Raven

"Boss, I've got a confirmation on the fed's emergency distress beacon."

Joche winced and turned away from the big screen in the command center.

"Thank you, Thom," he acknowledged. "Let me know as soon as there is any action from the town."

"I'll try to get a link to the fed grid," Thom acknowledged.

"Joche--"

He looked up wearily and found a dozen eyes on him. "Yes, Louie?"

"What are we going to do?" Louie asked, and Joche squared his shoulders. He had never really asked for this, had fallen into it. And now he was halfway to a battle commander.

"Any word from the Axe?" he asked instead.

"No, nothing. I've been sending the static burst every five minutes." Thom looked up anxiously from his comms board and asked the question they were all thinking. "Do we go to plan Medjai?"

It was too fast. If Travis had been in contact -- but he wasn't, and no point worrying what that meant.

"Joche, we have to do something -- the children..." Louie said. He was no doubt thinking of his own daughter, only four years old. And his son, who was still out there somewhere, sold away from his family aged eight.

Joche nodded once. "Execute Medjai. And get Doctor Jackson up here. I'll be in my office."

Joche sat down at his desk and with a tired sigh rubbed his hand across his face. How had one lousy little renegade from Sept Apman manage to send things to hell so fast? It wasn't even as if he had won; Larabee's ruse had worked astonishingly well. And all that -- the explosives, the power expenditure on the holoprojector, all for nothing.

"Someone get me word on Dunne's status," he asked through the command net and shut back down again after the instantaneous acknowledgment.

There was a beautiful inevitability to the entire thing. Of course the fed would get hit. Of all the things that could possibly wreck the entire operation -- not just getting out from Apman's grasping little hands, but the Foldpath itself -- it had to be Dunne who was out there, and of course it was Dunne who got shot. After that he could only watch the cascade effect, each event tumbling the next into action.

He was betting that Apman and his people were going to hole up somewhere, and hope like hell that no one gave chase. They'd be licking their wounds for a while. Of the fifty mercenaries fielded, nine were still lying out there, dead. Apman had abandoned the living and dying alike, like the profiteering monster that he was. He hadn't even stopped to pick up his injured. Four mercenaries had still been alive when the dust cleared, and had been taken into the camp. His lips tightened. They were going to have to decide what to do with them.

He shook his head. A headache for another day. Include them in the evacuation and worry about it when they were healed.

More worrying was Second Wells, and her reaction to Dunne's emergency message. Stupid fucking feds. It wasn't the kid's fault, exactly. But the second his heart stopped a flash burst had saturated every comms frequency going. Chances were, all the data currently stored in Dunne's temporary memory storage plus gps and biostats hit Last Chance within nanoseconds of being emitted. Which meant Second Wells was probably riding to the rescue right now, probably under the impression that her boss had died in some kind of ambush.

If they were lucky she'd take time to review the footage. If they weren't, she'd ask questions later...

He checked the time. Only fifteen minutes had passed. At top speeds she would be here in about thirty more minutes. They'd be lucky to get just the kids out. The adults were just going to have to scatter and make their own way to the reserve site.

Apman wasn't about to turn himself in. He was too busy running scared. Even if Wells caught up with him first, he was more likely to tell anyone who cared to listen that the cybes of Camp Hugo had run amok. And who would a fed be more likely to believe?

There was a good chance that that Dunne's Second would come in with every intention of letting God sort out the righteous.

He sighed. He'd gotten used to living in one place. They'd gotten used to somewhere that was technically in Federation space, but effectively outside of Federation law. He shook his head as a silent alarm warned him the doctor was on his way in. Funny how Travis's well intentioned addition of a couple of young feds to clean the place up had thrown a spanner in the works.

A tap on the door made him straighten up in his chair, and his face was carefully arranged into neutrality as the man walked in the door.

"How is First Dunne?"

"Not good," Jackson said bluntly, and grimaced. "I shouldn't have left him."

"We have other --"

"I know that. I'm just saying it doesn't look good. If you want a live fed at the end of today, I need to get back to him."

Joche nodded. "So it would be a good guess that you don't want him moved." Nathan shook his head, and Joche let no hint of his dismay show. If Dunne couldn't be moved then they were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. "And Larabee?"

Jackson frowned, puzzled. "The last time I checked he was asleep. I'm considering medication--"

"Not if it's going to affect his psi function," he said swiftly. "Sorry," he added at Jackson's irritated look.

"But," Jackson ignored the interruption, carrying on as though Joche hadn't spoken, "it risks destroying autonomic controls over his psi." He shrugged. "I don't even know what psionics he has. Medical science can't predict the exact effects of a specific drug on him even if I knew what he was capable of. If we know anything about the human mind, it's only that it continues to have more mysteries than we seem able to fathom."

Joche nodded impatiently. "Can he be moved?"

The doctor blinked. "Well, yes, but--"

"No buts. Get him ready for transport. Drug him if you have to, to get his compliance, but we are on a countdown--" he checked the time again "--and we're expecting visitors in about twenty minutes, max. That means you've got about seven."

"Visitors?"

"Federal visitors," Joche said grimly. Jackson still didn't seem to get it, and said patiently, "Dunne's emergency beacon activated when his heart stopped. Wells is probably coming down on us like the Eumenides themselves."

Jackson's eyes widened. "You're leaving? But Casey wouldn't -- "

"I don't have time to discuss it. You might know her, but I'm not willing to risk two hundred souls on your say-so. What I need to know is if Dunne is up to--"

"No! Absolutely not." The doctor looked away for a second and then back again, as though he'd made a decision. "It wouldn't make any difference. Wells can probably track him from space if she has to."

