It was time. The Addax’s engine had recovered, and so had its people. Somewhat.

Jaquan was well enough to sit upright with the aid of painkillers, Herdis had found the time to treat Bers’s latest injuries more properly, and Kiris had had enough rest to be willing to grapple with the engine with some oversight.

And then there was Gaylen himself.

He stepped out of the engine room, leaving Jaquan, Herdis and Kiris there. He took the steps up to the second floor slowly, and stared at the site of yesterday's... event. He could have used the hatches to enter the cockpit, but no. He was going to face this.

Everything looked exactly as before, just as it had the other times he had passed through here since yesterday. But then he’d had things on his mind besides the next leap.

It was the colour he remembered with most clarity. That deep, profound and confusing colour. Everything else, up until the effect lifted... it was...

Gaylen did his best to analyse his own mind and correlate all its contents. Had he simply not been in any state to form clear memories, as if drunk? Or was he somehow getting in his own way, trying to have it make logical sense?

He took a few more steps in, and looked to where he’d first seen the thing. Roughly, at least. The swirling magenta-violet had been so confusing. And the ship’s dimensions had seemed bigger.

Stories of monsters were nothing new. Old spacers, familiar with the furthest lanes, would tell stories of maddened violence during long leaps. Long leaps on old ships, with old-style reactors and cramped conditions that wore away at one’s psyche. And then there were the odd conflicts in the galaxy’s more isolated corners, far away enough that strange stories would have been spun by the time they reached the core.

Bers sat over by a wall, mending the new holes in his chest piece. The axe rested against the wall next to him. After a little while he looked up and met Gaylen’s gaze.

“Something wrong?”

There was a gleam in the man’s eyes. Gaylen interpreted it as amusement, but it really was just a guess. He took a few steps closer to the man.

“Bers. What happened?”

The fringer held his gaze for a few silent seconds, while letting his hands continue their task.

“You have eyes, dagi. Have brain too.”

“I do have those things,” Gaylen replied levelly.

He took out his knife and unfolded it. He’d done so multiple times since the incidence, and it still looked immaculately clean. The memories may have been hazy and jumbled, but his arm remembered the impact of the thrust.

“Not flesh,” Bers said. “Not from here.”

He just held Gaylen’s gaze for another silent period.

“You’ve seen this before,” Gaylen said, just for the sake of getting the obvious out of the way. “You aren’t this calm because you’ve heard stories; I’ve heard stories too. You’re calm because of experience.”

“Flying many years,” the man said, repeating a part of their first conversation. “All long Mandik Arm, Tivin Expanse, out and back.”

Something shifted in his eyes, his posture, his thoughts. Gaylen caught a hint of dark memories.

“Old places. Empty. And dangerous. And home...”

The man chuckled a bit and waved a hand dismissively. Gaylen was reminded of Ayna’s loving hatred for her homeworld.

“Home is hard.”

Gaylen didn’t really know what to say.

“Galaxy... na kava... not all as you thought?”

Bers chuckled again, now at his expense.

“Yes, well, thanks for taking care of it,” Gaylen said, and ended the conversation by turning around.

He walked into the cockpit. There waited his chair and the controls, both intimately familiar. He’d long, long since lost count of how many times he’d sent a ship into leap. His hands went through the motions as his eyes checked readings, and the ship responded as expected. There was nothing strange. Nothing unexpected.

The reactor fired up and reached full charge. His hand hovered over the leap-switch for a moment, but it wasn’t wise to leave a charge hanging. And he couldn’t very well stay out here in the dead of space.

“Going into leap,” he announced on the intercom, then made good on his words. The Addax entered the Other, and his screen again filled up with those beautiful, haunting strands of light.

Gaylen’s eyes wandered to the switch that would let him close the viewscreen. Then they wandered back to the display in front of him, and he made the first slight course adjustment.

He felt a resolution build within: He would not let that incident ruin the Other for him. Maybe there was some kernel of truth in the stories. Maybe there was danger in the endless corridor of lights, besides course failure. But it was the same with living. It was the same with big cities, or a gorgeous wilderness. The Korokis Effect was a well known, if poorly understood, phenomenon. He’d done thousands of leaps, and only one had resulted in... that.

Gaylen stared on ahead, and allowed himself to enjoy it.

# # #

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

After two more days of the Hunter’s hospitality, Golga 3 was finally near. Ayna still wasn’t allowed in the cockpit, but she stood outside and observed the approach. There were only a handful of external lights, but the ship’s screens gave a more comprehensive picture.

It was about what Ayna had expected. She’d been drifting just long enough that space stations had stopped being impressive purely by virtue of existing, and this was a less than stellar example.

Golga 3 was old, with an original central portion that held docking bays, the critical systems and the reactor, and several wings had later been added in days of heavier traffic. One wing had either never been completed, or had suffered some catastrophe and was being scavenged for parts, little by little.

Ayna wriggled her thin, nimble fingers.

Let’s see what you’ve got for me, she thought at the ugly old thing.

Unsurprisingly, the Kavian Hunter didn’t announce herself as such, simply going through an utterly standard docking permit procedure for an out-of-the way little port. A quick negotiation later the ship drifted up to an airlock and settled against it.

“Let us get this started,” Kavia Sari said and swivelled her chair around before rising.

“Happily.”

“You already have all the intelligence I can provide.”

