Hombres. Sailors. Comrades.

> "In the Book of Songs it says that all good men meet God alone. Alone the captain faced the last few moments in her home. But we my friends shall never travel down that awful road. Last soul on an empty ship."

>

> -from "Blood in the Engines", traditional pirate song

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Sid explained the situation as he saw it to Slater as best he could. It wasn't an easy thing to explain, telling the captain that a huge chunk of his ship was obliterated and nowhere to be seen. A theory of how it had happened was forming in Sid's mind, but he didn't know enough about how ships worked to confirm it. Slater grew more depressed as Sid spoke, and confirmations came in in the dim and chaotic room about which ship systems were operational and which had been totally destroyed. All of the rings were lost causes, and the conventional engines, the ones that provided any needed sublight movement to the ship, as well as power for all ship's systems, seemed to be destroyed as well. The infrastructure that allowed the bridge to send commands to the stardrive was either nonfunctional due to a combination of shock, the broken section of the ship, or loss of power (or some impossible to predict interaction with those three things), and it was impossible to know if the stardrive was damaged or not. That depended entirely on if it had been in the area destroyed completely by the First Star.

"Radio's back. We're no longer being jammed," someone said. "Should we flag the Son of Emerri?"

"Yes. What's the status of the dogs?"

The radio operator went through a long list of call signs, gathering information about which dogfighters still survived. Many of them still lived, and were engaged in active battle with the pirate ship's dogs. They reported that it was an intense struggle. Sid wished that he had a visual on it. His head hurt from being slammed around. There was something he desperately needed to do. It was an emotional feeling that lay deep in his brain, that he couldn't quite figure out how to translate into real world actions.

"When the Son of Emerri gets here, we'll begin evacuation procedures," Slater said. "I need all dogs that can still launch out, form a barrier between us and that ship. Anything that will stop them from boarding us."

"We'd still have a man advantage if they did," Sid said. "I don't think they'd be stupid enough to..."

"I'm not taking any chances. Not anymore. How long until we hear from the Son of Emerri?"

The radio operator, even from as far away as Sid was standing, visibly grimaced. "Sir, we're six light hours away from them." The two ships had deliberately stationed themselves at opposite ends of the star system, making communication difficult. This didn't surprise anyone, but being reminded of it did feel like a punch in the gut.

Slater nodded, a single, curt motion. "How long will emergency power last?"

"Lights can last sixty hours," another bridge crewman said. "The chemical air scrubbers should last between ten and twenty hours, depending on how fresh each room's is, and how many people it needs to support."

"Heat?" Slater asked.

"Might be an issue, if the rings' heat exchangers were disconnected or damaged. And the engines are down, so they won't be able to—"

"Will it be a lethal problem?"

"Not in the next twenty hours."

"Good."

Sid stood from his seat, finding it hard to balance on the ever-shifting floor, the nausea of the constant lessening of gravity hitting him hard. This conversation had given him time to come to his senses and remember what it was he needed to do. Ervantes. He needed to find Ervantes. He stumbled towards the door.

"Apprentice Welslak!" Slater said, loudly, as the text showed up large in Sid's crooked glasses. Sid stopped short, hand on the door.

"What?"

"You can't leave," Slater said. "Not without a suit."

"Then get me a suit," Sid said. "I need to go find—"

"We will search and evacuate in an orderly manner. Opening doors is more likely to kill people than save them."

"But—"

"You will remain as you are, Apprentice," Slater said, with an expression that brooked no disagreement. Sid thought about fighting it, desperately wanted to fight it, but then realized that Slater was probably right. What could he do, crawling through the ruins of the ship? In a suit, maybe, but Sid wasn't suit trained, and even if he had been, he didn't know the ship's layout well enough to know how to navigate from one section to another when direction didn't exist anymore, and neither did the convenient elevators and passages between the rings. He was just as likely to get himself trapped and killed somewhere in the wreckage as he was to do anything good.

And he had to consider, too, the fact that he was already in deep trouble. He was not supposed to be here, and his being here had led, in a sense, to the Vortex being destroyed and Yan escaping once again. Though he had no way of knowing if she had survived the collision, he suspected that she had. She wouldn't have tried a plan like that if it was guaranteed to be suicide.

Sid didn't want to know what Sandreas was going to do to him when he got home, and, despite how worried he was for Ervantes, he didn't want to make that anger worse by directly disobeying the commands of the captain of the ship.

The ring gave one last horrible lurch, sending everyone stumbling in the already weakened gravity, then gave up the last vestiges of motion, which in turn gave up the last ghost of gravity's hold on them. Sid pushed off the wall and returned to his seat, strapping himself in with some difficulty. He had never gotten used to maneuvering without gravity, and he was beginning to suspect that he never would.

Hardly mattered. He was sure that by time he got back to Emerri, he wouldn't be leaving the planet for the next five years, at least. If Halen didn't string him up by the neck, that was.

Sid closed his eyes. Even if he couldn't go out and look for Ervantes physically, he could still search with the power. He was familiar enough with what Ervantes "looked like" in his power sense. After all, he had spent quite a while with the other man. It was one of those things that he developed a sense for, even without directly making a point to memorize it, much in the way that one might be able to recognize a friend at a distance from behind, just by the way they were walking— a subconscious, natural understanding of how another person existed in the world.

