Chương 42: Part 42

"All right," Anja said grimly.

"Time to move." Rhuar looked up, then exchanged a glance with David.

"It hasn't been that long," he objected.

"They could just be delayed."

"Only one thing could delay them this long," Anja said, "and the odds of them surviving an extended engagement with Emissaries are not good. At this point they have either died or suffered a loss of mobility - and either way, that means there is no advantage to waiting for them to regroup here. We need to move." David swiped a hand over his face.

"Shit. Can't fault your logic," he said tiredly.

"Want me to call up Tiln?" Anja nodded, and a moment later the Ysleli captain's slender yellow face filled a screen.

"Sir," he said, inclining his head to Anja.

"Any updates?"

"None," Anja replied, "which means we need to head out. How are you on munitions?" Tiln turned offscreen for a moment, listening to one of his bridge officers, then nodded and turned back.

"Marginal," he said unhappily.

"We had to use most of our stores on the last portion of our assigned route."

"All right, damn," Anja sighed.

"I suppose that means we take the remaining routes one at a time. We still have a good portion of our magazine, so save yours for combat and let us take care of the surface targets."

"Aye sir," Tiln confirmed. He opened his mouth to speak again before hesitating, an uncertain look on his face.

"Sir, will we be leaving a marker for the Warfather, or-" Anja gave him a curt nod.

"We will drop a beacon, but we must operate under the assumption that all other ships are destroyed or disabled." Tiln gave Anja a vaguely mutinous look even as he indicated his acknowledgement.

"Aye sir," he replied, "but I don't believe the Warfather would have been stopped by an attack like the one we survived."

"Oh?", Anja said, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

"Why is that?"

"We were not," Tiln said simply.

"And I'm not the Warfather." Anja sighed and shook her head, looking down at the deck. The profound faith that the Ysleli troops held in Tarl was admirable, she supposed, but faith was unlikely to impress the Gestalt.

"Be that as it may," she replied, "we have to assume the worst. Form up with us and prepare to retrace the East route. We will proceed until we encounter the East group's trail, then proceed directly to the South route and work our way back to the antipode." She allowed herself to glance at the small console displaying Jesri's vitals. The graph showing her heart rate had been steadily elevating for the past while, the indicator lights blinking on and off frantically.

"We may not have much more time left to operate freely," she added, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

"Our best option is to complete the East segmentation and bisect the Gestalt networks. That may buy us enough time to finish the job."

"Understood, sir," Tiln replied.

"I will follow your course."

"Stay alert," she cautioned.

"If an enemy group intercepted our team we will likely run right into them. And Tiln...", she said, glaring directly at him with intensity to rival the blazing sun outside.

"I forbid you to solve any problems by ramming your ship into the enemy. I told Tarl you were creative enough to be a good commander. If it comes to that, prove me right and find a better solution."

"Noted, sir," Tiln said dryly, closing the connection with a salute. Rhuar snorted.

"You think he'll listen to you if things go sideways?", he asked.

"Ysleli kind of have a thing for glorious exits."

"I don't know, the idea of blowing up the ship is growing on me," David deadpanned, "The Gestalt could use some competition." Anja gave them a reproachful look.

"Just setting expectations," she said wearily.

"The middle of a firefight is not a good place to have that kind of talk." The tone of her voice lent a sober atmosphere to the bridge while they trundled away from the antipode with the Subtle Blade in tow. The low rumble of the cannons began once more as they engaged targets on the surface, and for a while the bridge was silent but for the roar of destruction. The peace was broken when Rhuar gave a sudden start and snapped his head around to Anja.

"Contact!", he said urgently, commandeering a display. The image was grainy with interference from the star, but Anja could clearly see the twisted hulks of three Ysleli cruisers drifting in a haze of vented atmosphere. The sunward side of the wrecks was a glowing, melted mass of liquid alloys that clung to the remaining debris. She didn't bother to ask if there were survivors. Even the parts shielded from the sun were beginning to glow red with the heat.

"Keep moving, keep firing," she said darkly.

"We need to reach their last position to close the loop." Rhuar nodded mutely and the ship continued onward, although he left the display showing the wrecks. A secondary explosion ripped through one of the hulks as something inside succumbed to the intense heat, tearing the wreckage in half and sending up a spray of metal fragments that quickly incandesced into a brilliant golden fog.

