Impossibilities

ShatteredStar

Interesting, ShatteredStar thought, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully at the bartender. Alcohol. The bar's thick smoke irritated his nose, and he had to stifle a cough as he turned his head slowly to scan the premises. He was disgusted: on Earth, it seemed, bars on military bases actually stocked mind-blurring drugs. To these people Earth entrusted their defense? His left eye narrowed, and with a mental command he activated the microscopic CCD array on the retina, near the optic nerve. Focusing on a particular patron several meters away, he noted the dilated pupils, the unsteady trembling of the facial muscles. The commander of the base did not notice his scrutiny; he merely howled with laughter over a quiet comment from the woman seated next to him and took another swig of his drink.

ShatteredStar turned his attention to the woman, only years of Discipline allowing him to control his disgusted expression. She was even more drunk than he was, and was hardly the exemplar of feminine attractiveness that the general seemed to consider her. The dull, empty eyes were clouded with the effects of drink; her body bore the surgical scars of unskilled black-market plastic surgery; her arm was marked with the red streaks of transdermal injections from the drug-filled bracelet on her wrist. What was her drug of choice? He tapped a control on the stiff sleeve of his combat suit, sampling the air for chemical analysis. It was biological, whatever it was, probably a hormonal enhancer of some type. Yes, that kind of thing was going around lately: ignorant individuals would consume enzymes to increase their estrogen and testosterone levels to insane degrees. Quite unhealthy.

ShatteredStar turned his eyes away with a faint disapproving scowl, and turned to look up at the bartender. "Tea," he said quietly. "As strong as you can make it."

"Got a hangover?" came the reply as the bartender carried a glass over to the synthesizer.

ShatteredStar grunted.

"What kind?"

Tarazedi, he wanted to say, but that would be a bad idea for any number of reasons. "Earl Grey with mint and cinnamon," he said instead, as that came as close as anything terrestrial.

"Gotcha."

"Mmm." He returned his attention to the patrons as the bartender set his drink beside him. "On my tab," he murmured, glad that he had managed to establish an identity on Earth that would allow him to carry accounts. Faking an identity in the modern age was less than easy, no matter how well-connected you were. Of course, having the powerful TARNET computer systems on your side was a hell of an advantage.

He touched his sleeve again, where the basic Terran Defense Force combat suit interfaced with the concealed Tarazedi systems underneath. The crude, overdecorated Terran wear annoyed him; combat suits were supposed to be functional, not aesthetic.

The doors swung open as his objective finally entered. Dressed in the uniform of a TDF captain; the man glanced around the place with the aura of disdain that was usually the place of higher-ranked officers. Which was as well, since he was.

He sat down next to ShatteredStar, carefully ignoring him. He pretended disinterest, sipping his tea and continuing to survey the bar as the man ordered his drink. "Hey Lieutenant," the man said in a friendly voice. "Haven't seen you here before, you new here?"

"Mmm," ShatteredStar said. "Shipped in from Ireland." The Tarazedi looks made that cover story plausible, though the indescribable accent was like nothing terrestrial and certainly nothing Irish. While Tarazed had been colonized by the Eurasian Space Agency's ship so many centuries ago and the world's genetics were skewed toward northern European, the language was a carefully crafted synthetic language blending elements of most of the Indo-European branch. The accent that developed from the mixture was precise, clipped, and impossible to place with any terrestrial ethnic group. "I see... what group?"

"The Fighting Fifteenth, tank division."

"Ahh, yes, I signed off on those. Good scores in the initial test runs. Say, what're you doing in here? You don't seem like the drinking type... or the social type..."

"Correct," ShatteredStar muttered. "TARNET."

"Ya," the man said softly. "Is it finally operational?"

"What I could get done from New Orleans, yes. Some parts though, especially the Russian and Japanese branches..."

"Yes, our mutual acquaintance is trying to get the various Imp groups organized."

"How," he muttered, "Do these people expect to fight a war with no proper intelligence sources and no links to their supposed allies?"

The man shrugged. "Imp 9th is being hit really hard... they're having probs getting their comm arrays working because the glitches keep hammering them."

"If they were to recall some forces or even link up with the Alliance and prepare a drop zone, a contingent of our Hercs could give the agkraz [here he used a Tarazedi word meaning roughly "the hated"] a fight to keep them busy long enough to get online. From that point they could then regroup their own forces."

"I know, but don't hold your breath."

"Mmm."

"Came to let you know we got something from the TDF on Titan. Seems we underestimated the glitch population in the Kuipers."

ShatteredStar raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How many?"

"The new sensors are picking up readings all around the plane of the ecliptic. Hundreds of sources."