Joche nodded. He'd more or less come to that conclusion himself. Well then. "Are you prepared to stay with him?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good. I'll arrange for someone to give you a safe area to stay."

"Can't he--"

Joche looked at him, feeling too tired for words. "We're going to blow the installation. Your choices are to move him a small distance, and survive, or move him with the evacuation effort and keep him in a medical facility. You have about --" he checked the clock again, "-- five minutes to decide. If you'll excuse me?"

He walked back to the main command room, and was pleased to see most of the boards had already been stripped. As he watched, Gunhio ran in, scooped up another stack of boxes, and sprinted for the up shaft and the hangars.

Maybe something was going right.

Everything tagged as essential should already be leaving. He leaned into the grid briefly and smiled. Good. First transport was heading out. Drones were covering until it got into cover and then would split to the secondary decoy zone. The children were out.

He relaxed minutely. It wasn't over, but that was one good thing. Now to wait for Wells.

*~^~*~^~*

"Calmly, child," Nettie advised as Casey sprinted for the big emergency aircar, mentally running down the list of equipment. Emergency med stuff. Stass kit. Every weapon on the premises. Emergency activation codes for the 'car -- she'd not even gotten around to getting accredited on it, and now she was going to have to fly it into whatever killed JD.

She shivered. Up until about fifteen minutes ago the job hadn't been real. She'd thought it was as real as it could be, but it hadn't. She hadn't known anything.

JD was dead.

She screwed her face up, driving back tears, fears, everything. "Fall apart later," she ordered under her breath. "Any word from the Axe?" she asked, louder, and the Fed Grid AI was kind enough to overlook her almost breakdown.

"Nothing. I'm leaving a bounce signal for the Pentecost, if they open comms it'll pass on the situation."

"Situation! What exactly is the situation, Nettie?" Casey snapped, then drew a deep breath. "God, how can he be dead?"

"You don't know that," Nettie pointed out, not for the first time, and Casey shook her head.

"His heart stopped! You think there was someone on hand to get it going again?"

"Dr. Jackson's ident tracks to within one click of the First's last known position."

Casey nodded. "Any more data?"

"Still got jamming in progress."

"Larabee and the others?"

The AI hesitated. "I have a possible ident on the perpetrator of the escape."

"And?" Casey settled into the seat of the vehicle and slapped her hand on the activation pad.

"Authorization code?" Nettie asked immediately.

"Aunt Nettie! Oh, fine, right," she twisted her wrist to touch the Federal authorization chip to the pad. "There, happy?"

"Authorization accepted. Procedure is there for a reason, Casey," Nettie said sternly.

The car rumbled into life, and she hauled it almost vertically up off the ground. The engine whined with the strain and she reflexively eased back on the power, waiting for the red lights to stop blinking before pushing it as hard as she could. "Aunt Nettie, release full emergency measures. Authorization Wells, C. J. 2387 BX7T 538."

"Authorized. Limits off."

Casey took a deep breath and drove the vehicle up into the red on every telltale, manually locking in a path to JD's last known position. "Hold course, Aunt Nettie," she said.

"Noted. Estimated time to arrival, sixteen minutes."

*~^~*~^~*

Nathan hurried out of Joche's office, the man was clearly distracted -- and if he was afraid of the feds coming, Nathan was hardly surprised. He picked up his pace as he approached the drop shaft and seconds later was walking out again, towards the room where Larabee still lay.

"What to do with you," he wondered under his breath. To his surprise Larabee's head turned, rolling on the pillow until the man could see who had spoken. If Nathan had had any ill intent the man would already be dead. He spread his hands out.

"Where--"

"Where are you? Camp Hugo."

Larabee looked annoyed. "Where ev'one?"

Nathan looked at him, noting the slur in Larabee's voice, trying to decide how much information to give. Was he tired, or fighting the effects of the drugs, or had his mind been permanently affected by his break? What would he be able to cope with? Too much might overwhelm the recovering mind; too little would lead straight back to that distrust and anger ... He took too long, because Larabee attempted to push himself up, and was stopped by the restraints.

"What the -- let me go," he said, soft and clear.

Nathan hesitated again. The slur had been him waking then. So-- he winced, shook his head as pressure built inside his skull. He'd never felt anything quite like it, but that didn't mean he didn't know what it was. He gritted his teeth. "Fine. Give me a minute." He swiftly checked the corridor, then shut the door and locked it. He was under no illusions that the cyborgs would be happy that he had released the priest. A churchman -- a priest inquisitor no less. Nonetheless his hands remained steady, and it was the work of seconds to unlatched the restraints. "Can you get up?"

Larabee nodded and tried to sit up. It took him two tries to swing around so his feet were on the ground, but once he'd got that far it was as though he did the rest on automatic. "Clothes?" he demanded, looking around. "What's the emergency?"

Nathan glanced at him, "Drawer," he nodded to the cabinet by the bed. "Your guns are there too."

"Thanks," Larabee said grudgingly. He checked them swiftly, even as Nathan wondered at himself. Was it really entirely wise to release the PI? And give him his weapons?

"Nope," Larabee grinned a death's-head smile at Nathan as he turned, still wearing only an shirt and underpants. "Hands up."

Nathan stared at the live weapons in the man's hands, pressed his lips together hard, and then raised his hands. "Mr. Larabee, Chris, there ain't time for this nonsense. We got trouble coming."

"Apman? Face down on the bed, Jackson," Larabee ordered, stepping away from the bed.

"No -- I mean, no, not Apman!" he corrected hastily as Larabee's trigger finger twitched. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked up, hoping to persuade him-- "You can't--"

Oh, can't I? Larabee's voice whispered in his mind, and he swore. The damned PI had seized his mind.