"No sign of activity," David said quietly.

"No drive traces from Emissary ships." Anja grimaced.

"That will change," she muttered. Her eyes darted across her consoles in sequence, suspiciously poring over each empty readout to find the telltale signs of an enemy lying in wait. None came. The bright lines of railgun fire walked their way across the glowing shell until the line of destroyed nodes met the trail left by the East group. David let his breath out in a long sigh.

"Well," he said, "that's that. Do you think it will be enough to slow the Gestalt down while we take out the last quadrant?"

"We have to assume the enemy is operating at full capacity," Anja said, shaking her head.

"If we had any room for error it was used up long ago." She gazed out the viewport as Rhuar wheeled the ship ninety degrees, turning them towards the South route.

"Tiln," she said into the communicator.

"Status check?"

"Fine here, sir," his reply came back immediately.

"I don't want to complain about it being too quiet, but…" He trailed off with a significant look out the viewports. Anja nodded.

"I know what you mean," she said.

"We should make use of any time they give us, whatever their reason." The two fell silent as both ships broke away from the debris field, the Ysleli cruiser trailing behind the Grand Design as it cleared a path through the floating bits of metal. David cleared his throat.

"How's Jesri?", he asked.

"Any change?"

"None," Anja said, absentmindedly caressing the display.

"Heart rate is still up, but well within normal levels." He shook his head and leaned back in his chair.

"If you had asked me this morning I would have said any problems with the op would come from her end." Seeing Anja's face darken, he raised his hands defensively.

"Because it was new territory," he clarified hastily.

"Good old ship-to-ship combat seemed like a sure bet in comparison."

"Nothing more dangerous than the thing you assume is safe," Anja murmured, still focused on the console. Her sister's heart rate had inched upward again as they were talking, the indicator blinking just a touch faster.

"I can't decide whether that level of paranoia would keep me alive longer or not," David muttered.

"How do you survive the stress?" Anja's grim facade softened, and she quirked an eyebrow at David's monitor.

"Says the man who exfiltrated himself from the universe in secret," she retorted.

"I think the years on the outside have made you a bit soft."

"In more ways than one," he agreed, patting his belly.

"Maybe when this is over-""Incoming!", Rhuar shouted.

"Four ships just appeared to starboard, long-range."

"... and there's that stress again," David said mournfully.

"Four ships means it's Emissaries."

"The combined East and South aggressors, most likely," Anja said, settling back into her chair and checking her consoles for battle. Targeting sensors sprang to life at her fingertips, the barrels of a hundred guns realigning themselves as she moved. The four contacts burned a bloody red on the tactical display, the Grand Design a frigid blue. Her eyes reflexively flickered back to Jesri's small monitor, which- She frowned. Jesri's heart rate was dangerously elevated.

She didn't know the cause, but her sister was experiencing extreme stress. She tapped for more data, quickly paging through graphs that all showed sudden spikes. Network activity, brain function, interface power draw-"They're jumping!", Rhuar called out. Anja's attention was pulled away from the console just in time to see the four giant ovoid ships blink into existence within visual range, the slight ripple of their exit lost within the glowing hellscape around them.

"Shit, here goes," Anja said, pushing Jesri forcefully to the back of her mind.

"Tiln, keep moving and take shots of opportunity on our targets," she broadcast.

"Rhuar-""Be where they aren't shooting?", he said, his muscles twitching as he immersed fully into the shipjack. The ship's engines roared low, a throaty and powerful chant that swelled until they were at full power.

"I'll see what I can do." Billions of stars swirled around her like a cloud of fireflies, a chaotic and beautiful storm of light raging as far as she could see. And she could see! In every direction, from every angle, she comprehended the swarm's motion as mere eyesight could never convey. She was left transfixed, floating, carried away on the eddies of lambent fog until her mind danced with abandon in the joy of their turbulent flow.

A nagging worry crept in, however, scratching pitifully at the ecstasy wrapped around her. Contrary thoughts suggested that there was perhaps a greater purpose to her presence in the swarm. She pushed the doubt away, spinning through every facet of the glowing cloud with mindless glee. There was no need for a reason, she thought. The simple experience of being within the light was more than enough, it was more than she had ever aspired to before. A pause. Than she had aspired to… before what? Before she was here?