He stretched out his power, feeling immediately the gaping wound that had been left by the First Star. Sid narrowed his focus and worked slowly, moving his power one small section at a time through the ship, seeing just how many people were alive (many) and where they all were. He was just looking for one, though, and as he failed and failed to find Ervantes, his heartbeat grew more and more rapid, and his breathing more and more shallow.

Someone shook his shoulder, jolting him out of his power trance.

"Apprentice?" asked one of the bridge crew. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Sid said. "Just assessing the damage. Is there anything I can do to help?"

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Jumping assigned the whole ship and cargo a new overall position and velocity, but, much like one could toss a ball up and down in a moving vehicle, all the motion internal to the system was preserved across the jump, with the stardrive having no effect on it. So the huge chunk of the Fleet ship, lighter now that it didn't have the full ship behind it, still caused a massive amount of damage as the First Star continued to slam into it.

Although Yan had aimed the First Star to merely slide against the side of the Fleet ship, that didn't stop the impact from feeling immense and interminable. Thoughts flashed through her head, that perhaps she could use her power to stop the collision in its entirety, but all hope of that was dashed as soon as the impact began. She was strapped in tightly, and had secured herself in such a way that severe injury was unlikely, barring catastrophic collapse of the room that she was in, but even with those precautions, she ended up being thrown around, with her shoulders wrenched, and the straps from her seat digging deep gouges in her legs. Her neck, always a source of worry for her after its prolonged period of incapacitation, she had wrapped in a kind of cushion of thickened air, which had stopped her head from snapping to the side too hard.

Even though she had spared herself from that kind of whiplash injury, she couldn't think straight as the First Star made its collision, and when she reached out her power to assess the situation, all the debris made the scene so chaotic that she couldn't focus on enough to grab. She just had to wait it out.

After a while, the horrible forces ended, and Yan was able to take stock. The First Star's engine was still running, and she reached out a tentative finger of power towards the stardrive and found it still there and seemingly unaffected. Both of those facts gave her immediate relief. She had preemptively closed all doors on the ship, so the few flashing containment breach alarms from bays that had borne the brunt of the impact didn't worry her too much. It was long term damage that was going to be a bigger issue, and one that was harder to address. Most of the outside sensors had been destroyed in the battle (as destroying sensors made it more difficult for the First Star's onboard automated defenses to target attacking shuttles), and the remainder that faced the area she wanted to view had been destroyed during the impact, so it was very annoying not to have a camera view of the ship's exterior. It left her feeling rather blind, a feeling that she didn't like. Still, she was nothing if she was not a sensitive, so she could stretch out her awareness that way.

It was perhaps optimistic of the First Star to merely provide her with flashing containment alarms on her console as she inspected the damage with her power. Creeping it along the outside shell of the ship, she felt an abrupt change in the surface curvature where the collision had been hardest. The walls had caved in, smashed flat in places where it was solid rock behind, crumbled into empty vacuum where there was the large space of a bay. There was a cloud of debris that made feeling out what was ship and what was not difficult, and the irregular shape made it nearly impossible for her to move her power smoothly along the outside of the ship in that region, for there was no longer a true outside to speak of.

From this cursory inspection, she decided that the First Star was still spaceworthy. Even if it hadn't been, what alternative did she have? It would take some work to fix, but she would have time. With the power it would be at least possible to seal those holes, even if it was beyond the scope of her abilities to reconnect all the wiring and mechanical mechanisms that had once been there.

She continued looking, now examining the Fleet ship's remains that had, in spots, welded themselves to the First Star's side. It was an ugly, twisted mass, and she regarded it with an emotion closest to a numb kind of sadness. It went against everything she knew as a spacer to destroy ships like this. But she had done it because it had needed to be done.

Her power moved through the debris, and, with a dawning horror, she felt the presence of life inside that twisted hunk of metal and stone. Still forward she pushed and found more, more. About twenty-five people were alive in there, give or take a few. Yan had expected that anyone in the area that she had taken would have died in the impact, or with the vacuum, but either Fleet ships were built better than she expected, or the twisting and bending of the metal structures had absorbed more of the impact, or people were just incredibly resilient and hardy.

She had expected that they would die, and, while she hadn't exactly made peace with that fact, she had thought that there was no alternative. Now that they were alive, she was presented with a more personal moral quandary. They were still her enemy, but they were defenseless, now, trapped in the wreckage of their ship segment. If Yan didn't do something, they would die. But...

She wished she could call Kino or Iri and ask their advice. Probably not Sylva or Chanam, because neither of them would consider both choices seriously. It was just her. And it would be just her for a while until the Warrior II jumped in, which wouldn't be for several hours yet. She didn't know how she would be able to help those people alone, and she didn't know if they would last several hours before help would arrive. And even if help arrived, would the Warrior II actually want to help? It was a dilemma, and Yan muttered aloud, working through the problem in the old way she had when she was imprisoned.

"What would you say, Halen?" Yan asked, staring down at the flashing containment alarms on her console, not looking up to where she imagined him floating in the still and gravity free room.

"Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die," he intoned in a singsong voice. "Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die. Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die: last soul on an empty ship."