ShatteredStar held his thoughts under iron control. The Cybrids had infested the Kuiper belt too? They were being routed on the planets, and their Plutonian and Neptunian facilities had mostly been obliterated, but if they controlled the Kuipers, the human race was, as they said on Tarazed, skrewdi.

"We don't have the forces--"

"You think I don't know that?" ShatteredStar said, determined not to raise his voice and attract attention no matter the frustration and anger he was feeling. His voice came out as a harsh whisper. "Our Jovian forces are holding their own. We have no help from Earth. The Imps have forgotten us and we are on our own. We have lost thousands of troops and cannot acquire new ones fast enough. The Cybrids are giving us hell on Io, and now you are telling me more will come?"

The man nodded slowly. "Yes. Fortunately, we have found some human forces out there as well. We'll be transmitting their coordinates and contact protocols to you--

The door opened again and ShatteredStar's eyebrow raised of its own accord. A woman walked slowly into the bar and cast a glance around, her eyes briefly resting on him before continuing their scan. She was gorgeous: large green eyes with full lashes graced a face as true to Tarazedi standards of beauty as if it had been designed so. She was tall, with a well-proportioned body that--

ShatteredStar gasped as his eyes fell on the belt she wore wrapped around her thin waist. Surely a coincidence--

He caught his breath, forced himself to look away as he made the appropriate mental command to activate his sidescan vision. The CCD chip embedded in his cornea twisted in its microscopic mount, shifting his vision back to the woman though he was facing ninety degrees away from her. That black belt--

He enhanced the magnification and tried to control his shock. The black belt was decorated with a gold helix shape, with various coiled designs around the edges and a four-pointed red star where the two circles joined. Black text wrapped around the points of the star--

In Tasarada, the formal fourth dialect of the Tarazedi language.

One of them here? his mind demanded, trying to process the impossibility. There were none on our ships! None!

He scanned the writing again: Sesta Hep id Takrastax: Sect Seven of Takrasta, the southernmost of the Tarazedi continents.

The man brushed his arm. "What is it?" he asked.

ShatteredStar shook his head. "An impossibility," he said. "I must go."

"Oh?"

"Excuse me," he said, and got up quickly, leaving his tea on the bar and walking briskly to the exit.

---

A link to Tarazed from a chain that could never have been forged. They never left the Tarazed system or even their own continent unless their... unique services were required. I shudder to think what her presence might mean. Is she for me or was it just random chance? (Random chance? Quite unlikely.) If she is for me, who hired her? For what purpose? Is it already to late to escape? Would I have the slightest chance trying to fight it?

ShatteredStar sighed and closed his eyes twice, the signal to shut his neural-read journal off and transmit the recorded thoughts to the storage chip implanted on the inside of his skull.

His quarters were locked, with a command given to not allow them to open even at his control should the woman show up at the door. He doubted that would stop her if she indeed was for him, but taking that precaution made him feel at least a little bit more secure, more in control.

The door chimed. He looked up at the screen that depicted the scene outside. He blinked. Impossible! he thought. He could not leave the Jovian system now! "Proxheil!" he said aloud, in Tarazedi. "Yientr!"

Perihelion, the current Internal Affairs leader of the Tarazedi Alliance, entered. "What are you doing here?" ShatteredStar demanded.

"EagleEye has everything in control," Perihelion said. "The DSSF slaughtered a Cybrid force near Loki Patera and they are trying to recover." Perihelion stood at attention just inside the door, his cybernetic hand clasped around his original one in front of him. His eyes narrowed as he inspected the quarters, and ShatteredStar could see the replacement prosthetic eye expanding its iris to read infrared and microwave signatures. Nearly killed in battle more times than he could number, Perihelion survived thanks to the advanced research sections of the Tarazedi medical centers. It was miraculous he was still alive, more miraculous he was still sane.

"There are no bugs," ShatteredStar said with an air of irritation.

"I had figured; just checking."

"Why are you here?"

"We received a transmission from a human colony on the Kuiper Belt Object we've been tracking as on a Jupiter-approach orbit. It seems they have intelligence to share and that they need you to share it with."

ShatteredStar scowled. "You and EagleEye are the leaders now, you know that."

"Yes, but their intelligence, if valid, is worth catering to their eccentricities to receive."

"Oh?"

"They speak of forces massed on a certain Kuiper Belt Object. Forces of mixed colonist and Tarazedi."

"Impossible."

"Yes, I know."

"But..."

Perihelion raised an eyebrow.

"This seems to be my day for impossibilities so..." He described his meeting with the woman earlier that day.