"No, just influenced you," Larabee said cheerfully. He gestured with one of his guns. The other stayed rock solid pointing at his head. "Face down, Doc."

"Dunne died. The other fed is coming -- the children..."

Larabee paused and Nathan pressed the opening. "If she comes in all guns blazing, someone's going to get hurt."

"Kid's dead, huh?" Larabee said. "Too bad. I said --"

"No, he's alive. He just died until I got to him."

"Fucking doctors, never could leave well alone." He wasn't looking quite as determined to hold Nathan hostage though. "Where is he?"

"Safe." Which was an outright lie, and a bad mistake, he realized, as the gun came back up. "As safe as I can make him," he amended.

"Okay. And there's a plan? Or are all y'all just running around like headless frakken?"

Nathan suppressed his urge to smile. "The gu lao--"

Larabee's eyes narrowed, and Nathan winced. He hadn't meant to set the PI after Joche. Maybe he'd get a chance to apologize later.

*~^~*~^~*

Frances stared stoically ahead and tried not to flinch at spittle hit her face. Apman was in rare form.

"Thirteen! Thirteen top class mercenaries!" Nine missing. Four injured. Not a good start to a 'simple action'. She carefully didn't look as he stalked away and reached into the med box to slap yet another stim patch onto his wrist. By the time she looked back up, he was back in her face.

"What the fuck happened, Frances? This was a milk run! These were cybes for fucks sake. How the hell did they get the better of you?"

Ah. She kept her eyes on the middle distance. It was to be her fault. She wondered if her husband would ever find out what had happened, if Katie and Joshua would ever learn the fate of their mother. Shot by a renegade Clan boss after an illegal attack on an inoffensive cyborg camp, on some pissant little world off the wrong side of the Rim.

A hard edge slammed into her face and rocked her for a second. She resumed her blank face. Somewhere, deep inside some part of her was whispering, Corcoran, Frances, 57 83 29 50 TXW Human, 2569. Corcoran, Frances...

*~^~*~^~*

Ezra wasn't exactly sure how he came to be in the hold of a battered sub-orbital freight transport. It didn't even have the virtue of being in some way designed to accommodate humans. There were no seats, no boxes even, just a filthy floor and walls with hooks, straps and nets scattered in such a way that there was no chance to sleep comfortably anywhere. There was air, and he supposed he ought to be grateful that the living cargo meant they fully pressurized the hold, but it was cold, noisome and wretched.

The hold smelled of oil, or at least, that was the predominant scent and the only one he was prepared to identify; an acrid sort of tang that caught at his stomach and settled particle by particle in his lungs. He settled into one of the nets, leaning back against the wall gingerly, sparing a thought for the filth doubtless even now staining into his much abused clothing. The cargo net wasn't too uncomfortable, and he bounced gently. Perhaps they had planned for humans, or at least cyborgs, after all.

"Silly Ezra," Tors whispered, caught between delight at the bouncing and fear. He smiled down at the small, dark head ruefully. The children clung to him yet, warm and full of unsolicited trust, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Tors, elfin faced and slight, leaned against him and pressed a snuffling kiss to his cheek, while Hassan settled cross legged beside him and wriggled into his side until Ezra's arm was over the boy's shoulder. By their size neither could be much more than five or six. Considering cybes were bred for strength and looks, they could even be much younger.

The transport lurched and several of the children cried out, and Ezra wrapped a strap around his wrist, hooked a foot into the synthetic cables that made up the cargo nets and held on, praying that the death grip Tors had around his neck would suffice to keep her steady. Hassan's hands clutched painfully at him, snaring shirt and flesh alike, and he was reminded forcibly that these children were stronger physically than he was.

"Everybody okay?" Mareen asked, walking with improbable grace across the uneven floor.

"As snug as bugs in rugs," Ezra said with forced good cheer. Tors giggled into his neck, and from near his chest a small voice asked,

"How's bugs get in rugs, Mis't Ezra?"

Ezra blinked a little, "Well, you know what a bug is?" Hassan nodded solemnly.

"Sometimes we gets bugs."

Ezra gritted his teeth. "Well, these bugs are the kind that curl up in --" he paused, "soft floor coverings, so they are nice and warm."

"Huh." Hassan frowned. "Our bugs don't curl up. We get virus scans and blat 'em, splat! Splat!" He slapped Ezra's thigh to demonstrate and Ezra winced.

"Silly," Tors said, "he means insects."

Hassan glared right back, and Ezra raised his eyes to the ceiling for help. It was not forthcoming. "How about I tell you a story?" he said hastily.

"Yeah!"

Ezra smiled, and racked his brains for stories suitable for children. And cyborg children at that. Ye gods. He looked up to find Mareen grinning wickedly at him. He tried very hard not to let his annoyance show.

Here he was, with about three billion cred worth of untrained, malleable cybes cuddled up to him trustingly, and all he could do was tell bedtime stories. All the better, a small voice that sounded oddly like his dear, late Mama, to keep them under control when you leave. He pressed his lips tightly together. Not children, he told himself firmly, but the thought of what he could do with three billion lurked, why, even Granot could be bought off for that sum. He could live a life of luxury, far away from the smell of oil and the gritty feel of sand between his teeth.

"Once upon a time," he began, "There was a--"

And he stopped. No. His mother would have told that story, and he was not Maude. No carpenters called Gepetto.

"--a little girl, who lived with her Momma in a little village in the woods. Her grandmother lived the other side of the forest, near another village..."

Little Red Riding Hood, and the warning against plausible, kindly sounding, fair seeming strangers was much more appropriate. Children seemed to drift, without actually moving, towards him, until Tors crawled onto his lap, staking a claim. Hassan was asleep, and he was pretty much pinned by small warm bodies by the time the transport came to a halt, landing with a faint jolt and a distant whine that spoke of docking gear being engaged.