The tune was a familiar one to Yan, a religious song that made its way into worship every once in a while. These were not the words, and Yan didn't think she had ever heard these words before. Perhaps her brain was making them from whole cloth in the heat of the moment. She shouldn't have asked Halen, because she knew that the horrors that he had endured trapped in his own empty ship were connected in her mind to the ones she had suffered in the Green King's prison. That was why he was here at all. His words cut her to the core, reminding her of that.

"Shut it," Yan said, trying to get him to stop, but Halen continued.

"The captain stood and gave her final orders to her crew: 'If you all stand with me now, we'll run these bastards through.' They fought until their last breath, killing, dying two by two. Last soul on an empty ship.

"Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die. Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die. Horror, horror, what a terrible way to die: last soul on an empty ship.

"The captain, mortal wounded, had no more orders to give. She spat at her attacker then, 'Why don't you do me in?' He laughed and kicked her in her side; her blood ran crimson red. 'Last soul on an empty ship.'"

"Stop, stop," Yan said, but he continued, going through the chorus once again, and returning to the verse.

"They'd taken all the precious things, all the goods and gold. They'd taken all her crewmen, and all their lives so bold. They left her there to bleed and die with no one's hand to hold. The last soul on an empty ship."

"The real you, if you were on my side, wouldn't care about any of that," Yan said. "You don't have any problem with killing people."

"But I'm not the real Halen," he said, dropping the song. "Suit up, take a shuttle, search the wreckage. You know you won't be able to live with yourself if you don't."

"I live with a lot," Yan said, but Halen was gone, and he had convinced her, or she had convinced herself, whichever way it was. So she reluctantly unstrapped herself from her seat, checked how bad the wounds on her legs were, decided they weren't life threatening, and began to head out of the bridge. As she made it to the door, she glanced behind herself, floating still in the air. "Nothing bad happen here while I'm gone, okay?" she said, though she didn't know who she was saying it to. It wasn't like the First Star could respond.

She moved through the hallways of the ship very carefully, checking at each door both the warning light that would tell her if there was vacuum behind it, and sensing with her own power to make sure that the air was breathable. She had to slide through emergency access hatches to move from the ring and into the main body of the ship. Luckily, by this point, Yan knew the First Star like the back of her hand, as well as if she had been born on it. Her journey, aside from having to reroute and the pain in her shoulders and legs, was relatively simple. She was pleased to find the bay on the far side of the ship from the collision was nearly undamaged.

The largest shuttle with the highest passenger capacity, one which she never had yet had occasion to use, was berthed there. Though it had slid across the 'floor' during the impact (the magnets having not been strong enough to keep it completely in place during the jolt) and now rested crookedly against one of the walls, it seemed to be in working order. Yan performed as thorough of an inspection of it as she could and then suited up, finding a suit her size in the bay closet where they were typically stored. She also took the opportunity to grab some tools and a first aid kit, which had all stayed put. Things stored in the zero G sections of the ship, at least small items, were generally fastened well, so that they wouldn't come untethered during normal ship operation.

She didn't think she would need the tools, such as the metal saw and the crowbar, since she had the power, but it didn't hurt to be prepared. Just in case, she hauled a bunch of the other space suits into the shuttle. There weren't enough, and she didn't know if she would need them, but it was better to have them and not need them than the alternative. And just like it was better to have tools than not have tools, Yan strapped her knife and gun to the outside of her suit, clipping their holsters onto the utility belt hooks that all spacer suits had.

Since the First Star had been ordered to lock all doors, Yan was forced to manually activate the air pumps, and once the bay was a vacuum, open the large doors by turning the heavy hand crank. It was a lot of work, especially in a suit. She could practically hear Halen nagging at her for being a weakling. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered to herself. She realized once she was done and her shoulders felt like they were on fire that she could have used the power, but it was too late by that point, and the bay doors were open. She entered the shuttle through its airlock and settled herself in the pilot's seat. This whole thing would have been easier with help, but she didn't have help, so she was going to make the best of the situation herself.

Flying out of the bay and around the other side of the ship required intense concentration on her part, mainly due to the heavy debris field. She kept needing to redirect debris away from her shuttle with the power, sending them spiraling away into empty space. When she came around the side of the First Star that had been hit the hardest, she got a good look at the damage with her eyes for the first time, as she lit it up with the beams from her shuttle's lights. She had known what to expect, mentally, but she wasn't prepared for how it would feel to survey her damaged ship, as though it were a part of her own self that had been cut open. The image of the First Star's heavily scarred side, with the bays burst open like popped balloons, and pieces of metal and rock everywhere, with the huge and horrible chunk of the Fleet ship attached to it, with a trail of debris like a bleeding wound... It hurt. She wanted to stop and cry, but she didn't have time for that, so she moved on.

Carefully, Yan stretched out her power through the wreckage, searching for those telltale signs of life. She didn't know which people were in most in urgent need of rescuing, and she had no way of finding that out, so she figured she would start with the rescues that seemed easiest first. That meant bringing her shuttle around the wreckage, towards the 'inside' of the slice of the ship, where the metal walls of the rings were exposed. Most of it was crumpled horrifically, but the pieces near the rear edge were mostly structurally sound. That was where she directed herself, found a wall close to the place where she felt someone living, and stopped her shuttle.