"I see. Is the writing significant beyond the fact she is a Tarazedi unaccounted for?"

"Yes! You've never heard--" He stopped. "Oh. You wouldn't; you're north-continent and they never went there... hmm..."

"Who?" ShatteredStar sighed. "You've not heard of the Hypsesta Seductress Sect?"

"Eh? I don't think so!"

"I see... they live on the south continent. They're a secretive group of people, mostly women, who have developed certain... skills... that they utilize for political purposes. They are hired by various high-ranking people who wish to gain an advantage over others of similar rank."

“Skills?” Perihelion said with an ironic lift of an eyebrow.

ShatteredStar glowered. “Sexual skills. They study for decades, a lot of them. Most of them are experts in the... relevant psychology and physiology... They’re professional seductresses, for hire.”

"I see..."

"According to rumor, they are impossible to resist when they set their sights on you, and generally if someone finds a Seductress on him he will not even bother to try."

"I have not heard of this."

"Well, near Metras Aqila their reputation is well-known... cynics say their irresistibility is due to their publicity and the psychological conditioning of the people there who know about them. If you grow up with rumors of irresistible women you probably won't put much effort into fighting them."

"Are they assassins?"

"No. They supposedly have a code of honor about never harming their targets, despite the political figures that hire them occasionally requesting such. They... manipulate. They use hypnotic techniques to enhance what they do, and the experience is rumored to be... quite... intense."

Perihelion snorted. "I see."

"Damn... what am I going to do? I'm high-ranking and I would be willing to bet she's after me. If someone on the Cybrid side hired her, who's to say the codes of honor apply?"

"Hmm. I don't know what to suggest."

"It doesn't matter... if I encounter her when she's in the mood, I'm pretty much done for."

"Perhaps a bodyguard?"

"And you would explain that to everyone around here how? I'm undercover remember?"

"Undercover, not under the covers."

"You may shut up now."

"Your presence will be required at the New Orleans drop site at twenty-one hundred tomorrow."

"I will try to be there, but I must be here when the TARNET-Titan linkage gets through."

Perihelion shook his head. "Good luck with that," he said dryly, then inclined his head respectfully and walked out.

ShatteredStar sighed.

---

He saw the woman again the next morning as he prepared for duty. His tank, a copy of the StarSparkle he had stored at TA HQ on Europa, hissed softly as the life support system activated. He loaded the missiles in the tubes, thankful for the strength-enhancers built into his combat suit.

"So strong," the woman said brightly as he stopped to rest for a moment before checking the antigravs. He glanced at her as she leaned against the Predator's side panel and smiled at him. Well shit... he thought. He shrugged. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Her smile widened and her eyes drilled into him. "Who do you think I am?"

"Someone I want nothing to do with," he snapped. "Yivan!" he said in Tarazedi: Go away!

"Oh, how impolite. Is that any way to treat a lady?" She straightened, yawned and stretched. He forced himself to look away. He'd be hard-pressed to resist that even if she didn't have any special skills.

"Leave before I do something bad," he whispered.

"Bring it on," she said cheerfully. "I'd love for you to do something bad with me."

ShatteredStar closed his eyes and thudded the back of his head into the Predator's turret. "What do you want from me? And be aware I am armed, consider you a hazard, and would not hesitate to cut your head off should I not like your answer." Who am I fooling? he wondered. Certainly not her. Her amused expression dissolved into a rich laugh.

"You think it is that easy do you? Too bad; it's more enjoyable when you cooperate."

"So you are for me, eh?" His hand touched the collapsword control on his left wrist.

"If I were, you'd be helpless in my arms before you could even press the button on that thing," she said. "But no, I'm not."

ShatteredStar did not remove his hand from the control. "Then why are you here? Do you now extend your services to non-Tarazedi?"

"How could I? Non-Tarazedi don't have a mindset even remotely close to ours, especially in such matters. I'm here to convey a message."

"Oh really."

"Yes. You are to be in New York, specifically in Mohawk City, in three days."

"Says who?"

"She tells me to say one word to you: shamrocks."

By the time ShatteredStar had recovered enough to speak, the woman was gone.

---

Impossible, no, I mean really impossible! She was not on any of our ships; I would have seen her name on the rosters instantly! I've not seen her in decades! It's a trick; somehow the Cybrids got into my mind before I was rescued and picked that out without me even knowing it; she can't be here!

He blinked twice, sealing the journal.

The woman he had fallen in love with so long ago, and lost, had returned?