"You need a hand there?" Mareen reappeared, and held one out to him. He looked around him and smiled ruefully.

"Thank you, I believe I do." He shifted a little and Tors clutched at him.

"No!" she protested, but didn't really wake up.

"Let me," Mareen said easily, and gripped him under the arms, and lifted him to a standing position, Tors still held in his arms.

"Hush," Ezra said firmly, and Tors' thumb slid into her mouth, eyes still shut. He couldn't help quirking a smile at the small child, and hitched her up higher.

"We're here?"

"Yes," Mareen said. "Everyone, quickly and quietly. Silence is still the order."

Silent nods came all around her, and Ezra bit back his questions. Where were they? How far had they traveled?

"Group leaders, find you groups. Stand by a wall. Groups, go to your leader. Yenna, stay with Ezra. He'll need some help getting in." Mareen singled out one of the younger teenagers. The girl's fair blonde hair was bound tightly back in a long braid that she was chewing the tail of.

The girl nodded. "Hassan isn't in my group," she pointed out, and Mareen nodded.

"Okay. Who has Hassan?"

A brown haired boy waved from his group. "Me, Teach."

"Go on then, Hass," she encouraged. The boy scowled, but obeyed.

"Yenna will look after you," she said directly to Ezra, "She's in charge, listen to her. The security here is tight. Screw up and you die."

"I understand." He bowed to the serious faced child standing in front of him, never breaking eye contact with her, "I put myself completely in your hands, xiao nu."

"Follow me," she said simply, and walked towards the exit of the hold. Some kind of order was clearly in effect. The groups left one at a time, five children and a teenager, the littlest ones being carried. There was no talking, scrambling or arguing. As his group moved up Ezra saw the last of the previous group sprinting out of sight down a long corridor.

"Ready?" Mareen asked.

"Yes, sir." The girl touched her palm to a discreetly hidden identifier pad. Light glimmered for a second, and she drew a deep breath. "Can you run?" she asked Ezra with a mischievous look.

"Certainly, I--"

"Then run." And without signaling a hint of it she broke into a sprint. He followed instantly, wishing that he'd put Tors down. It didn't take him more than seconds to notice the discolored areas of wall, irregular distances, heights and all oval in shape. Weapons ports. He was gasping for air -- he hadn't really exercised since the last time he went skydancing two years previously -- and his throat burned, but he did not allow that to slow him. Tors woke. The tension in her body was clear and she struggled.

"Be still," he ordered. "It's not safe." And like that, she was quiescent. The child had clearly learned the necessity of silent obedience. His face grew grim, wondering how a five year old had learned that lesson -- and why.

He hastened after the rest of the group, Yenna's little klatch of cyborg children ahead of him and outstripping him despite his longer stride. He wondered how often they had run like this.

*~^~*~^~*

"What do you mean, you've evacuated everyone else?" Chris felt he was being remarkably calm, all things considered.

Joche smiled enigmatically at him. "Everyone except those in this rooms, priest," he corrected. "And the First, and the Doctor."

Chris waited a moment, but Mendeleyev made no further additions.

"There are six people in this entire place."

"Yes."

"And you didn't evacuate us with the rest because...?"

Joche sighed. "Because the doctor refuses to leave the fed. The fed cannot be moved. My esteemed old friend refuses to leave you. And you were unconscious."

"And Tanner?"

Joche looked at Tanner, who looked up from cleaning his nails out and shrugged. "Seemed polite."

"Polite." Chris's tone was anything but.

"Sure. I invited you to the party. Be rude to leave without saying something." Tanner nodded thoughtfully, and Chris felt the urge to smack the man rise up. Or possibly laugh.

"You've said something."

Vin inclined his head. "True." He looked at Joche, "Mind if I stay a while?"

"You're always welcome here." Joche looked more serious than Tanner's facetious comment had required, and he added, "You should know that, son."

Tanner's face closed up and he went back to digging under his nails for dirt.

"And it doesn't bother you that I'm holding you at gunpoint?" Because he had to admire the cool of a man -- cybe, whatever, who could simply ignore a pulse gun trained on his head. Jackson's eyes were on the fed; the fed was unconscious. Sanchez appeared to be meditating. At any rate he was smiling beatifically in the distance, his eyes shut. Somewhere along the line, the PR for PIs had been under funded or something.

Joche smiled at him. "What exactly will you do with it? Kill me? You do Apman's work for him. Not kill me? Why then I have no need to fear you."

Chris hated it when people did that to him. He smiled and put the gun away. "Okay. So. There's six of us -- where'd the weasel go, by the way? -- and Apman's on his way."

"Apman's been and gone. You missed that bit," Jackson told him, carefully adjusting med levels on the fed's patches. "Of course, you were out of your mind and hallucinating."

Chris blinked. "I was."

"Oh yes." Tanner casually pushed up a sleeve. "Took to chewing the scenery like a crazed dog." Chris looked, appalled, at the mess of bruises and clearly delineated bite marks.

"I--"

"Yup." Vin looked up. "You might wanna consider dentures. Caught Ez a good one too. And the kid." He looked around thoughtfully. "Actually, I'm not sure it wouldn't be quicker to list off who you didn't attack."

"Time is being wasted. You should come with me, or stay with Mr. Dunne," Joche said firmly. Chris shrugged.

"Where are you going?"

"To hell, priest, with all the rest of the damned souls that Apman seeks."

"Sounds good to me." Something about the kid made him very, very uneasy. Almost as though voices were talking right on the edge of his senses, voices he knew...

"Mr. Larabee?"

"Nathan, he's -- "

Chris drew a deep breath and shook his head. "Let's go talk to the girl then."