The woman handed her a tiny earpiece.

“The rest is up to you.”

“Got it.”

Ayna inserted the ear piece.

“I will be monitoring you, of course,” the Hunter said as she took Ayna’s left hand and finally undid the cuff she’d slapped around the wrist back at Chukata Mog. “And I can remotely track you through the collar. And activate any of its features.”

She undid the other cuff and put both on her belt.

“I figured as much,” Ayna said. “Well, if I don’t report back in five hours, send in the military!”

“If you do not report back,” the Hunter told her calmly. “I will activate the cowl and come get you.”

“You have no sense of humour at all,” Ayna told her.

“I am on the job.”

“When are you going to stop using that as an excuse?”

“When it stops being true.”

“Right. You know...”

Ayna narrowly stopped herself from touching the collar. Her hand had been drifting to it yet again.

“Look...” Ayna said with a sigh at herself. “Can’t you let me touch it, at least? I’m very fidgety. Always have been. Pleeease?”

“Consider all of this an exercise in self-discipline.”

Ayna sighed again.

“You remind me of my mother.”

“If that is a fair comparison, then I disapprove of her parenting style,” the Hunter replied.

“Okay, that was a joke!” Ayna said. “Don’t try to deny it.”

The woman’s face remained as controlled as ever. She just took Ayna by the arm and led her to the airlock. Then she handed over Ayna’s spare sunglasses, taken from a pocket days ago.

“Thanks,” Ayna said and put them back where they belonged. She then received her wallet from the Hunter and tucked it away as well.

The woman reached over Ayna’s shoulder and hit a button. The airlock’s inner door slid open.

Ayna hesitated a moment, looking up at the impassive face before her.

“Look...” she said. “All joking aside, you’ve got to leave me the ability to defend myself.”

The Hunter continued to look impassive, doing some sort of silent measurement of Ayna for several moments. Being completely at her mercy made staring back a challenge, but Ayna managed to meet it.

“I will be partially responsible if you hurt someone you should not,” the woman then said, as she finished whatever that all had been.

Ayna patted her own non-existent bicep.

“I don’t look for violence,” she said. “And you’ll also be responsible if I get killed or raped because I can’t even resist.”

“I repeat that you are choosing to venture into danger, for the sake of escaping justice. But yes.”

She handed over Ayna’s shock baton.

“I would be partially responsible for that too.”

Ayna took the familiar old weapon and slid it into a sheath on her sleeve.

“I will deactivate the ban on violence once you have left the ship. I will leave the others in place.”

“Including the ones you won’t tell me about?” Ayna asked with a crooked eyebrow.

“Yes. Just use your best judgement.”

“Use my judgement... sure.”

Ayna fastened her jacket all the way up. She was careful not to touch the collar, but having it on display was sure to attract attention. Then she put up the hood.

“Well... wish me luck, darling.”

“Good luck. Darling.”

The Hunter put a hand on her shoulder, and Ayna didn’t resist as she was turned around to face the airlock. She walked into it and the inner door closed behind her. She opened the outer door, to be greeted by a bored-looking woman in worn clothes.

Ayna paid for docking, posing as the owner of the ship as she’d discussed with the Hunter. Then she walked off into the station. Being as out of the way as this spot was, her first impressions were simply of a drab metallic hallway.

Another woman came in a bit of a hurry, slowing down as she neared the port. Ayna caught some disappointment on her face, and guessed it meant she was close enough to make out the new arrival. The woman covered it up quickly and leaned up against a wall as Ayna neared. Coupled with the revealing clothing, Ayna guessed the pose would have been sexy if not for the obvious wear and tear to the woman’s body and spirit both.

“Do you want a good time, pale?” she asked as Ayna passed, dredging up a smile.

“No, thank you.”

The smile and pose both vanished in a moment and she simply slumped up against the wall. And that was it as far as welcomes went.

Ayna passed by a curtain that had been set up in a doorway that had been crudely cut into the wall. From inside came the sounds of at least a dozen people engaged in various activities of living, and outside of it stood two men in worn clothes so weird they could only be cultural outfits of some kind. She kept an eye on them as she passed, and vice versa, but a few breaths later Ayna rounded a corner and found herself alone.

She also found herself on the loose within the station. The hallway branched off into three directions, and a flight of stairs leading up and another down added up to five available routes. Hand-written markings on the walls served as guides to the available facilities.

This seemed like a good time to dramatically crane her neck around, but the collar was in the way. She settled for reaching her arms up and then bending her spine one way, then the other.

Right.

Ayna found herself reflecting. She’d never intended to directly challenge the Hunter. That was not a confrontation she could win, even without the seemingly unsolvable issue of the collar. But she’d kept her eyes and mind open throughout the journey, seeking some solution, some weak point in the cage she was caught in, anything that might set her free without having to simply rely on the Hunter to keep her word.

She’d thought of nothing. She had no allies here, and holding people captive was that woman’s career. Finding some way out of her grasp had come to feel like trying to lecture Jaquan on engines.

Ayna did a little dancer’s twirl, seeking to cheer herself.

She didn’t like going along with a leash and she certainly didn’t like relying entirely on someone else’s mercy, if that was even the word for it. But she had one option available to her, and so she would go for it. She just had to be a good little puppy and hope for the best.

She chose a direction, and strode on.