Here was the tricky part. Yan left the shuttle via the airlock. Airlocks on most space-to-space shuttles had an extension that could be used to create a tunnel, for quick transfers between the ship and shuttle, without landing the whole thing in a bay. Yan remained inside that tunnel and dragged it behind her. With the power, she sealed it to the side of the metal wall. She used the power to check if there was air behind the wall that she was about to cut open. There was, which made sense. If there hadn't been, she wouldn't have been able to feel the person behind it, still alive. Yan banged on the wall with her gloved hand as hard as she could, hoping to signal to the person inside that help was on the way. Then she took the metal saw and got to work, using the tool to carve a hole in the wall. Air flooded out into her tube with a hiss that was audible even through her helmet. Yan kept working until there was enough space for a human being to crawl through, and then she clambered in.

The room she was in was lit with a red emergency light glow. It was a bedroom, she thought, and she had entered through what had once been the ceiling. Objects drifted around the room in the slight air currents: large fabric sheets, blankets, clothing, pillows, personal items. The bunk beds were welded to the floor. This was crew quarters, then. They gave Yan a handle to hold onto as she pulled herself down into the room, looking for the survivor.

She couldn't find the survivor at first, which was very odd, since she had definitely felt a person alive in the area. Yan was grateful to not see any dead bodies, which meant that the person hadn't died in the time that it took for Yan to saw open the wall, so she was confused. She stretched out her power again, and still felt the life, below her and to her side. Yan turned and saw a door, which she had taken at first for the exit, but now saw was a closet. She hoisted herself towards it, then pulled the door open. Like most doors on a ship, it was sealed sealed from the emergency, so it took a fair amount of effort.

There was a woman in there, who looked up at Yan, with a wad of fabric pressed over her face. The fabric had a dark stain on it, though since the only color of the lighting was red, Yan couldn't be entirely sure that it was blood. It seemed to be a logical conclusion, though.

Yan undid the visor of her helmet, since this area had atmosphere, so that she could talk to the woman.

The woman gasped when she saw Yan's face, and pressed back into the closet, looking between Yan's face and the First Star's insignia on the sleeve of her suit.

"I'm rescuing you," Yan said. She rather regretted taking off her helmet, because the air inside the room was heavy feeling, as though it had the wrong mixture of gasses in it. It was breathable, but the anxious feeling that throbbed in the back of her brain signaled that the air scrubber was not pulling out as much carbon dioxide as it should have. "Are you too wounded to move?"

"No," the woman said. Her voice was suspicious, even when muffled by the cloth she continued to hold over her mouth and nose.

"Great. I cut a hole in the wall. There's a tunnel that will take you out to my shuttle. Go through it, into the shuttle, close the door. Don't touch anything else. I have like twenty other people to go find."

When the woman was silent and unmoving, Yan narrowed her eyes.

"If you fuck with the shuttle, you and everyone else will die. Don't try it." Yan could safely make that promise, because if she were forced to destroy the shuttle, there would be no way for her to get the rest of these people into suits and back to the safe parts of the First Star.

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"You're supposed to be dead," the woman said. "Why am I trusting a kind of ghost?"

"Long story. You're wasting my time," Yan said. She was truly anxious now, about all the other people trapped here. It was going to be a slog for her to get them out.

The woman finally nodded, and Yan gave her space to exit the closet and pointed her to the hole. "Keep that airlock door shut," Yan said.

The woman headed out, glancing behind her at Yan, perhaps to make sure that Yan didn't stab her in the back. Once the woman was in the shuttle, with the airlock shut firmly behind her, Yan sealed her helmet once again and sent out her power to find the next closest living person. It probably would be easiest to go through the wreckage 'on foot', rather than attempting to move the shuttle each time. If she was wrong about that, well, she'd dock that starship when it arrived.

She checked with the power if there was air outside the door of this crew bedroom: there was. The light that was supposed to be green to indicate breathable air on the other side of the door was not lit, though, which indicated (unsurprisingly) that that system on this chunk of ship was broken, at least in some places. Yan she slid the door open and went through. It was disorienting, being in a place this destroyed, which had been designed completely around the presence of gravity but no longer had any. Yan moved through the hallway as quickly as possible, following the power that told her where the next few people were trapped. She felt several together, which made her nervous, but also her job easier. And more urgent: emergency air filters could only cope with a certain amount of exhalation, and the more people in a room, the less time they had before the air became unbreathable.

Yan pulled open the door to this next room, and a cloud of black smoke, evenly dispersed through the air, puffed out at her. She flinched back out of surprise, but her suit prevented her from breathing any of it in. She proceeded with extreme caution, though, as there was little more dangerous on a ship than a fire. The room was very dim. The emergency lights weren't doing enough to penetrate the thick smoke, and Yan's suit flashlight didn't help much either, though she turned it on and pointed it all around herself. She couldn't see any fire, which was a relief, but that didn't mean there wasn't any. She proceeded slowly, drifting through the air of the room, trying to identify objects that swam out at her through the gloom.

There were tables bolted to the floor that had managed to stay put, but benches and chairs drifted through the air, some of them shattered from the impact. This had once been a mess room. The fire was probably in the attached kitchen. She couldn't see people, and she didn't want to pull off her mask to call out to them. She sensed again with the power. There were four in one corner of the room, one in another. She went towards the group of four.