The others blinked.

"Chris, who said anything about a girl?" Jackson asked. One of his hands slid into his medical box, and Chris glared at him ferociously.

"You did. You said the other fed was coming. She is who you meant?"

"She is, but --"

"Leave him be, Nathan," Josiah said, and unhooked his legs from their half lotus. "Miss Wells will want to see that Jedediah is well, and that her erstwhile priest prisoner is safe. Then she will leave."

They all looked at him dubiously, and he spread his hands with an oddly impish smile. "Well, I can dream, right?"

Chris found himself staring at the man. "I know you."

"We met in Last Chance. A chance meeting."

Chris shook his head slowly. "No. No. That's not it."

"Not now," Josiah said softly. Chris tried to see inside the man's head, and came up against a wall the likes of which he couldn't copy, much less breach.

"And they let you go?" he whispered, almost to himself. Sanchez's lips twisted.

"No. Not let go. Fear too much to do that. Perhaps," he thought a moment, "perhaps, let be."

Chris opened his mouth to ask another question and Josiah shook his head. "Later. She's here."

A second later a rapid fire beeping sound started and Joche shook his head as though he'd been hypnotized into silence. Chris slid a surreptitious look at Josiah. Maybe he had been.

*~^~*~^~*

Casey drew a deep breath. Scan. Assess. Diagnose. Implement. She looked at the screen again. It had been much easier in the training reality, when she knew the bodies weren't real. Okay. She could do this.

"We've got a total of nine dead bodies?"

"Yes, Second," Nettie said formally, and Casey set her jaw. Right.

"You're sure about JD? It can't be someone else faking him or something?" She winced at the anxious tone in her voice, but the AI ignored it.

"Yes, xiao nu," Aunt Nettie said kindly. "I'm getting a steady update on his condition. There has been some damage but the healing protocols seem to have been implemented quickly enough to minimize long term damage. The prognosis seems good."

"Darn." She grinned briefly, "No chance of dead man's boots, then?"

"Cassandra Wells!"

Casey laughed softly. Nettie might not find it funny, but JD would. And even if he didn't, she did. Okay. She cleared her mind. JD was seriously injured, so that meant that she was going into not just a hostage situation, but one where she had to get complete control as fast as possible in order to ensure JD got the time he needed.

Current assets stood at her, the weapons and the vehicle. And Nettie. "Is JD going to be up to helping at all?"

"Federale Dunne appears to be unconscious."

"Frakken."

Okay. Maybe Doctor Jackson would help. She couldn't count on him -- and if he was in the other guys' side he would tell the rest of them before she had a chance to stop him. No. Best not involve him. Either way though at least someone had seen to it JD got treatment.

"Deducts a couple of months, I guess," she said absently. "Okay, got two unidentified cybes, the whirligig man, how much trouble is he gonna be?" She thought, and pursed her lips. "The tranq gun?" She didn't want to have another priest seriously injured because of her. Not if an Inquisitor General was on his way to check on Larabee. Hmm. Actually, tranqs might be best all 'round.

"Seems a good plan."

"Larabee's there, he might be on our side. But he might not -- after what happened he might prefer to take his chances with the bad guys."

"He's a priest," Nettie said reprovingly.

Casey rolled her eyes. AIs were all very well, but there were some glaring gaps in the education of the federal grid. "Yes, that's my point," she said patiently. "Who knows which way he'll jump? It'll be whatever suits him, the Church and the Alliance best. In that order."

"That's assuming he's up to jumping," the AI observed astringently, and Casey flinched. Okay. The guy probably wasn't going to be up to much after getting cell stopped, sick, and well. Everything. "How many others?"

"That's it."

Casey looked at the layout on her screen. "There's all six in one little room. JD's not moving. One of the cybes is walking to and fro, everyone else is staying in position. Any defenses?"

"None on the area they are in. However, scanning the mountain face behind them is a different story," Nettie said coolly. "Passive indicates solid state explosives mined through the complex." In front of Casey's eyes the cliff face opened up. "We've got four layers here. Passive, active, mined, and then lots of empty space."

"Huh."

"You could go right through all of that and still not find anything."

"I get that, Aunt Nettie."

The AI sniffed.

"Okay. Hail them."

*~^~*~^~*

Travis gripped the edges of his seat hard, despite the webbing holding him in place, and the suit keeping him safe. He stared into the open vacuum facing him, hard eyed, determined not to say a word. A blow hit the ship and his hands tightened until he felt the bones creak. He'd never been so scared in his life. God, Evie, he thought, I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. He closed his eyes as another blow struck the Pentecost. They were breaking her apart, a life at a time.

"Captain, I've got Church tags coming up fast on tac -- zero seven five light years and closing!"

Travis looked up eagerly listening to the command grid.

"How many?" Captain Friedricks snapped. "Full report, lieutenant."

"Sir. Two; one light cruiser, one light gunship. They're moving at point nine c, they will close with the enemy vessel in less than half a minute!"

"Status?"

"Hot."

Travis frowned. A pair of church ships? Out here? Even as he realized that maybe the Pentecost had a chance after all, he worried. What were they doing out this far? Pretty convenient to show up right now, when the System Axe was under attack in his light cruiser.

"Cap, we can pincer them if we lay in this heading right now!"

Travis listened without comment to the traffic on the bridge net. Captain Friedricks let him keep a thread into it as long as he kept his nose out of command decisions -- she told him that it gave him something to do other than bugging her every ten minutes for status reports. He appreciated that; he'd dealt with overly curious superiors in the past himself, men who had no idea what he did, but felt they ought to contribute to him doing it. He returned the favor by keeping his mouth shut and avoiding telling the captain how to do her job.