Her motion through the flow of light jerked uncomfortably, sending her mind reeling in a nauseous spiral as she lost her equilibrium. Before, before. Before she was here. Her mind clamped down, bending her expansive view into something more familiar, something more limited. There was pain again, just as there had been when Trelir- Her mind jolted again, suddenly flooding with burning context. Trelir, the Gestalt. Anja. Her purpose for being here - and the nature of here itself.

Jesri collapsed inwards, Jesri once more, retreating behind the limits of her individuality to shiver and marvel at the vastness she had briefly been. She took stock. The swarm still roiled around her, its beauty diminished now that she could no longer see it as she had just moments ago. Still, the rushing motes of light sparkled with facets and profound depth as they passed. Each one left her feeling as though she was walking by an open door to a hallway that stretched to endless dark and hidden passages.

What had she missed before, flowing in the spaces between the lights? She stared, suddenly fascinated by the parts more than the whole, then peered more closely at a single nearby mote to probe it. It resolved into a branching network of frozen lightning, white as starlight and changeable as water. Almost before the thought of touching it occurred, she found herself hurling towards it until the lightning wrapped around her mind.

A storm of color and sensation assaulted her, driving her sense of cohesion apart in an instant. She writhed under the tempest in a desperate struggle to control the flow, to adapt it to her brain. -woke up, wide-eyed, screaming on the dirty floor of the apartment. She saw Papi kneeling over her, tears in his eyes as his hand gripped hers so hard she could barely stand it.

"Mija," he sobbed, "Dios, Dios por favor, es mi única hija-" There was a blurring, and pain shot through her. She twisted in confusion as a surge of emotions stabbed into her heart. Terror, helplessness, confusion- She sat up abruptly, looking around.

"Where am I?", she asked groggily, but instead of answering her the kneeling man recoiled with a look of horror on his face.

"Vete," he croaked hoarsely, making the sign of the cross as sweat dripped from his pallid skin. His hand shook as he extended it to point at her. The man's eyes shone with purest terror, his tone pleading.

"¿Quién eres? Sal de mi hija, déjanos en paz-" Jesri tore away from the assault of pain and fear, hurling herself back out into the void where she could shrink back into some semblance of calm. Her mind spun in a maelstrom for what seemed like an eternity before she could collect herself enough to think. She regarded each point of light, each individual with a new wariness and respect. There were so many of them, each a universe unto themselves.

Peering into one had been almost impossibly disorienting for her, and the effects- Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. She winced. The tormented look on the man's face and the pulsing feeling of terror vibrating through her still pounded a harsh, metallic beat in her thoughts. What had she done? Seized a young girl's mind and forcefully twisted it to match hers, injecting herself fully into the girl's waking thoughts?

No wonder she was twitching and screaming, driven beyond all reason. No, there had to be a better way. At the very least, she reflected, it solidified her confidence that she had been right to insist on giving people a choice. For all that he griped about bandwidth, David hadn't felt that poor girl's fear tearing at him- Jesri paused, looking out at the vast river of light. David.

If she was going to learn how to operate here without traumatizing everyone in the universe he was her best bet - but finding him would be next to impossible, like picking out a specific grain of sand from a beach. She scrutinized the torrent flowing around her, trying to let her mind barely brush against the rushing lights. An electric shock coursed into her, driving images into her mind like icy spikes.

A man carrying a laughing child on his shoulders walked down a road on a sweltering day, feeling the sweat plaster his shirt to his chest. An ancient matriarch lay stick-thin and gasping in a hospice bed with a nurse's hand gently caressing her bony fingers. A young boy happily chewed a warm cookie, savoring the sweet taste as it blossomed on his tongue. Jesri recoiled once more, flinching away reflexively. Probing haphazardly was far too overwhelming.

She sat for another timeless moment to consider her next move, watching the pinpoints dance in front of her. Each one cavorted on its own path, diving and gliding in concert with the others… Except one. Jesri peered at it, not quite trusting her senses, but the shining point remained fixed as if held forcefully in place. She let herself glide over to examine it, her mind reaching out to touch it as lightly as she could. Razor-sharp purpose and resolve glinted back at her.