When had he last seen her? Thirty years ago? At the university at Metras Aqila, they had met briefly and felt a spark the likes of which they had never felt before or since, or at least he hadn't. When he graduated and joined the Academy and she had entered the medical field their lives took them in separate directions, and they never again saw each other. He had married Jessic and never heard from Tara again.

He pulled the jeweled dagger out from under his outer combat suit, rested it in his hand. His eyes filled with tears as once again the pain of Jessic's death filled him. The Tarazedi ceremony with the daggers on the honeymoon, a ceremony designed to show the new couple's complete trust for each other, was a memory he could not recall as he wondered what it would have been like if it had been Tara instead. Would he perhaps now find out? Impossible, he thought, but since so many impossible things had happened lately, perhaps he could dare to hope.

---

A hand brushed his gently and he turned over on the bed to face her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed gazing at him calmly, her black eyes fastened on him, narrowed with concern.

He stared at her, wondering how long it had been since she had come to him. Was he really that troubled? An uninvited anima dream was a rare occurrence, though Tarazedi usually were capable of initiating an anima (or animus) dream when they felt they needed it. At such times as their subconscious was disturbed enough to need such council, they were initiated without conscious will.

"Hello...” he murmured.

"Viktr." She inclined her head. "It has been awhile since you've needed me, that's good."

"Don't you get bored with nothing to do?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I suppose. But knowing that you are at peace and don't need my help for anything is worth a little dullness from time to time."

"I suppose," he retorted. "I guess I must be pretty bad off for you to show up without being called, eh?"

"No, not really," she said, laying down, resting her chin in her hands, and watching him. "You just seem a bit... stirred up."

"Heh." He leaned back against the bed's headboard, changed his mind, got up and started pacing.

His anima tracked him with her eyes, smiled faintly with amusement. "Don't wear holes in the metaplas," she murmured, gesturing to the floor that was scuffed by decades of use. "It's already in bad enough shape."

"Yeah yeah."

"Would she contact you if she didn't still love you?"

He looked at her. "I don't know."

"Oh come on," she snapped. "I'm part of you and I know, so obviously you do!"

"There is that," he muttered. "I don't know... why would she contact me otherwise? She'd know, certainly, that contacting me at all is a risk, even if she could contact me in such a roundabout way. If I'm near her she'd be in danger..."

"Mmhmm," the anima said.

"Damnit, I can't be near her now! Do you know how many times various glitch spies have tried to assassinate me?"

"Enough times I'm amazed you're still alive."

"Yes, so am I. I can't put her in that kind of danger; indeed, if they find out about her at all she's dead..."

"So you plan to reject her so she is not at risk."

"Doesn't that make sense?"

"Yes, except that if you do reject her you'll only break her heart instead."

He looked away. "I know."

"Then that answers your question about whether she loves you or not. You know in your heart she does."

"I suppose I do."

"You are... clear enough inside your own mind that you know you love her as well. You don't try to deny it to yourself as some people do."

"True. I know what I feel. I'm not a Terran you know."

"Indeed. Terrans are usually studies in chaos in their minds and hearts."

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it. That's what I'm here for." She rose to her feet slowly, came over to him, gave him a gentle kiss, and vanished.

He stared briefly at the empty air where she had been, then went back to sleep, this time without dreams.

---

"Linkage complete but no data," the tech said. "Our encrypts are not synchronized and we aren't getting what they're sending us."

ShatteredStar made a disgusted noise. "That figures."

"What should I do, sir?"

He gazed at the blank screen. "Kill the transmission but leave the receivers open. If the glitches homed in on our signal that would be a Bad Thing."

"Understood, sir."

TARNET-Titan, the final linkage of the TARNET system, was supposed to be online days ago. Unfortunately, the techs helping him were not as competent as he was used to, despite the TDF's assurances that they were the "best". The best Terran techs perhaps.

"Transmission incoming, encrypts match!"

"On screen."

The main screen shifted to an image of the TARNET-Titan's main facility and the woman in charge of it. "Sorry, sir, we just got attacked. We should be able to maintain a two-way linkage on these encrypt protocols, but not at a very high rate." ShatteredStar nodded; no surprises there. Twelve AU of space in between them would degrade the signals to hell and gone. "Transmission terminates now." The screen went blank.

ShatteredStar sat in his chair and leaned heavily against the back. Finally the Tarazedi Alliance's information network was complete. The forces of the Jovian system were now able to access the necessary data resources of the rest of the solar system. "If you all can keep things working I need to go," he said. "Farewell." He rose to his feet and quickly left the computer center.

He walked quickly down the narrow streets of New Orleans, glad for his armor and weaponry. While the city had not yet suffered a major attack by the agkraz, it was still the crime center it had been for a thousand years. His eyes narrowed as a group of unsavory-looking characters appeared out of an alley and moved to encircle him. Several of them carried lazpistols.