"No," Friedricks said. "Maintain course. We're in no position to render assistance."

The captain's voice was dry with irony. They were in desperate straits indeed if she was refusing to join battle. Leah Friedricks had never been a coward.

He waited tensely but nothing came through. He missed the idle chit chat that Friedricks normally permitted. Not appropriate to battle -- he wasn't appropriate to battle. The time was long past that he wanted to roar into combat. He was old, he hadn't fired a shot in anger in sixty years, and even then he'd been in an orbital installation rather than out in space. Back then, no matter that he was as likely to die within sight of his home world as in the depths of space, it had been comforting to watch world-rise in the mornings, and see it setting in the evenings as the installation slowly turned.

No such comfort now. Celaeno was a million parsecs away. No quick visit home. Maybe no visit home, ever. Tianya was still a orange ball glowing dimly in space. Here on the outskirts of the system he had been prepared to accept they would die.

"Pirates still closing, sir. They haven't seen the Church ships yet."

"Or they don't care," someone muttered, and Travis shook his head. Strange to think that the pirates and the Church probably had the same motives in tracking his ship. Not so strange. But the Church would assist, had to under their charter.

Please.

"Evans, deploy fakers on my mark. Start with three. I want one high, one on our one-eighty, and one straight ahead with our tags, send her out first, then the others. Traize, can you jink us into stealth when the ringer goes?"

"Not for long."

"Long enough to give all four points a slightly different heading?"

"No prob, Cap," Traize said cheerfully.

"Good. Zeke, drop us to the new course the second we go into stealth. Evans, where are those ringers?"

"Aye, sir," Travis just about heard Zeke say as Evans replied over him.

"Two seconds, sir." A pause as the woman finished up programming the bots. "Good to go, sir."

"On my mark, people -- mark!"

"Stealth on."

"Fakers away, sir."

"Stealth off."

"New course on the line, sir." Travis could hear the jubilation in Traize's voice. "She's not following us!"

Travis didn't feel the course change. His whole body slumped. Thank God. Not just for him, but the youngsters on the bridge. And the cargo. In the privacy of his damaged quarters he could allow himself the weakness of relief. He hoped it wasn't premature, but it sounded like the damn pirates had been run off.

"Look at her go!" someone exclaimed, and Travis hastily reviewed the visuals, trying to figure out what the person had been talking -- his jaw dropped. The gunship was long and sleek, and it seemed to soar over the pirates as they followed the decoy bot away from the Pentecost. Faint puffs of light seemed to emerge and float weightlessly between them, and then the pirate ship was an expanding glowing sphere of fragments and burning gases.

There was silence on the command net.

Travis could almost hear the thoughts of the men and women up on the bridge of the ship, but no one said a word.

"Let the record show that the unidentified ship was destroyed with all hands, twelve eighteen, September third. May God have mercy on their souls," Friedricks said just as the silence was becoming unbearable. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Evans, can you pick up those decoys for me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Good."

Orin Travis stared out at the emptiness and the thinning ring of dust that was all that was left of a living ship. "Leah?" he asked quietly, on a private thread.

"Yes, honored?"

"How -- how many --"

"Hours until we make planetfall?" Leah's voice was bland and easy as it interrupted his question. Only one who had known her for a very long time might notice the edge to it. Or would know that she was avoiding the questions Travis really wanted to ask. Later would be soon enough. It wasn't as though he could do anything about the dead.

"Yes."

"Quite some time, I'm afraid. Of course, you might be able to hitch a lift with our saviors," Leah added lightly.

Travis snorted, "A good thought, Leah, but I think I'll limp into port with the rest of you. No need for special treatment. Have we heard from them at all?"

No need to put a federal officer onto a Church vessel. No need to give them an excuse to board. He didn't need to say anything. The captain was a smart, politically savvy woman.

"Not yet, I'm sure that's an oversight on their part. If you'll excuse me?"

"Yes. Yes of course. Leah?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Any chance of a line to Tianya?"

"No, Honored. Only internal comms survived the second strike. Deliberately so, I imagine. Pirates don't like their victims to tell the universe about them. Spoils the surprise for the next ship."

"I see." He grimaced, but it couldn't be cured. "Notify me when you have external comms back. Oh, and could you send someone to handle the hull breach in my quarters? No hurry."

There was a moment of stunned silence, and he grinned. He might be old, but he had a surprise or two in him yet.

"Right on it, sir," Friedricks said, suppressing laughter. "I suggest you sit tight until Maintenance get there."

"Trust me, Leah. I'm not planning on going anywhere." He separated from the grid, and settled in to admire the starlight as the lamed ship drifted through the star system.

*~^~*~^~*

Vin walked through the silent village. The little houses always looked fake to him these days. No wear on the paths to the doors, not enough damage from anything but weather. Too tidy. The first time he'd come here, he'd been appalled that anyone could live in such privation. Water came from a communal well, filtered after it was pumped up to the surface; power was solar fueled, and insufficient to run more than twenty dwellings. There had been no grid set up in the community. He looked around shaking his head.

He'd been so credulous back then. Only too willing to believe the lies the Church told him -- cybes needed humans to survive. That without full humans, cybes would die out, revert to primitive barbarism, unable to cope in the real universe.

His lip curled. He'd learned differently here, even if he hadn't completely agreed with everything they'd tried to tell him. They'd seen that as evidence that he needed more education. He'd seen it as evidence that he'd learned to think for himself.

With time, he'd come to wonder if perhaps both sides had a point.

He wondered how Larabee was doing. He glanced at the little house where the priest was waiting. Friends with a priest. He shook his head. What business did a cyborg have caring if a priest lived or died? If a fed survived a cybe attack. But here he was, worrying.

