates reported. "Repair teams on the way."

Tagiya looked at the hit area and frowned. There was already a team in that area, trying to restore shield power. Now their omnitools were no longer transmitting. There was some hope, of course, but…

They are not the first comrades I have lost. Nor will they be the last. Goddess above, Light in the Void, why does your cause require so much from the best?

Whatever ruminations Tagiya had on the costs of fighting evil left his mind at the next shudder and the result on the screens. "Damage to main impulsor drive primary deuterium conduit!" he called out. "Get a team on that immediately!" A sublight escape isn't likely anyway. We need warp back online. He hailed the nacelle team again. "Chief Laurens, I need that nacelle!"

"Standby!"

"Goddess take your ears, Laurens…!"

"We're losing acceleration," Latamrilam informed the others. "The main impulsor engine is losing power."

"The main deuterium fuel line is out," Tasina confirmed. "The backup lines are engaged, but the engine's down to three quarter power. Secondary impulsors are at maximum."

"Going by their performance, we no longer have the sublight power to keep distance," Oparan added. "The enemy cruiser is catching up."

Nasira keyed Engineering again. "Bring that nacelle on now, Iktas! We have to get away!"

"Final system check is clearing, any moment, Captain!"

"We're out of moments! Bring the nacelle on anyway!"

"If there's a flaw the entire system will blow!"

The ship rocked again. "I just lost one of our rear phasers," Rodrigo reported. "More of their fire is going to get through…!" There was another shudder.

"Damage to Decks 12 and 20," Oparan said dutifully. "Multiple hull breaches. Sections D through F are on emergency batteries from damage to primary power conduit."

"For Christ's sake, Iktas!"

Tagiya was ready to give the order anyway when the display changed. The port nacelle lit up with green. With elation in his heart Tagiya shouted, "Warp power restored, thank Goddess!"

The moment Tagiya's words were heard, Nasira screamed, "Now!"

She didn't need to specify a course or speed, or anything else. Latamrilam immediately keyed the warp drive onto a course he'd already set up.

At his key presses power rushed into the warp field generators in the nacelles. They came to life and, with a brilliant flash, the ship escaped from its foe.

There were cheers on the bridge. Nasira led them, decorum be damned. Theotokos, thank you, thank you, thank you… went through her mind and soul.

It was left to Treepk, ever the professional, to note, "We still have them on long-range sensors."

"Are they pursuing?" asked Nasira.

"It does not appear so. They could not interfere with us at warp anyway," Treepk noted. "And in hyperspace we would not be as easily located. While detection of warp-traveling ships is possible from that band of hyperspace, it requires a fairly sophisticated kind of sensor that are export-protected by all producers of the design."

"I remember that from our briefing on the Fracture expedition," Nasira said, sheepish that she hadn't thought of that. "Helm, put us back on course for Teyan Station, best speed."

"Engineering is indicating Warp 6 only, sir. And I have us back on course already," he answered.

"Well done. I'm putting in a commendation for you."

"It is unnecessary, but appreciated," replied the young Gersallian. "Our ETA is three days, five hours, forty-two minutes."

"All things considered, losing a day and a half isn't a big deal, compared to the alternatives," Tasina remarked. "That was… quite thrilling, too! I never expected such a thing to happen when I was assigned to your ship, Captain."

"I admit I was not expecting something like this either," Nasira remarked. She drew in a breath and let the tension flow from her… at which point it came back, as a terrible consideration finally came to her. She looked to Philippe. "Given the damages, do we have a casualty report?"

"Crews are still examining some of the subsections exposed to hull breaches, Captain," he answered, his voice somber. "As of now, we've registered eight confirmed fatalities from the crew. Likely more. And confirmed three dozen injured. Security is also reporting significant casualties for their boarding force, but Lieutenant Manchester has yet to provide final numbers."

"God rest their brave souls," Nasira sighed. "And may He forgive me for not doing more for them."

"I think the Supreme's forgiveness is not necessary, Sir," Oparan remarked. "You have done all that you could, given the situation, and in a cause both of our religions would hail."

"Perhaps. But I shall have to explain this to the families nevertheless," Nasira replied, at which time she released the harness to her command chair. "Reduce running status to Code Yellow, keep an eye on long range sensors just in case they have warp-capable ships to pursue us with." She tapped the intercom. "Lieutenant Iktas, my thanks to you and the Engineering crew for saving our ship. But I would like the option to jump universes if we are pursued at warp, given our condition. Please focus all available efforts on restoring jump drive function."

"Understood, Captain. I apologize for the close call. My engineering teams and I will drill to improve our times on such critical repairs."

"And I will try to improve as a captain. I should not have snapped at you. Bridge out."

Philippe eyed Nasira as she sat back in her chair for a moment. The adrenaline rush was fading, and with it he felt the same weariness he was certain she had. The tension was broken, all that was left was the hard, monotonous work of writing action reports, justifying decisions to superiors, and most importantly, seeing to the injured and the slain. "Why don't you get some rest, Captain?" he proposed. "We will rotate Gamma Shift up to assume the watch."