He moved in a quick crouch-spin-arming pattern, his black combat suit invisible in the darkness. His motion confused them briefly, and when he straightened a bare half-second later he carried both his ossite cannon in his hands.

A lazpistol bolt struck his combat suit, warming it slightly but having no other effect. "Attack commenced," he muttered as he fired his ossite cannon straight at the nearest of the attackers. A quick squirt of nanites shot out of the tip, striking the man square in the chest. He blinked, shrugged as nothing appeared to happen, and raised his pistol.

ShatteredStar swept the other ossite cannon in a wide arc, spraying the attackers with the ossites. "Ossites, activate," he said grimly, and the combat suit's computer processed the command and sent a signal on a certain frequency.

The attackers looked surprised, staggered, and fell writhing on the street. ShatteredStar shook his head. The ossites would dissolve any long bones in the humans' bodies, rendering them completely useless in combat. They would require complete bone replacement.

He turned and continued on his way, leaving the swearing heap of villains writhing on the ground.

He ducked behind a small building, entered a flat lot several meters wide, glancing at the black-painted Banshee that sat there with its lights darkened. "Yes?" he said, sticking his head in the door.

"Please come with me," a voice called from the cockpit.

"Be aware I am armed and grouchy and if you do anything suspicious you will regret it."

"Understood, sir. I am to convey you to New York."

New York? "Why?"

"Those I work for are based in Albany."

"Albany is under siege."

"That's why this thing is painted black, sir."

ShatteredStar smiled grimly. "Proceed."

He climbed aboard, and immediately went forward and entered the cockpit. The pilot, the only person aboard, looked at him with surprise as he activated the co-pilot board and set some controls. "You fly?"

"On occasion."

"Combat?"

"On occasion."

"Good."

"I won't ask why you think so," ShatteredStar said grimly. Entering the airspace over a war zone in an unshielded, badly-armored little Frisbee was not his idea of a bright thing to do. "We armed?"

"Smartguns."

He grimaced. Fancy toys that didn't do any damage worth speaking of, guzzled power, and looked ugly besides. "You have ECM installed?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I wouldn't fly over a besieged city in a pie plate to begin with."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Parked on Europa in the Disrupter I chase Executioners with."

"The Toe-Stubber?"

"You know of it?"

"Yeah, Crow of 7th is using it."

"He is?"

"Yeah, he even repainted it. Ioan Guard colors."

"He repainted my tank?!"

"Yep. Turbulence," the pilot announced as the Banshee dipped into a stomach-churning spin. "We should be over the Catskills in five, then we're ground-hugging to Albany."

"Makes sense." ShatteredStar glanced out the window, watching the landscape flash by at an unbelievable rate. The flash of water below said they were paralleling a river, probably the Ohio, as they proceeded northward toward the well-lit East Coast. Flashes of city lights, growing in density as they proceeded eastward, lighted the ground below.

Abruptly the Banshee dipped downward, approaching the ground at a rate that made ShatteredStar certain they were about to crash. At the last instant the pilot pulled up, less then ten meters from the ground. The crevasses and folds of the Catskill range flew by too fast to see as the pilot threaded needles that any sane pilot wouldn't dare, looping through valleys and between peaks.

"We're here," he said softly as the Banshee slowed, near a small city lit with flashes of weapons fire.

ShatteredStar whistled softly. Albany was a mess. Half the city was in flames and rows of Cybrid vehicles were trying to ignite the other half. The flash of turret fire kept a flank of Executioners at bay as a formation of Apocalypses and Gorgons made a sally to destroy them. A cluster of Cybrid tanks to the west were crossing the Hudson, their missiles flying up to meet the flyers engaging their fellows from above. ShatteredStar winced as a few Disrupters tried to freeze a group of Adjudicators long enough to ram them to death. That strategy was not going to work here, and the fact that the pilots were foolish enough to try indicated Albany was scraping the bottoms of their reserves. You didn't put people in Disrupters unless they knew tactics.

The Cybrids soon proved him right. The Disrupters' charred wrecks were added to the litter of debris.

"Lock warning."

ShatteredStar punched his controls, bringing the Banshee into a steep dive few missiles would be able to follow. Reading the sensors with a glance he swore: it turned out the missiles were of that select few.

"Brace for impact." ShatteredStar extended his capeshield and draped it over his head.

BOOM.

The Banshee erupted in flames, burning the pilot-- who didn't even have a flight suit on-- to ashes. The fire-suppression pipes burst, spraying white foam everywhere and putting out the flames but not the heat.