He ought to go. He'd done what Joche had wanted. They'd run Apman off. And there was still that little problem of a want on him from the Church. He snorted. Hell, most of the people here were avoiding the Church one way or another. Even the priests.

Even the fed.

He smoothed his expression out. He didn't want to feel sorry for the kid, but somewhere in ripping his way through his hardware he'd realized that he was only one choice away from being right where the kid was.

How tempting would it have been to have had his freedom offered? The only price a regular job and wage, and employment with the Federation. Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, maybe he'd make that choice too. Even if he couldn't be sure the Feds were any better, the Church was definitely worse.

He heard the purr of an aircar, and ducked back into shelter. The car drifted slowly to the ground at the edge of the village and stopped. A second later the other fed stepped out.

She looked remarkably small against the big vehicle. Not that he was going to make the mistake of letting that affect his battle planning. Body armor bulked her out, and a weapon in each hand gave her all the authority he needed to see, regardless of the Federation axe and circles emblazoned across her chest.

"Federation Agent! You got ten seconds!" the woman shouted. She kept her back to the car and swept quick eyes around the small compound. "Get on out here!"

Vin took a step back, and halted as her left hand came up and unerringly targeted his chest, even through the shadows cast by the wall.

"You! Show yourself or I shoot!"

"Easy, Ms Wells," he said, and walked out slowly, hands touching his shoulders, right to right, left to left. "I'm just--"

"You!" she spat.

Vin rolled his eyes, wondering what it was about feds. "Yeah. I--"

"Stop right there!"

Her gun was still trained on his heart, and he thought, on a thin thread that wound back to Joche, Some backup about now would be good.

"Federale Wells," Joche said. He emerged from another of the little huts, his hands spread low, palms up. "Welcome to our--"

"Where is he?"

Joche ducked his head, "Federale, I fear I do not understand--"

"Hah! Will this help you understand?" She took quick aim and fired, dust kicked up within inches of Joche's right foot, and he back-stepped.

"Second! You haven't said who you are looking for."

Wells paused, and Vin felt the muscles in his face begin to ache with keeping his expression blank. Didn't know who she was looking for, hmm? Disingenuous to say the least.

"First Federale Dunne," she said tensely. Her gun hand wavered a little, but neither man moved. "I know he's here."

"JD is in the care of Doctor Jackson, at present."

She looked at Vin, who had nothing to say and simply looked back at her, waiting for her to make a decision before Sanchez finished creeping around the buildings and got himself shot.

"I want to see him. Alone!"

"Of course, Agent." Joche gestured to the hut behind him. "He is through there."

She looked at the door suspiciously, and then back at Joche. "How do I know it's not a trap?"

"You don't," Josiah rumbled from behind her. He was leaning against a tree, and smiling as he turned a blaster over and over in his hands.

Vin gave her credit, she snatched a glance at him and kept her hands steady, managed not to lose her cool. The speed at which she moved told him how very on edge the woman was, but that wasn't a problem. Unless she decided to run anyone's tags against the Church databases. Now that, he conceded, could be a problem.

"What's he doing here?" she asked Joche, who shrugged.

"Nobody knows where a priest goes, or how he gets there, or what he knows."

Children's rhymes probably weren't going to help matters. He still found it funny. Joche's expression was bland and unthreatening, and Wells pursed her lips together, then holstered one of her guns.

"My AI has orders to shoot to kill," she warned as she approached.

Couldn't fault her courage either. There were ways around that, but right now they were on the same side. Even if she didn't know it yet.

*~^~*~^~*

JD rose through darkness to silence. The world around him was quiet and warm. He ducked his chin a little and the clean brush of cool sheets pleased him, and he rubbed against it, cat like.

Distantly, someone was talking. Not to him. There were two voices, words rising and falling in low cadences. JD drifted and let the wash of lethargy drown him in sleep once more.

The darkness eased away. He could feel the pressure of sunlight on his face, and sighed softly, its warmth sweet on his skin. He moved a little, and a dull lump pulled at his belly. His hand felt its way to it, dragging over the synthetic cling of surgical dressings. He frowned a little. "Mama?" he whispered "Did it work this time?"

"JD?" The wrong woman spoke, and JD remembered she was dead, and let the sunlight fade again.

"He's awake, Agent. Just give him a little time. Not even a cybe would just walk away from getting caught by a point-s weapon."

He knew that voice. Doctor Jackson, who'd been afraid to touch him, scared that his nanites would infect him and turn him into a monster too. JD curled away from him, wincing as a weight on his stomach insisted that he lie still and flat. His hand reached for it and he traced the edges, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the ragged hole packed with something hard that seemed to reach into his gut and spear him with some mysterious sense that wasn't pain, but hurt none the less.

"JD, it's me, Casey." The woman again. He wondered if he was meant to know her. Something about the name tugged at his memory, something about the voice... Casey never sounded that nice before.

He pushed his eyes open. Casey smiled at him, and he simply stared for a long time, wondering why she never seemed that nice normally.

"Hey, First, how're you feeling?" she asked gently, and he shrugged, then shifted as the movement tugged dully. Nerve blockers. He knew that feeling. The sense that part of your body had been removed and still hurt, even though it was off in some other place, not attached. Nerve memory.

"Casey," he said, testing that he really did remember. Her face lit up.

"Hey, JD." She didn't seem to have anything else to say, and he let his eyes wander. The others were here too. Jackson was sprawled in a chair across the room, apparently asleep. Larabee looked grim and drawn, standing beside the door with his back to the room, weapon visible in his hand. Josiah was staring out of the window into the darkness. There was no sign of the cyborgs, and he wondered where they had gone. Did Apman get them too? At that thought, he looked back at Casey,

"Casey?" he said tiredly, frowning. "S'everyone else okay?"

