No…no…

“Power readings are spiking!” Klisiewicz shouted. “Ten seconds!”

“Atish?” It was Mog, speaking softly at her side. He placed a meaty hand on her forearm. “We have to go. Now.”

NO!

The word screamed at her, but Khatami knew there was but one course of action.

“Get us out of here,” she said flatly, hoping against hope that her demeanor masked even a portion of the rage and anguish and guilt that started to crush her insides. She barely registered anything as Neelakanta input the necessary maneuvers to pull the Endeavouraway from the planet and out of harm’s way. She could hardly listen as Mog advised the helmsman of the ship’s maximum safe speed even as the viewer displayed the pale, unforgiving ball of ice that was the planet Erilon receding from view.

She said nothing as the rest of the bridge crew regarded her, silently splitting their attention between halfhearted attempts to carry out their duties and looking into the face of the person who seemingly had left their captain behind to die on that frozen world.

Beaten and exhausted, Khatami could do nothing save remain at her post, her body struggling to occupy a chair that now seemed far too big to accommodate her, one that felt all the more uncomfortable in the absence of its rightful owner.

Sheng. Please forgive me.

13

Again, I am being…again, it is pain.

The Shedai Wanderer surveyed the scene of her final stand to reclaim this world for her heritage and her people. She had left the sanctity of rest, roused to action not as herald of the great vision but as its defender—and against what? The fragile, the limited, the selfish, the pitiful. Encroachers, plunderers, opportunists, what the Shedai had once labeled Telinaruul: those dismissed as criminals and subject to swift, merciless punishment.

Surrounding her was a frozen wasteland littered with broken husks; their essence voided, their purpose dashed. Looking upon them only honed her clarity of resolve, yet it also intensified her desire to escape being and return to the peace of the void. In this state, she resembled them.

She did not relish that.

Agony surrounds me…being brings suffering…but it is necessary in the now.

The knowledge she gained through being racked her, for as it was before, so it was now in this place.

How long had she slept? Ages? Mere moments? When the song of the Conduit first beckoned, the Wanderer awakened to witness the savaging of what could have been. Sandswept ruins of her people’s former triumph mocked her. Burning heat gnawed at her being.

Then again came the song.

By heeding its call here and now, she was greeted by a world ravaged not by fire but by ice. Biting needles pierced her being, a sensation different but nonetheless torturous. Sorrow, rage, vengeance, roiled within her. Once more, the world she joined was lifeless, unfit, defiled by forces that dared to compromise the great vision.

But here, the Conduit remains. Hope is preserved.

The Wanderer moved across the desecrated land to the place of the known—within the Conduit—taking some comfort in the embrace of the stoneglass, a tangible legacy of her people’s achievements in millennia past. Simply looking at the meager attempts by the Telinaruulto defile the legacy, to seize control of its capability, seemed a grievous insult against the heritage of the Shedai. Such tampering, which had brought forth the song, enraged her.

Clarity revealed to the Wanderer three actions she deemed sufficient to rectify the arrogant encroachment of this apparent new breed of Telinaruul.

First: Become being and eradicate the individual threats. She had accomplished that goal for the now, but it seemed likely that others would soon come.

Second: Summon the dormant energies of the world itself and channel them against the collective threat. However, she had underestimated her quarry’s ability to elude destruction, which now forced her to plot new strategies if she was to achieve success in defending this world.

Third: Prevent future violations of this Conduit—if necessary—by destroying it.

Only this action gave the Wanderer pause. While this world no longer was viable, the small flicker of life placed upon it long since extinguished, she recognized the critical role this Conduit played for realizing the great vision.

No, it is not yet time. Through me, this Conduit can yet serve.

The Wanderer approached the Place of Joining, embraced an even deeper pain of being than she had yet endured, and began calling forth the power she needed for what was to come.

14

“Rocinante, this is Vanguard Control,”said a female voice that was all business but still sounded more than a bit alluring to Tim Pennington. “ You are cleared for departure from bay fifteen.”

Sitting in the cramped cockpit of Quinn’s dilapidated Mancharan starhopper, Pennington remained silent and watched as the privateer’s fingers moved as of their own volition, entering commands to the well-worn helm console. Pennington felt the increase of the subtle yet still noticeable vibrations running through the bulkheads that were too close and the armrests of the seat that was too rigid and uncomfortable for him as Quinn increased the power of the Rocinante’s fusion drive. Feeling the body of the ship shudder around him, the journalist briefly wondered if the freighter would self-destruct before even clearing the station’s landing bay.

“Thanks, Control,” Quinn said. He moved his hand to the joystick that offered him control of the ship’s maneuvering thrusters, while using the other hand to pinch the bridge of his nose before rubbing his temple. To Pennington, the other man looked like he might throw up, pass out, or simply keel over and die at any moment.

“You okay, mate?” Pennington asked, finally unable to keep from saying something.

Tapping a series of keys on the helm console, Quinn replied without looking up. “I’ll live.”

“Long enough to keep from flying us into the wall?”

The bedraggled pilot ignored the question as he engaged the Rocinante’s maneuvering thrusters, guiding the freighter past the doors of docking bay fifteen and into open space. Pennington, keeping his hands in his lap and away from any of the cockpit controls—lest he accidentally engage some form of autodestruct sequence—watched as the walls of thick duranium composing Vanguard’s inner and outer hulls slid past.

He always had enjoyed space travel, particularly when he could do it aboard a small craft such as Quinn’s. With only the cockpit’s transparent canopy separating him from the airless void beyond, the unfettered view of distant stars was one Pennington relished. When starlight was unfiltered through a planet’s atmosphere or free from the obscuring light of a nearby sun—and certainly not as rendered via a ship’s viewscreen—his enjoyment of this aspect of space travel never had diminished. For him, it seemed as fresh as the first time he had taken in such a view. He had been eight years old and in the company of his father, then an attaché for the Federation Diplomatic Corps, to Vulcan on a goodwill trip. As he had learned then, and reaffirmed once again here and now, the vastness and beauty of space could only truly be appreciated when viewed in this manner.

The pleasure of the moment faded, however, as he reminded himself of the reason he was aboard the ship in the first place, and of his concerns that Quinn might just be getting ready to screw up his carefully laid plans.

“Rocinante,” said the woman currently acting as the voice for Vanguard Control, “ you are clear to navigate. Safe travels. Vanguard out.”