“A recording device in the car?” Vanaka repeated.

“Have you ever heard of a cult leader who had trust in his subjects?” Fredrak asked. “I have not.”

“It was hidden,” Ayna said. “But our boy here knows about hidden things.”

“I do. And I know about extracting data. So here we are.”

The hotel bed and the couch together could seat all five of them pretty comfortably. Fredrak took out a hand-held display and sought out the correct file.

“I watched footage from the last journey from those ruins to the capital. I isolated moments where they spoke at all and watched it on high speed.”

He brought up a three-dimensional hologram that showed the interior of a plain car. The people weren’t highly detailed, but Saketa still recognised the three from the Tanga. Kio sat in the back, looking slumped and a bit gloomy, while the other boy drove. The female sat in the front, and seemed to mostly just fiddle with her sword.

“Overall, they don’t talk much,” he went on. “When they did it was mostly about their training. I can show it to you later, Saketa, if you think it will help you at all. No? Well, here is the part that caught my attention.”

The holographic girl got extra fidgety for a few seconds, rapidly alternating the sword between her hands, until the tension finally burst out into speech.

“Kio?”

“Yes?”

“It is almost time for it all. For the big blow.”

“Yes, it is,” he replied in a neutral tone.

They were speaking in the local tongue, but Fredrak’s device added subtitles and he seemed to have cleaned up the inevitable hiccups of machine translation.

“Do you really think you will get to go along?” she asked.

The boy sat perfectly still and quiet for a few seconds.

“That is not my decision.”

“But what do you think?” she insisted.

“I think our mentor will make the wisest decision, depending on our worth,” he recited.

The exchange seemed to have put the girl on edge. The driver simply focused on his task with an air of deliberate innocence. Saketa had seen such things before. They were caught up in an environment where talking too freely could be dangerous. Who could be trusted? Who might turn who in for inappropriate talk?

“Of course he will,” the girl went on. She focused forward as well, but went back to fidgeting. “Of course he will. I just hope to see it all for myself. I hope to be worthy.”

“Do not hope,” Kio said. “Achieve.”

It seemed like a reflex, and in a way it was. A conditioned one.

“I will achieve,” she said intensely, and handled her sword like she was kneading dough. “Tonight. Tonight I become a warrior.”

You become a corpse, Saketa thought.

The girl gripped the scabbard tightly and pressed the pommel against her forehead. If the resolution had been better Saketa suspected they would have seen white knuckles.

“But you went there,” she went on, just as it seemed like she’d fallen silent. “You went to the place of power with him once.”

“I did.”

“What was it like?”

Kio sat still and silent for another little while. Saketa supposed there was nothing in his programming to fall back on for an answer.

“Strong,” he then said. “Strong like no other place I’ve been to. It hangs thick in the air, a treasure surrounded by people blind to it. And it is so old. Ancient, weathered stones, layer after layer of age. And our mentor has mastered it.”

He scratched the mark around his eye.

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“I could see it in my mind, how it will… how it will happen. I felt how it will happen. Power… pure power… lancing out into the sky… enough to destroy the fleet. The fleet will crash and blow apart. The war will turn irrevocably, and the worthy will be by his side to witness it. It will…”

Kio’s voice dropped to a whisper, out of awe, fear, a combination of the two, or perhaps something else entirely.

“It will look like the wrath of a god.”

Fredrak paused the hologram.

“That’s it,” he said. “Nothing more of substance before they park the car and leave it.”

“The fleet?” Losan said. “The Alliance Sixth Fleet?”

“That, uh, is what most people mean when they just say ‘the fleet’,” Ayna said nervously.

Saketa stood up. A dark fear gripped her heart, tightening the hold with every passing second as the situation became clearer.

“What is it, Saketa?” Vanaka asked, and clearly dreaded the answer.

“This was the plan,” Saketa said, mostly to herself. “The Exile’s alliance with Commander Treko and the Authority. He will… he will destroy the Sixth Fleet as it assaults Ciinto Res.”

“Destroy it?” Fredrak said. “Like he did the Brankon?”

“No.”

Saketa faced the door. Her immediate instinct was to sprint right for it, but she needed a plan first.

“Not manually like that. He will destroy it from the ground.”

“Saketa, are you serious?” Vanaka asked.

She tore her gaze away from the exit and looked at her decidedly odd mixture of allies.

“You have now seen the tendrils in action, at least a little bit,” she said. “Imagine that power being used by a master of the craft. Imagine that person standing on top of a gigantic battery. A battery that has been specially prepared and honed for the task.”