A decrepit shell enclosed a practiced core of discipline and skill built around a furnace-flame of passion. She felt the ache of old bones and a deep fatigue permeating to her marrow, the chill air of the room seeping through her joints. Withered lips curved upwards in a smile, and she felt a sensation like eyes meeting. He had been waiting for her. She pulled back from the contact, considering. At David's age, she could very well kill him by inflicting the same torments she had visited upon that young girl.

Slowly, carefully, she dipped a figurative toe into the eddies of his mind. The chaotic deluge of sensation rushed at her immediately, but rather than wrest control of it as she had before Jesri simply sat in the flow and experienced it. It was… uncomfortable. Awkward. She felt like she was standing too close to a stranger, all jostling elbows and bashed knees. Well, David's thought came unbidden. This isn't what I was expecting at all.

His surprise cut through the chaos so clearly that it startled her as well, and Jesri felt the sudden urge to laugh. This is terrible, she giggled. I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel like- Jesri sat at a dirty bar just off the base with five of her sisters, laughing raucously as they exulted in their successful exfiltration from the Valkyrie compound.

Their brutally short military haircuts and matching jumpsuits stood out in the dingy surroundings, but the moment was too rich for any of them to notice that they were out of place. This was their bar for the hour. The cheap beer was bitter on her tongue, though she drank it stoically and tried to look like she wasn't seventeen. When she finished it a stammering midshipman came up and asked if he could buy her another.

Her sisters laughed and catcalled, but she looked him in his eyes and smiled like she imagined a normal girl would. They drank their next beer together and pretended they knew more about the world than they did, and stepped on each others toes when they tried to dance.

David's booming laughter echoed, and Jesri could feel his amusement as he countered with a memory of his own: In a grey, windowless room David finished paging through his presentation, having just summarized a year's hard research into militant groups working to destabilize the Ferron chondrite mining cartels. The section chief was here personally, not just her secretary! His heart pounded in his chest and he felt uncomfortably sweaty.

People began to ask questions, and he answered each one with a cool composure totally removed from the near-panic whirring in his gut. He looked towards the section chief with the stirrings of confidence, hoping to get a glimpse of her assessment of his presentation. Instead, her lips pursed and her eyes flickered down. Heart sinking, David feigned glancing at his notes and felt a pang of horror to see his fly hanging flagrantly open. The presentation was slated to continue for another thirty minutes.

Jesri fired back with her disastrous attempt to bluff her way into a slaver's auction, and David's riposte was a staggeringly painful recounting of the time he gave the best man's speech at a wedding. After a few more rounds they could take no more of the memories. A moment passed while she retreated in amused exhaustion, and Jesri noted that their link no longer felt quite so confining. The harsh flow of sensation had softened, but she also found herself adjusting to accommodate it in turn.

Interesting, David's voice mused, and her head was filled with half-impressions of network diagrams and peer-to-peer topology. Just like a mesh network. The nodes must negotiate to establish a common protocol, only then can transfer occur. Using memories?, Jesri asked skeptically. Experience, David replied. Context for interaction. You show me how your mind works, I reciprocate. Jesri thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. For every one of them?, she asked. One at a time? How long will that take?

Two at a time, David replied reassuringly. Then four, then eight. We will get better as we accumulate more shared experience, more context to find common ground. She felt his intense regard for a moment, accompanied by a complex melange of respect, relief and awe. I'm glad we have you for this, he said. You have more experiences to draw from than a dozen people, and your memory feels perfect - flawless, even. It will make this easier.

She held her skepticism, but David pushed an exasperated thought her way; his epiphanies became hers, and she understood. Everyone essentially developed their own way of looking at the world in a vacuum, and bereft of context two minds were basically speaking alien languages. Language and society let them interact, but they were always abstractions overlying the base code of each individual's mind. Normalizing each one to allow for true interaction on that most basic of levels took effort, but when that was done…

David pulsed vicarious amusement at her realization, then prodded her towards another mote of light. The resistance, he explained. They're already our allies. Bring them in first, let them help us. Jesri reached out again, touching the new mote and wincing as the barrage of its mind struck her. David bolstered her, though, and she was in no danger of losing herself in the chaos. She felt pulses of fear, uncertainty, giddy excitement.