They were gathered in a huddle, with their jumpsuits drawn up around their faces to cover their mouths and noses. They tensed visibly as she approached, though none of them appeared to be in fighting shape: they didn't have weapons, and one of them had a badly broken arm. It wasn't clear what injuries the others had, but she didn't think that they could have gotten off unscathed in the impact.

"I help," Yan signed, trying to keep her signing as simple as possible, knowing that for people whose only exposure to sign was what they got in suit training, it would be difficult to communicate anything but the most basic of information.

They stared at her, seemingly uncomprehending and possibly threatened by her flailing. Yan resigned herself and lifted up her helmet visor, though her suit shrieked a warning in her ears about air quality as she did so.

"I'm here to help," she said aloud. "The hallway has breathable air, at least right now. Out and six doors to your right, there's a bedroom, open it, there's a hole in a wall with an airlock attached to it, and a shuttle. Go in the shuttle and wait. Don't touch anything. If you fuck with the shuttle, everyone dies. Got it?"

There were a couple of nods from the group.

"Can all of you move?"

Again, nods.

"What's the status of the person in the kitchen?"

"Dead," one of them spoke up.

"No he's not," Yan said, though that wasn't an encouraging thing for these people to say. "Is the fire out?"

"Yes."

"Great. Go," she said, then snapped her helmet shut again, glad to breathe clean air from her suit. She pushed off the ground to head back into the kitchen area where the remaining person, the one who the others thought was dead, was.

She understood immediately why the others had thought that this man was dead. The massive, industrial refrigerator, which was usually bolted to both the wall and the ground, had come loose from about half its moorings in the impact, as had the stove, the source of the fire. The fridge had tipped forward, ripped off the wall and hanging onto the ground with metal strips bent way out of shape. The stove had crashed into it, preventing it from swinging away. And, pinned between the fridge and the wall, unconscious and badly burned, was a man, trapped. His pelvis was what was pinned between the fridge and the wall, probably very broken. Yan winced in sympathy, then got to work.

She was glad that the fire was out, already taken care of somehow by the four others she had let out before. Either that, or it had burned through all of the oil and food that had been feeding it. That might account for all of the smoke. The rest of the objects in the kitchen were explicitly designed not to burn, being mostly made of stainless steel, so even though the vast quantities of smoke in the air, and black, burned streaks across the floor and walls evidenced that the emergency fire suppression system had not kicked in, the passive design to discourage fire had done enough good work to save these four people.

As much as they could be saved, anyway.

She used the power to pull the fridge off the man. She also used it on him directly, even though it gave her that feeling of wrongness that made her gag in her suit, it was necessary to keep him steady. She didn't want to touch him and risk upsetting his broken bones even more. She couldn't check his pulse or his breathing or anything while wearing her suit, but he was still alive. So as gently as she could, she floated him out and back to the shuttle. It was still there, and she breathed a huge sigh of relief when she saw that. She banged on the outer door in warning, then opened it. The other people inside had clearly been talking, and they sprang back away from the door as she came inside, floating her wounded man behind her.

She popped the visor on her helmet again so that she could talk. "He's alive, but barely. Any of you have any medical training?"

There was a general murmur of 'first aid' through the group. Yan resisted the urge to sigh. "There's a first aid kit there." She jerked her head at it. "I've got more people to get. Don't mess with the shuttle." And then she vanished out of the shuttle again, closing the door behind her.

She was trusting those people, even though she probably shouldn't.

It took a long time to find most people. They had often jammed themselves into closets where they felt safer, or were trapped among pieces of rubble, or had broken limbs from the impact, or were otherwise completely incapacitated. Some had survived miraculously in rooms that were isolated from the main parts of the ship, that had no air around them, but somehow air inside. For them, Yan had to get creative with the rescues, using the power and the spacesuits she had brought along to get them to safety.

For the last few, which were in a completely different ring section that was inaccessible through the main passageway she had been going through, Yan had to move the shuttle and its airlock to a different location. She climbed out and searched again, having to re-figure out the best and safest routes around this space. She was exhausted, having been at this for several hours, but she couldn't stop.

She had an empty suit tied on a tether to her waist. This hallway was breached severely, but she could feel someone trapped in a room off the side of it. The easiest thing to do was to approach one of these independent rooms from the side, so she could use an adjoining room as an airlock, by patching up the holes in it. She did so, wedging herself into a crowded maintenance closet whose door had a failed seal. She fixed the seal with the power, then brought out her saw, to cut through the wall. It was awkward and cramped, but she did it, and then she was pushing her way into... a bathroom, with a couple stalls and urinals. Water floated loose in big globs around the place, and Yan hoped that none of it was pee. In terms of disgusting things she had seen that day, it would have been one of the least bad, considering the death toll in this place, but she thought it might have finally pushed her over the edge into puking in her suit, which was the last thing she wanted.

It was always so hard to see in the dim red light, but she recognized the person across the room immediately. She was extremely startled, having never expected to see this man again in her life.

Yan pulled her helmet visor open. "Lieutenant Cesper?" she asked.

He was just as startled as she was, though he winced in pain as he spoke. "Ms. BarCarran?" She saw why: his leg was broken badly. He had taken off his undershirt and wrapped it around his leg as a kind of bandage, but it was barely better than no bandage at all.

"I'm here to rescue you," Yan began, tiredly beginning her whole speech once again.

"I was under the impression you were trying to kill me," Cesper said.