“Saketa…” Fredrak said. “Are you telling me that a single person can act as a planetary defence system?”

“He might,” Saketa told him, and locked her gaze with his. “If Ciinto Res has a place of power potent enough for the task. If he has gotten to know it, and attuned to its energies. It can happen. It has happened, on rare occasions.”

It all came together in her head: A world under brutal occupation, well aware that an invasion was coming. A long, steady diet of fear and anxiety and all manner of negativity. It really was a nigh-ideal place for the Exile.

“That smuggler…” Ayna said. “Tyroya. She flew him back and forth between here and there.”

“Keeping an eye on his little cult, in between meeting with his allies and preparing for his role in the defence. Now the Sixth Fleet is on its way. Avanon, he… he must already be off-planet, heading for Ciinto Res.”

Vanaka and Ayna looked shocked. Losan looked grim. Fredrak looked like he was doing math.

“There are two Wardens with that fleet,” the agent pointed out.

“They will be helping to deal with the outer system fleet,” Losan said. “Nara told us. The whole point is to free up most of the Sixth to assault the planet right away.”

“And he may be able to prevent them from Shifting down,” Saketa said. Her mind was searching for some weakness in the Exile’s situation, but coming up empty. “And even if they do make it planetside, a lot of damage will already have been done by the time they realise the situation.”

She clenched her fist.

“I have to get over there. I have to get to Ciinto Res. Do any of you have access to a ship and a pilot?”

“We flew commercial,” Fredrak said.

“So did we,” Vanaka said.

“How is private charter on this planet?” Saketa asked.

“No private pilot is going to fly into a war zone,” Losan pointed out. “Not after the Sixth passed through.”

“Fredrak, you might as well tell us: How long do you think the fleet will take to reach the system?”

The man threw up his hands, though in a deliberate show rather than a fit of emotion.

“Yes, I might as well admit it at this point: I do know the planned route. It was chosen for a good balance between speed and security. Of course, a fleet that big is never going to be gainly. I would estimate that at this point they have about fifty hours left to go.”

“A small, fast ship can make it in less than that,” Saketa said.

“Are you really going to fly to the most fortified planet in the Nearer Fringe to hunt down one man?” Ayna asked.

“They will be on high alert,” Losan pointed out. “They know an invasion is probably coming.”

“All the same, I have to,” Saketa said.

“Uh, that smuggler, maybe?” Ayna said. “Tyroya? Clearly they allow her to come and go. We could-”

“Surely this Avanon will have used her as his pilot on this latest trip,” Fredrak said.

“But the company,” Saketa said. “Fass Shipping. They must be in on whatever deal he and Tyroya have. They must surely be able to land a ship on Ciinto Res.”

“If paid handsomely enough, probably,” Fredrak admitted. “I can cover that. I always ask for a budget when taking a mission. Bribes are a part of the job.”

He stood up.

“I will also be joining you. I have a job to see through.”

“I… uh…” Vanaka stammered.

The young Vylak seemed to go through a whole lot of different emotions in all of two seconds, before she visibly steeled herself.

“Oh... me too!”

She stood up.

“Me and Losan. We will go with you.”

Saketa looked at the steely-eyed man. She knew he didn’t have a say in this, but judging by his own account he’d chosen this life. In a way. He did at least deserve a polite nod.

“Thank you, Vanaka,” she said to the man’s mistress.

“We had better do this before I lose my nerve,” the girl said. “And, uh, well, I don’t want the Fringe to fall to tyranny. I’ll help any way I can.”

“You lot are really putting me on the spot!” Ayna complained with an awkward smile on her lips.

Saketa looked at her.

“No pressure, no obligation,” she assured the Dwyyk. “Not for this journey. Not for the danger we are heading into.”

She put a hand on Ayna’s slim shoulder.

“If you feel you owe me a debt, then your involvement here has already paid it.”

“You know, you being all noble makes saying no even more difficult!” the Dwyyk protested. “But… oof… what an opportunity, right? Actually seeing history turn. What a story to tell, later in my life. And besides, you’re all so damn loud and clumsy. I’ll… I’ll come along, and help however I can.”

Saketa squeezed the little shoulder, then let go.

“Good. Thank you. All of you. I have… I have been a fool to reject help for so long. It is good to know that one is a fool, for it keeps one alert for mistakes.”

She snatched her bag off the floor, and Nara’s sword from the corner.

“Now, let us waste no more time.”