ShatteredStar winced as he retracted the capeshield and looked around. The Banshee was filled with smoke. And the bottom was ripped off. He winced as he watched the city streets sliding past below him, the engines spitting flame downward.

"Lock warning."

ShatteredStar hit the decel and the vehicle lurched to a near-stop. He extended the capeshield again and covered his head, hoping none of his combat suit systems had been damaged.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped out of the hole in the bottom of the Banshee just as it erupted in flames again and blew to bits.

He struck the ground hard, rolled. He tumbled into a half-ruined building, grunted as the shock of his deceleration set his bones aching all at once.

"Medsysscan activate," he gasped. The suit chimed once in his ear: no serious injury.

He rose to his feet painfully, looked around. Great. Just great.

A whirring noise behind him made him spin quickly, his bones protesting. A monstrous black-and-silver robot trotted over the ruins, spiderlike, aiming its weapons at him. Rage filled him, speeding his movements to lightning swiftness. He drew his quantum discuses instantly, extending the fan-shaped solitons in front of him just as the Cybrid fired. Its red lasers splashed against his green solitons, dissolving and squirting out at right angles as a harmless beam of scattered light. He spun the discuses in his hands, bringing the solitons in contact. A bright flash lit the night as a swath of green energy exploded from the point of contact to strike the Cybrid, blasting a large section of it clean off.

“Yicons si, agkraz!" he growled, and swung the discus in a wide arc. The two-dimensional soliton sliced though the pilotform like butter, cutting it cleanly in half.

Eat it, glitch.

ShatteredStar put away the discuses, checked his suit computer screen, tapping a quick command into the wrist unit. The most intact section of the city was to the east, across the Hudson. The only intact bridge was half a kilometer away. Who knew what the Cybrids had dumped into the river?

A man appeared from around the building. "I'll save you the trouble; I know where they are."

ShatteredStar wheeled, drawing the ossite cannon and squirting the man once.

"Ah, ossites," he said, grinning. "Go ahead, activate them."

A terrible suspicion forming, ShatteredStar spoke the command. The man just grinned. "Siya, mi navis ez Tasarad."

ShatteredStar glanced at the screen that flashed a warning. The ossites had dissolved after discovering the man's calcium-isotopic ratio matched Tarazedi norms. He looked up, noted the dark eyes and hair, the signature angles of the face, the thin, compact build.

He was a Tarazedi.

---

"How did you arrive here?" ShatteredStar demanded of the impossible man.

"By ship."

ShatteredStar's lips thinned. "My mood is bad."

"Alright. I got here on one of the evac ships that left Tarazed just before the destruction."

"I was informed there were no survivors."

"A few ships escaped. We thought it best to remain under radio silence, under the circumstances. Approximately five thousand Tarazedi still live, plus your task force."

"Five thousand."

"Of a billion," the man agreed. "The ships came from the outskirts of one of the southernmost towns, the last place to be hit with the relativistic bombardment."

"So that's how they did it. Wiped us out by accelerating asteroids at the planet."

"It was... efficient," the man said, bitterly.

"So, you followed us to Sol and set up a base in the Kuiper Belt?"

"After tangling with some of the natives, making enemies and allies."

"Indeed." The Tarazed-Terra Task Force, stranded on Mars, was nearly wiped out by a mass attack by Bek Storm and his forces, before he had met with him and convinced him they were not enemies.

"On Kappa Colony, as they call it, or KBO-65321 as your records will say, there is a rather large force of fighters, with equipment--"

"From? You can't build much on an iceball. No metals."

"You can if you've discovered efficient transmutation of elements."

"I do not have time for fairy tales," ShatteredStar said.

"I'm serious. Come with me and I'll show you."

"You seem to have me mistaken for someone stupid." ShatteredStar rested his hands on his quantum discuses.

The man smiled. "You are coming with me."

Motion in the air made ShatteredStar look up, and immediately shift to a combat stance. A group of black-suited fighters was falling from the building above, the pulsing green glow of gravity reducers glinting off the weapons in their hands.

ShatteredStar's quantum discuses flashed as he brought them forward in a right-angle shielding arrangement.

"You will come with us, conscious or not, Roth," the man said, backing away. The arc of an electrical stunner flashed off the quantum discus, disappearing and reemitting as a beam of red light to the right. He braced his arms and brought the discuses together. A deafening bang resounded through the street, echoing off the buildings. A flash of green energy was emitted from the intersection of the discuses, and flew outward to strike one of the men.

The blast, powerful enough to breach the cockpit of a Disrupter tank, knocked the man over but was absorbed by his combat suit.