"We can talk about this later. I'm getting you out of here so you don't have to die right now. Got it?" Cesper nodded. Yan unhooked the suit from her waist and pushed it towards him. "Can you get in this yourself, or do you need help?"

Cesper looked at his leg. "I might need help."

"Try it yourself first," Yan said. He nodded, and Yan watched him struggle, and decided she couldn't stand watching it, or wasting time, or some combination of the two. "Fine," she said. "Sorry, this is probably going to hurt."

The power bucked under her grasp as she used it to force Cesper's leg to straighten to fit into the suit. He did let out a cry of pain, but Yan ignored it. After that, it was easier sailing, and he was able to get the rest of the suit on himself.

"Helmet on, and just follow me," Yan said.

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After she had collected everyone who still lived, Yan wanted nothing more than to fall asleep for the next six years. But she still had to pilot the shuttle back, land it shakily in the bay, and deal with the whole group of sullen and injured Fleet soldiers behind her. The most heavily injured one, the one she had pulled out of the kitchen, hadn't regained consciousness, and she was thinking privately that he probably wouldn't. None of these Fleet people had medical training beyond bare minimum first aid, and Cesper was the highest ranked among them, so Yan put him in charge of dealing with them. He was trustworthy, in the sense that she knew him, at least.

She didn't know where to put these people. At least there wasn't any gravity, since she hadn't restarted the rings, so even the ones with broken legs or ankles or feet could still navigate the ship. They all drifted in the bay in a group, somewhat silent, several of them making appraising looks and wondering if all of them could overpower Yan. She didn't think they could, but she wanted to squash that thought before it got started.

She held her suit helmet under her arm and addressed them. "Look," she said. "I—" She had to stop and take a deep breath, not entirely sure what to say. The confidence and feeling of urgency that had gripped her during the rescue operation had left her completely. She tried to draw on it again, that feeling of needing to get things done, but was left floundering in exhaustion. "Here's the plan. As soon as the rest of my crew gets here, we're probably going to jump out. I'll take you all to the nearest inhabited system and drop you in a shuttle on the edge of it. You can get picked up and sent home from there. I don't have a doctor, or medical knowledge, or anything like that. I can get you pain medication, but aside from that the best we can do is stitches and bandages." She shrugged helplessly. "Don't think of trying to steal this ship, by the way. You won't be able to fly it. Do you understand?"

It was clear that no one was going to say that they didn't understand, so Yan got them as settled and contained as possible in the medical area. She pulled Cesper aside and spoke to him in the hallway. She had given him some painkillers from the medicine cabinet, though they probably weren't strong enough, and an emergency inflatable cast that was at least stopping his leg from getting knocked around.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm Second Welslak's liaison to the Fleet," Cesper said.

"And why is Sid here?" Yan hissed, gesturing around. "Sandreas would have never said yes to this."

"He lied to the captain of the Vortex," Cesper said.

"And you didn't STOP him?" Yan asked. "If he keeps coming after me, I'm going to end up killing him."

"If it wasn't the Vortex, it would have been the Son of Emerri," Cesper said.

Yan sighed, connecting the dots that there had indeed been another Fleet ship waiting. "You're going to get court martialed, when you get back," Yan said. "Sandreas or Halen might kill you for letting Sid do this."

"I did tell him that it was stupid," Cesper said, though his voice indicated that he hadn't used quite those words. "And he told me he would stop this from all coming down on my head."

"That wouldn't be the first time Sid made promises he has no way of keeping."

"I believe in the same conversation he told me he was invincible."

Yan had to laugh at that to keep herself from crying. "Classic Sid." She shook her head. "I don't envy whatever punishment is coming to him."

"He might say the same of you."

"Are you going to try to kill me, Lieutenant?" Yan asked, studying him. He might be the only one with a chance of flying the First Star out. She knew he was good at math. He could probably figure out the ship's systems, even if he hadn't been explicitly trained.

"I don't think that it would be anything approaching a fair fight," he said. "No."

"And self preservation is the only reason why not?"

"It's true that I have a vested interest in getting out of here alive, and if that involves simply being your prisoner and cooperating, I'll do it."

"Hm."

"Why did you rescue everyone?" Cesper asked, interrupting the train of thought that Yan had been trying to string together.

"I couldn't just let people die," she said. "I mean, even if I thought they would in the first place. There's a difference." Cesper nodded stiffly.

"I don't understand why you make the choices you do, Ms. BarCarran."

"Didn't I tell you to call me Yan, at one point?"

"I believe the circumstances have sufficiently changed. And I don't hear you calling me Ervantes."

"What were you doing in this area, anyway?" Yan asked. She found it hard to believe that Sid would be let onto a ship alone for no reason.

"We were on Hanathue."

"Why?"

"Second Welslak had a diplomatic mission to apologize to the father of Bina Warez."

"Apologize? What for?"

Ervantes flinched a little. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Bina Warez was killed."

Yan blanched, wishing she could steady herself on something, but there was no gravity even to hold her. "How?"

"I suppose it doesn't hurt to tell you, now," Cesper said. He related then the whole story of how Fleet agents had been sent to kill Kino, and how her sister had ended up caught in it. Yan felt worse and worse as the story went on. It was just another thing that was on her head: if she hadn't allowed Kino and Sylva to go to Hanathue, Bina would still be alive, the Fleet ships would have never been able to catch the First Star— there were so many people who had died because Yan had made one sentimental bad call. It weighed on her so much that she wanted to scream. But she kept calm, not lashing out at Cesper who hadn't really been involved.