David began talking to the man, and she caught a glimpse of an image - a technician that had been assisting with their setup, a wiry and nervous man with a perpetually serious face. His name was Vadim, but David called him Eddie. Slowly David fed experiences across the link, and after some hesitation Jesri saw others come back. Eddie had grown up with his mother and three brothers in Minsk. She saw his fourth birthday party, and his fortieth.

His joy when he had married, and his horror when David had explained the secret behind the world to him. Jesri showed him her sisters and what the galaxy looked like from beyond the rim. She felt an understanding, and tentative thoughts greeted her across the link. As one, they turned to the rest of David's resistance cell. Annabel, who had cried when David told her of the Gestalt. Mark and Effie, who had never truly believed him until now.

The motes of light drifted together, forming a new flow that clustered and swirled around her in a miniature halo. They reached out for more, faster now. Another cell based in London, another still working out of Pavonis. Eddie's brothers, confused but trusting - and then filled with righteous anger when Eddie shared his knowledge of their purpose. Annabel's daughter, Mark's sister. Some turned away, frightened by what they didn't understand, and at Jesri's insistence they did not pursue them further.

More stayed and listened, however, and the swarming mass of light around them grew. David swept up a few of his old colleagues at Naval Intelligence who still remembered Director Kincaid and shared everything he had been aching to share for so long. The hidden files, the team at Pavonis. MANTRA and the resistance. Jesri felt her connection to David overflow with tearful relief as he unburdened himself of decades-old secrets. There was no question of doubt - David gave them his sincerity, and Jesri her conviction.

All at once, their recruits knew - and with grim resolve, they helped them tell others. And then, like a fire in a dry field, there was the Navy. Jesri's Navy, her home and her only family. Officers inducted by Naval Intelligence spread the word through the ranks as fast as lightning, calling the steel resolve of the Terran Navy into the fold. They stepped into the link almost as one - and with the terrible knowledge of their reality still burning fresh in their minds they turned to look at Jesri.

She threw herself at them with a wordless cry, feeling the rush of the familiar. They returned to her the best years of her life, the thrumming excitement of a ship underway and the easy camaraderie of crewmates. The smell of a freshly fabricated uniform, the slight chemical tickle of the galley's banana pudding, the sound of uniform heels on a clean deck. Opening herself up fully, she gave to them in return her centuries of service.

She showed them her childhood and her training, her first tentative steps into a warship's bridge. The daring raids, the infiltrations, the boring patrols and endless stakeouts. The shared bond of her sisters. And then, as they watched silently, the End. Earth smoldering amid a halo of wreckage. The shattered docks at Pavonis, darkened transit stations hanging lifeless in the void. Wandering, despair.

Glimpses of her sisters that dwindled to just Anja, her constant light in the darkness sweeping in to rescue her when she needed it most. Nihilism, apathy. Centuries drifting from station to station, the ghost in the hallways and the curiosity of Kitan codices. She gave them the rekindling of the spark when Anja called her to Indomitable. Her stunned disbelief as she listened to the captain's recording, the tears glistening in her sister's eyes as she beamed back at her.

She gave them Rhuar and Qktk as they fled the station, gave them Kenet-Tel and his children - and her pain, when they were struck down in front of her. The wonder of finding the Grand Design reverberated through the link, as did the battle at Ysl and their hasty escape through hyperspace. They shared her joy at finding Ellie and her horror at what her sister had become. The revelation of David and the resistance filled them with excitement even as the destruction at Elpis and Ysl weighed on them.

They grieved with her for Qktk and Neryn, Xim Len and the Elpis resistance. More poured out of her and they drank it in, taking in their wayward sister's long exile and harrowing journey to a home she'd never seen. Finally, ending with the fresh memory of the pedestal and her confrontation with Trelir, she backed away from the link and waited uncertainly. The whole of the Terran Navy had seen her life in its barest form, unvarnished and unabridged.

The links between them hummed with titanic forces as they shared her memories with each other, turning them over and reviewing them in minute detail. Then, as one, they turned back to Jesri. A single emotion surged into her, nearly tearing her from existence with its power: PRIDE. The Navy rang with it like a great steel bell as it embraced her, and Jesri dissolved into their welcoming arms with a choked sob of gratitude.