ShatteredStar switched tactics, using the left discus to shield himself and slicing the other sword like through the air, cutting the legs off one of the other fighters. Ten more fighters dropped slowly from the building, as ShatteredStar backed off and spun his discus to block a pair of stunbolts.

Tactics, he thought, and slashed the building behind him with his right discus. A gaping hole appeared in the wall, and he ducked inside.

"After him!" the leader called.

ShatteredStar pulled a pistol from his belt and put one of the discuses away. He backed further into the room toward the door on the other side, careful not to trip over the scattered debris in the bombed-out building.

The door burst open. "Allow me to clear the way," a young man said, and brought a shoulder-mounted weapon of unfamiliar origin to bear on the wall. ShatteredStar rolled as he fired. A blast of blue-green energy struck the wall and the entire face exploded outward, burying several of the enemies. Several more people in the same dark blue clothes stepped through the door, each carrying various weaponry.

The black-suited men still standing locked arms-- and shields-- and advanced. "We don't want to blow you away but we will if we must!" the young man said, in formal fourth-dialect Tarazedi. "Roth, go," he said, and brushed past him to engage the enemy.

ShatteredStar stood, unable to decide on a move since he had no idea what side he should even be cheering for. "Stop this," he said, futilely. The newcomers fired on the row of enemies, striking blue flame against their massed shields.

ShatteredStar stepped forward, directly between the two lines. "Stop this!" he demanded. His hand went to his belt and he drew a gas grenade. Covering his face with his capeshield he prepared to set it off.

A fireball blazed in front of him as one of the newcomers blasted the grenade out of his hands with a shot from a laser rifle.

"We mean you no harm," the first man said.

"Liar! You plan to take him to Kappa as a prisoner!"

ShatteredStar looked at the first man. "You were trying," he pointed out.

The young man who led the other side lifted his cannon and blew the first man's head off.

ShatteredStar stared at the burnt wiring hanging out of his neck, then turned and leveled his discuses at his subordinates.

"Cybrids," he spat, now certain where he stood. Angrily, he clashed the discuses together, sending a blast of energy at the linked shields. The new arrivals aimed and fired as well.

The Cybrids self-destructed.

---

"What the hell was that all about?" ShatteredStar demanded, glaring at the smoking building. "And who are you?"

"Kappa is a Cybrid colony, not a human colony. The Tarazedi unlucky enough to land there were captured and their minds stolen by the Cybrids. He was telling the truth about the five ships. Two of them managed to reach a human colony, though, and that's where we're from."

"Oh?"

The man turned to leave. "The Seductress was one of us. She was killed this morning, on the way back here... she died to give you a message."

"Tara."

"Yes. She survives. She only learned of these Cybrids an hour ago or she would never have had you brought here."

"Where is she now?"

"Do you really want to know?"

ShatteredStar hesitated. What if he was captured and his brain drained by the Cybrids? "No," he said. "I don't."

"Suffice it to say she is underground, about two hundred kilometers from here. And safe, at least for now."

ShatteredStar closed his eyes. "Tell her..."

"Tell her yourself. Perihelion takes datacard back to Europa, that will enable you to contact her directly, once."

"Very well... I will return to Europa. But first I must ask, who are you?"

The young man smiled. "Tara's personal guard. She is unguarded at the moment, because she sent us here to protect you."

"Then go back to her," ShatteredStar said, his voice roughening with sudden tears. "Keep my love safe."

He turned and walked away, as quickly as he could.

---

The Conveyer (unaffectionately known as the Worthless) sailed through the black of space toward the rusty brown orb of Jupiter. ShatteredStar rested against the back of the seat as he checked the upper viewscreen, confirming no vehicles in orbit anywhere nearby. Ahead, Europa expanded, a tiny white dot against the bulk of its parent world. Io was invisible on this point of its orbit, hidden behind Jupiter. This was fortunate: with the Cybrid infestation on that world, an approaching ship would be detected and hunted down. The Jovian Alliance forces were doing their best to cleanse the volcanic hellpit, but it was not an easy job.

"Tarazedi Alliance Traffic Control, please confirm your identity," a harsh male voice snapped from the speaker.

ShatteredStar smiled thinly. If they had not already identified him, they would have assumed him hostile and hailed him with a spread of missiles instead. "ShatteredStar here, code Keh Zeh Xet-79, run voiceprint while you're at it."

"Confirmed. Welcome back, sir."

"Put me through to the highest ranking on Europa at the moment please."

"At this hour? Alright..." There was a pause, then a gruff voice with a Tritonian/British accent. "Shat!"