As Cesper was wrapping up his story, Yan felt the unmistakable sensation of another ship jumping in. She put the conversation, and all of her guilty feelings, on pause for the moment.

"Lieutenant, you stay with them," she said, indicating the medical bay where all the people she had rescued were being kept. "Make sure that none of them do anything stupid. The Warrior II just jumped in, I'm going to..."

Yan trailed off, abandoning the conversation, and pushed off the walls, making for the bridge as fast as she could. She arrived in record time, one of the few advantages of the rings not rotating. As long as she was careful of the hallway's curve, she could zoom along it by hoisting herself along the bars that lined the ceiling, placed there for just such a purpose. She mentally thanked the designers of the ship for thinking of this eventuality.

In the bridge, she hovered over her captain's chair, sitting not really being a thing that made much sense without gravity, and opened radio communication.

"—First Star. Come in, First Star."

"This is the First Star," Yan said.

There was a momentary pause, then an audible noise of relief over the other end of the line. "Glad to hear your voice, Captain BarCarran," someone said, who Yan didn't immediately recognize.

"Who is this?" Yan asked.

"Captain Respect, of the Warrior II."

"As a ship in the night I greet you, then, Captain."

"And with the stars at your back," Respect said.

"Did you lose much after I left?" Yan asked. She squeezed her hands into fists, hoping that the pirate ship that had come to her aid had not suffered heavy damage. She couldn't look out and see it— most of the cameras on the outside of the First Star were busted completely. It was going to be a hard job to get the ship back into working condition, let alone fighting condition.

"A few scrapes and scratches," Respect said. "And two dogfighters."

Yan's heart twisted again; that was two more people, at least, who were dead on her account. She didn't know what to say, so she said, "Thank you."

"I have it on good authority that if the roles were reversed, you would have come to our aid," Respect said. "Since we would not have been able to stand against the Fleet had you not made your move."

"Did the other ship jump in?" Yan asked.

"Yes, but we were able to leave shortly thereafter. There must have been a long radio delay." Respect paused. "I would like to speak with you in person, Captain. Would you be willing to come here?"

"Er..." Yan didn't know the best way to say this. "I have a bit of a situation over here."

"Situation?"

"There were survivors from the wreck of the Fleet ship," Yan said. "They're all in my med suite now." There was a heavy sigh from across the line. "You're welcome to come here, though I can't promise there's any good conditions. I haven't had a chance to do a real status check beyond the very basics."

"Yes, because you were busy pulling your enemies from the wreckage," Respect said, and Yan couldn't tell if she was being mocked or not. "If I were you, I would have let them die. And if I were them, I would have rather tried to kill you than allow myself to be taken prisoner."

"I don't think that would have worked," Yan said. "I'm not a slouch with a knife." Or a gun. Or the power. Mostly the power.

Respect laughed, for real this time, though it was tinged with clear sadness. "I didn't mean that I wouldn't have died trying."

"I'm glad they didn't," Yan said. "I have enough blood on my hands as it is."

"I'll come see you, Captain BarCarran," Respect said. "And bring you back your people."

The call ended, and while Yan was waiting for whatever shuttle was coming to arrive, she ended the complete lockdown of all doors on the First Star, at least so that she could use the main computer to open and close the bay doors in the one bay she knew to be safe and relatively whole. Then she made her way down to the bay to greet them, passing by the med suite to make sure that none of her prisoners had decided to cause chaos. They were all accounted for, and all still alive, even the one who was definitely on the verge of death. Thus assured, she continued on to the bay, and waited in the hallway outside, peering in through the window as the two shuttles arrived. One was a First Star shuttle, the one she had sent Iri and Chanam out in earlier, and the other was decked out in what she assumed was the livery of the Warrior II. The First Star's shuttle landed as gracefully as Iri could manage it (not very), and the Warrior II's landed as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Yan closed the bay doors and flooded the chamber with air so that she could go in.

The shuttle doors popped open, and Sylva practically exploded out of the thing, pushing herself off it and crashing into Yan to hug her. Yan, who was exhausted, smiled and hugged her back, though probably more limply than Sylva had wanted.

"I missed you," Yan said. "But I think you need to let go of me."

"You jerk," Sylva said, but she was smiling as she released Yan.

"Second longest month of my life, not having you around," Yan whispered to Sylva as everyone else got out of the shuttle, at a more sedate pace. Chanam was first, then Iri. Yan had been with them for the past month, so there was no need for dramatics. "Glad to have you back on board."

"Glad to be back," Iri said. Chanam just nodded at her. Yan couldn't quite pin him down, but he seemed relaxed and unharmed, so that might be as good as she was going to get.