Every failure that had weighed her down, every crushing feeling of inadequacy evaporated as if it had never been. None of it mattered to them. Anja and Jesri had kept the beacon lit against all odds. They had kept humanity alive in their hearts when all else had perished, and for that her brothers and sisters loved her unreservedly. But as the glow of their fierce approval faded and the links between them grew quiet, another emotion crept in like seeping oil.

It built in a slow resonance through the joined minds, and motes of light began to fly towards the halo faster and faster as the Navy turned outward to their families and friends. It was now a blinding maelstrom, spinning with minds in their billions as they found their voice in this new and strange world. And when that voice spoke, it spoke of vengeance. Anger swirled within the flood of light, surging through Jesri in a wave of incandescent fury.

There was no thought of resistance or moderation, for it was her anger too. All of the death, the destruction and ruin visited upon them by the Gestalt - humanity had seen it in full, and now the bill was due. The motion of the lights stopped, and Jesri drew in a breath. When she let it out, she was in a small room with a low table and a single window. The table was bare save for the empty pattern of a Go board etched into it, and Jesri stood alone.

She cocked her head and found herself looking at Trelir's surprised face. He blinked, then stared at her as she walked over to her chair and took a seat.

"You," he breathed, an accusatory tone in his voice.

"What did you do?" Jesri smiled back at him.

"Surely the Gestalt wouldn't need to ask a pitiful thing like me for information," she said acidly. Trelir's face darkened.

"Humor and tricks will not save you or your sister," he said warningly.

"I was kind to you before. Tell me what you did to reclaim this space and call me here or I will send you to an industrial acid vat rather than that pleasant park." Rising to her feet, Jesri let her smile expand to a predatory grin. She opened her mouth to speak, and a billion voices said:"TRY IT." A moment passed, and Trelir's face worked through several complicated expressions. Finally he shook his head and sat down at the table.

"Impudence," he muttered.

"Do you know what you've done? That simulation required a considerable amount of our resources to maintain, and now you've disrupted it irreparably." He steepled his fingers.

"We will have to reset everything." Jesri said nothing, but grinned wider. In the periphery of her awareness she felt the furious masses of humanity seething through the Gestalt's network, abusing her administrative access to wrest control over the simulation away from the Gestalt. Network links were sabotaged in an eyeblink, routing tables deleted or rewritten with nonsensical data. A second passed, and the simulation remained. Trelir looked at her with suspicion, then shock, then resigned annoyance.

"Humans are nothing if not stubborn," he sighed.

"But this is still just a childish tantrum. All you change is the amount of effort needed to effect repairs after we eradicate you. The outcome is fixed. Your fate cannot be changed."

"No outcome is fixed, Trelir," Jesri said.

"You wanted to understand our 'penchant for hopeless holding actions', but you can't without understanding hope first. Helplessness, panic, all the things you left behind when you decided that you were perfect. You can't understand not having all the facts, the uncertainty of war and conflict sowing doubt in your mind."

"And why would we?", he scoffed.

"Why bother with coping techniques for primitives when we can choose perfection instead?"

"Because perfection is a lie," Jesri said quietly, walking toward him.

"Perfection is the rejection of improvement, a declaration that you can be no better than you are. It's a sad, stagnant condition for a sad, stagnant being." Trelir seemed to swell with rage, his black eyes glittering.

"Pity?", he seethed.

"You upjumped vermin have no standing to feel pity for the Confluence. You think you're strong, wise, having discovered the most basic form of Confluence. We surpassed what you are long ago." Fury billowed within her, and Jesri took another step forward. She felt armies surging within her, overflowing their containment to race along the Gestalt's network with untempered ferocity. They burned through data nodes, a cleansing poison pumping through their enemy's veins.

"Can you feel it?", Jesri asked softly.

"I couldn't beat you, but they're strong. They don't care what you are or how long you've been 'perfect'. Now that they're free, now that they know the truth, they won't stop until you're dead."

"They are surprisingly competent," Trelir admitted.

"But still primitives. Still bound by the weaknesses of language and society," he said, closing the rest of the distance between them.

"Still bound to form and hierarchy." He jabbed a bony finger at Jesri's face, his voice a lethal hiss.

"That means I don't have to defeat them," he whispered.

"I just have to defeat you."