"Siya EagleEye. Sorry to wake you."

"No prob. Welcome back."

"I won't be staying long, I'm afraid. I need to see Perihelion as soon as possible, and also get some dropships with some of the high-accel engines."

"Peri's at Loki."

"Fighting the glitches or arguing with the JA?"

"Both..."

"Heh."

"You've been out of contact awhile."

"Yes."

"And that's all the explanation I'm going to get right?"

"Yes."

There was a pause for a long, disgusted sigh. "I'll have a Banshee to take you to Io, and I'll see about the dropships."

"Yes, and see to the Jovian Defense Perimeter; you have holes in it."

"Sorry sir... the rest of the JA's been slacking and we don't have the manpower for our space patrols.

"You may shortly find it's the space battle that will count," ShatteredStar said softly.

---

"'Star," an unfamiliar man of Venusian pale complexion and quick, efficient movements greeted him as he stepped off the platform into the landing facility on Io.

"Yes?"

"Jaganon, Venus-9."

"Ah, the newest JA members."

"Yes, your folks rescued us from Venus recently."

"What do you need?"

The man produced a small computer from his pocket. "Authorization."

ShatteredStar accepted the device and gazed at the screen, his thick brows arching as he scanned the contents. "No."

"Come on, you don't need those space vessels now! The Cybrids don't have any kind of space force. We need them for orbital bombardment of the Ioan--"

"I am aware of the tactical situation even as you are not. The vehicles you requested will be placed on standby for immediate high-accel launch and escorts will be assigned from the Ganymede flyer forces."

"But--"

"I came to speak to Perihelion, not to argue with you," ShatteredStar said brusquely and brushed past the man.

"Very well, I will go find--"

"EagleEye and have him override me? Careful... I am not part of the Council anymore but I am a tactician. EagleEye will not go against me in something as important as this. He trusts my skills."

"You think the JA High Council will approve you overriding--"

"You may be an equal partner in name, but TA has the forces. If you want to raise havoc with the JA council, go for it. And give the Cybrids another advantage they don't need."

"'Star--"

ShatteredStar locked eyes with the man, then turned and walked away without a word.

"You won't get away with this!" Jaganon called to him. ShatteredStar ignored him.

---

"Shat!" Perihelion dropped his tool kit on the foot of the Executioner he was working on and sat up quickly. "You're back!"

"No. I came for the datacard."

"Ahh... from Tara."

"Correct."

"I'm afraid it was misplaced."

ShatteredStar leapt forward over the piles of equipment on the floor and hauled Perihelion to his feet by the front of his uniform. "What?!"

"Sir, I'm sorry. When we returned to the Jovian system our dropship was attacked and the card was lost in a hull breach--"

ShatteredStar cursed viciously, half with rage and half with grief. "Do you know how much that datacard meant to me?" he said softly, releasing Perihelion.

"Yes... I'm sorry..."

"Who gave it to you?"

"A Tarazedi man who said he was from a Kappa Colony--"

"Kappa Colony? Did you give him any information? Any at all?"

"No, not really, just told him when we were returning to the Jovian system. And I gave him the coordinates to a new human colony we just discovered in the inner Kuiper belt--"

"Aayyaaiiaahh!" ShatteredStar cried. "That man was a Cybrid! And you told him where the colony was?"

"Cybrid? What--"

Quickly ShatteredStar explained his exchange with Tara's guard. Perihelion closed his eyes and swore softly.

"Wait... if he had that datacard then he had access to Tara, at least briefly... oh no..."

"And he also had access to her communications code, and could easily send her a fake message claiming to be you--"

"No, you don't understand. He had to have been with Tara at one point to receive the datacard from her! And that means he could have done something, given her a delayed poison, or virus, or..." His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes, covering them with his hands. "I'm going back to Earth. Tell EagleEye to have the fastest ship there is ready for me on Europa in an hour."

"But what about the colony? My mistake has left them vulnerable to attack!"

"Then you will get to lead a space force to make sure that doesn't happen. We're closer to that colony then Kappa is; we can make it."

"I can't leave Io; we're understaffed as it is and there are no competent commanders at the moment-- wait, you're here, you can serve until Alfers or EagleEye can shuttle over here--"

"No, I must get to Earth, and take a medscanner along, make sure Tara is safe--"

“Shat, you have hundreds of fighters on this planet! You can't just abandon all of them to--"

ShatteredStar met Perihelion's gaze. "You're right. But I am doing it anyway."

"I guess I overestimated the Alliance's importance to you, and underestimated this woman's."

ShatteredStar's voice was cold and quiet. "Yes, I guess you have."

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