Then, finally, Kino came out, carrying herself with a quiet stiffness that belied instantly to Yan that she was not doing well. There was none of her restless fidgeting, no quietly observing and cataloguing her surroundings, just a flat, dull stare at the ground. Yan went over to her, wanting to somehow offer comfort but not knowing how. She doubted that Kino would want a hug, an embarrassing public showing of affection or weakness (and she thought that Sylva would probably take it the wrong way). Instead, she put her hand on Kino's upper arm and tried to send her a voiceless feeling of understanding. Kino looked up at her, and into Yan's head, sent a clear memory: sitting with Yan on a bench in a greenhouse, trying and failing to offer comfort of her own. Yan nodded and dropped her arm because the other shuttle's door was opening, and people Yan had never met before were coming out: two tall pirate women, one older one and one clutching an extremely chubby baby in her arms.

Sylva made the introductions, interposing herself between the two groups. "Yan, this is Captain Respect, and my friend, Keep, and her baby, Trav."

"Pleasure to meet you," Yan said. She shook hands with each of them, including the baby, who grabbed her finger. Yan couldn't help but smile at that.

"And you as well, Captain BarCarran," Respect said.

"Just Yan, please," Yan said. "It's one thing over the radio, but I still can't help but feel like you're addressing my cousin when you call me that." She laughed a nervous laugh. Respect had that intimidating aura around her that all captains seemed to carry, one that Yan felt she distinctly lacked. Keep certainly oriented herself in such a way as to make it clear that she was following Respect's commands.

"Your cousin?" Respect asked.

"Captain Pellon BarCarran, of the Guild ship Iron Dreams," Yan said. "I doubt you've encountered him."

"I did think the name was familiar," Respect said. "It's true that we don't go out of our way to cross paths with the average Guild ship." She smiled. "But it is a small universe."

"Certainly." Yan turned to Keep. "Sylva's told me a lot about you."

Keep smiled. "The reverse is true as well. I never thought I'd meet the elusive Yan. She must love you, to cross the galaxy for you."

Yan's face heated up, and had there been a ground to scuff, she would have scuffed it with her foot. "The feeling's mutual," she said with another awkward laugh. She looked up at Respect again. "I'm afraid I really don't have much in the way of accommodations. My ring is stopped, so I'm afraid that all furniture that isn't tied down will be floating, at best."

"That's perfectly alright. We can't stay long, and I assume you want to be on your way as soon as you can," Respect said. Yan nodded.

"Was there something you wanted to discuss in particular?" Yan asked.

Respect studied her, and Yan could feel the scrutiny of the older woman. Respect spoke, finally, breaking the awkward silence that had descended. "You're making moves in the universe, Captain." Yan nodded. "Like it or not, my ship and crew have been drawn into those moves. I would prefer to be a master, and not a tool or a pawn or a casualty."

"I understand."

"You understand, and you understand that two of my crew gave their lives to you."

"If there is anything--" Respect held her hand up.

"I am not asking for payment, or retribution, or anything of the kind. What I am asking for is a seat at the table."

Yan was confused for a second. There was no table, no grand scheme, no plan of any kind. Yan's only thoughts of the future, for the moment, involved returning her prisoners home, and then hiding out for as long as it took to fix the First Star. Everything that she had tried to do had gone horribly wrong, gotten so many people needlessly killed, and almost destroyed her ship. She wasn't thinking anymore about destabilizing the Empire. She was thinking about surviving to the next day now, and the day after that. But Respect seemed to think that she had more knowledge and power than she actually did. Yan didn't know why. After all, she had a crew of four and a broken ship, and that was all. And one of those four was a spy, who didn't count. Maybe it was the vestiges of her apprenticeship hanging upon her that loaned her more legitimacy than she actually possessed, or perhaps it was having a ship of her own (even one as damaged and empty as the First Star).

She nodded, then, even though it felt like a lie.

Respect continued. "So we should make a time to meet up, and discuss what the plans are."

Yan thought about where and when she would like to meet Respect, and there was really only one choice. "Iri, do you have the coordinates of the system we were just at?" She didn't mention the ansible, but Iri would know what she meant.

"Of course," Iri said smoothly. "I can give you a starmap."

"Can we meet in an eightyday?" Yan asked Respect. "I think I'm going to need some time to get things in order."

Respect nodded slowly, an appraising gesture. "I have no problem with that."

"It will give me some time to think about what my next steps are. This was not in the plan." Yan gestured broadly, encompassing the whole disaster.

"I didn't think that it was. Take the time you need. It will give me time to think, as well."

"If there is anything I can do..." Yan trailed off. Of course there wasn't anything she could actually do to make up for the death of two of Respect's crew. That wasn't a wound that could be healed with money or favors, and it wasn't a grief that Yan, a stranger, could intrude on.

"No," Respect said. "Not now, anyway."

Iri, who had gone over to access the computer terminal on the wall, returned holding a datastick. She handed it to Respect. "That's the best location," she said. "If you can't make it on the date, you can leave a message drone there, and we'll find it."

Respect smiled. "Thank you, Evie." Apparently Iri's fake name had stuck. Iri seemed unaffected by this.

"You're very welcome."

"Will you be alright?" Respect asked. "The damage didn't look as bad as it could have been."

"It will take some time to repair everything, but my stardrive is functional, and that's all that matters," Yan said. "And I have my crew back. I don't know how to thank you both for everything."

"You can consider it payment for Trav," Keep said. "At least my part of it."

"I won't keep you any longer," Respect said. "There will be better times and places to talk. In an eightyday, then."

"An eightyday," Yan agreed. She shook hands with the captain and Keep once more, and patted Trav's chubby little head goodbye.