"They may relieve us in two hours," she answered. "When we are more certain of no pursuit. And Commander, you have the bridge." She stood up. "I am going to check on our guests and their condition."

Philippe nodded and left his chair, assuming the command chair while Nasira, tired as she was, walked stiffly to the lift. "Deck 8," she said, and the lift promptly closed and descended into the heart of her wounded, yet triumphant, ship.

Medbay proved to be busy. While not quite at capacity, treating the wounded took up many of the available beds. Two nurses were making the rounds, checking up on their cases. Nasira saw no sight of Doctor Weyana or any of her subordinate surgeons. She finally intercepted one of the nurses, a Caucasian Human. "Is the doctor…?"

"She and her colleagues are all busy in the ORs, Captain. We have several cases in need of surgery," the woman answered.

"I'd like to see Lieutenant Manchester. Or Coordinator Meier."

The nurse showed them to one corner of the ward. The ship's security chief was unconscious, fresh bandages covering one arm and her neck. A few beds over was where Colin ended up, with a number of his fellow telepaths ringing his bed. Nasira approached quietly, trying and not quite succeeding in keeping her thoughts restrained. The scene of the medbay, the extent of the wounded, it was all a lot to see. To know that her decisions led to this, that people she was responsible for were hurt, were dead. It was for a righteous cause, that she had no doubt of, but the burden weighed on her regardless.

Colin looked up at her and spoke. He kept it barely above a whisper, breathing hurt through several broken ribs, but he figured Nasira needed to hear it. "You should be proud of them Captain. What happened in there, the only people responsible for it are the Aristos. Your orders were the only ones a moral being could give, and your crew rose to the challenge presented with courage and dignity."

She nodded in acknowledgement. "I am proud of what they have done. I only wish I were wise enough that I might have seen a way to save more of them." She looked around at the wounded. "How are your people?"

"Reasonably well, all things considered. The counter-agent for sleepers tends to put a strain on the kidneys so they're on supportive fluids. Psychologically, time will tell. These four." He gestured with his eyes toward the four young telepaths in the black and silver uniforms of Transport divisions fleet, asleep in their chairs. "They'll be alright. They got to kill the slavers this time. Sad as it is, it isn't their first trip on that train."

"I see." She looked over the four and was astounded to see they were so young. None seemed to be twenty. "I'm going to arrange quartering for your people. We have some extra space for housing emergency evacuees."

"Thank you, once again. Chances are, they'll want to sleep communally in some way, keeps the nightmares at bay. Should save some space. And yeah, they're young. Gene and I pulled them out of hell, they joined the fleet after that. We use the old Royal Navy system because we don't exactly have a naval academy. Machteld's first middie command went… poorly, though no fault of her own."

Nasira gave the young German girl a knowing look. "I know what it's like to be pulled out of a hell, and I made the same decision," she said warmly. "As for first commands… there have been worse, as hard as that might be to believe." Nasira couldn't keep the thought out of her head, of the disastrous result of Caterina Delgado's first mission in command of one of the Facility's ships, and the Dalek invasion of the Facility that resulted in the Facility's destruction. Colin winced.

"Yeah, that's pretty bad. And those are some vicious fucking trash cans."

"Robert and the others told me about them. They are nightmares," Nasira said. "Last year they nearly destroyed the Aurora and an entire Earth."

Colin went perfectly still for a second. "Note to self: don't go anywhere near the pissed off dumpsters."

Nasira cracked a small grin before saying, "I need to see to the others, and you should rest, Coordinator. I will have operations officers come by later to confirm the arrangements for your people."

"I probably should, yeah. My first concussion and all that…" At that point, he shut his eyes and within a moment was asleep.

Moving around the beds, Nasira found Chief Bayer bandaged up and half-asleep. His brown eyes met hers. "Sir," he said.

"Chief Bayer." Nasira's chest felt hollow as she dreaded the answer to the question in her mind. "If you feel up to it…"

"With the Lieutenant out, I'm the senior for security, sir, and I'm up to it," he assured her. "I must report ten fatalities to the boarding team, seven of them among the security contingent. Including Ensign Untarm Tasandi, whom I and many others witnessed commit an act of extraordinary heroism while he was dying. After taking what I am certain was a fatal wound, he got back to his feat and attacked the enemy cyborgs from behind. After this he detonated all of his remaining grenades, disabling them all and giving the rest of us time to be beamed out. At the minimum, he saved Coordinator Meier's life." The older German man issued the report as if sharing the weather, calmly and without emotion, but Nasira was certain he was still feeling his own injuries. He forced himself to share the entire thing despite his own exhaustion.

"I will note his actions in my report," Nasira promised. "I am unfamiliar with his people, so I do not know if an Order of Valor will soften the loss to his family." After Bayer nodded in acknowledgement, she said, "Get some rest, Chief. Your duty is done."

She departed the medbay at that point. She felt proud of her people, but the losses… they were painful.

Once she was back in her ready office Nasira began writing her report. She covered everything she knew and took full responsibility for the damage and casualties. By the time she was done, there was no defying the fatigue she felt. She shed her uniform jacket and went to her couch to get some rest. Within ten seconds of her head touching the pillow, she was sound asleep.