She shrugged, "Define everyone," she said. "I'm more worried about you."

He blinked, and looked more closely at her, seeing the anxiety in her face. "I'm fine," he assured her, then hesitated.

"Don't want to see your definition of 'fine'," she said, but she was smiling, and if the worry hadn't gone from her face at least it was mostly eased. "Doctor Jackson says you'll be okay in another day or so."

As long as that? he thought, and looked around. Jackson was rummaging through a medkit. He hadn't noticed him get up, which more than anything told him how very tired and non-'fine' he was. He was going to say something and stopped himself. Casey was his junior. He was supposed to set her an example. He breathed deep, and drove all his questions down. They could wait for when half the world wasn't camped out in his hospital room.

"So, how come you're here?"

Casey smiled but the expression looked terrible. "Death trigger," she said.

Oh. Oh. "Really? But I don't --" He felt tentatively at his side. Had it really been that bad?

"You caught the edge of a point singularity weapon, Federale Dunne," Doctor Jackson said.

"Jeshu. " He swallowed. "And I'm alive?" He stopped at the look on her face. "I'm sorry."

"Don't thank me, thank him," she nodded at the doctor, "he's the miracle worker."

JD nodded, clenching his jaw to cover a yawn. "Tha--thanks, Doc," he said around another yawn. He blinked a little and looked around the room, taking in the unpainted walls and glassless windows. They were in the village, not in the main installation. He opened his mouth to ask, and paused. Maybe the cybes didn't want people to know about the other installation. His brain felt so slow. Casey was his second, she ought to know, but--

"JD?"

"Who'd you beat up to get in here?" he asked instead, the first thing to enter his head.

"Mr. Mendeleyev," she shrugged. "It wasn't so hard." She leaned back with a cocky grin, folded her hands behind her head, and rested her feet on his bed.

He laughed soundlessly, "Yeah, yeah, you and whose army?"

"Hey!"

"Nothing should be denied a lady on a quest," Josiah said and smiled at them before turning back to the window, "Even if she has no business here," he added, and the smile that had started on Casey's face vanished.

"Ignore him," JD said softly, and Casey nodded. Before he could say any more the doctor turned from where he had been working at the med bench and frowned at them.

"Federale, please, this is a sterile environment, and your shoes--" Jackson tailed off meaningfully. Casey rolled her eyes and dropped her feet back to the floor.

"Nah, they just let me in." She glanced at him, "I -- you know, xiao ge ge, I thought-- when I got the emergency message. I mean, I knew what it was, and I couldn't believe you were -- and I came here like a bat out of Hell's Gate, -- and, and--"

He could guess. "I am sorry, xiao meimei," he said into the awkward silence.

Jackson cleared his throat and JD turned his head slowly to look at him. "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said easily, "how are you feeling?" he asked. JD shrugged again.

"Okay."

"No hallucinations?"

JD blinked. "No. Why -- " and then he remembered, and reached, and couldn't find his nanites, and despite the hand on his shoulder and the pain in his side sat bolt upright. "What did you do?" he demanded urgently.

"I had to replace a lot of your blood with synthetics," Jackson said calmly. "Most of those nanites of yours are soaking the desert right about now." He pursed his lips and handed JD a glass of almost clear liquid. "Drink up," he said firmly. "You'll feel better once you've had that."

JD swirled the glass, and saw silver glimmer in the grey liquid and pulled a face. "Thanks," he said, and swallowed it down quickly, his throat protesting the large gulps he was taking. Experience taught him that faster was better. He gagged, and swallowed hard. Not fast enough.

"God. I forgot how bad it tastes," JD looked longingly at the water jug and Casey obliged with a glass. "Thanks."

"What is it?" Casey asked curiously, looking from him to Jackson and back.

"Silica-alu carrier," Jackson said. He reached over and plucked the grey streaked glass from JD's hand, and refilled it. "Here."

JD looked glumly at it and sighed. "How many did I lose?" How many glasses of that stuff am I going to have to drink, he meant, but didn't ask.

"About ninety percent."

Well, that explained that. Below critical mass the nanites were just motes floating in a maelstrom, incommunicado and focused wholly on replicating back up to optimum. "Are they rebuilding yet?"

Jackson nodded once, and put the glass down on the table by JD's bed. "You might want to consider whether you really want to do this," he said quietly, and JD shrugged.

"Don't s'pose I got much choice." He spread his hands out in front of him and sighed as they shook minutely, the tremors spreading up his arms much too fast. "Looks like they've already started cannibalizing." He folded his hands together and pretended not to see the look on the doctor's face.

Casey held up a peremptory hand. "Whoa! Wait. What? JD, what the hell is going on?"

JD yawned, covering his mouth with his hand. "Sorry." He slid down in the bed, and she tugged the blankets up around his shoulders. He smiled at her, "Thanks."

"Well?"

"My nanites dropped below critical mass; they need that stuff," he nodded at the glass on the side, "to rebuild. Otherwise they start looking for building materials elsewhere. Like me."

She blinked, and his respect for her rose a notch when she didn't ask any of the questions burning at her lips.

"Sounds bad," she said, and he looked at her. There wasn't a trace of the distaste he'd been expecting; instead, he thought he saw pity. It was better than fear.

"It's okay." He shrugged. You got to be pretty blasé about living with something that would eat you from the inside out if anything went wrong. And that was just if nothing worse happened. He glanced at the glass, and reluctantly reached for it. "Can you let me get at a net, Doc?" he asked, and took a gulp. Still tasted awful. Wordlessly Casey handed him another glass of water. He shifted uncomfortably, thinking of the growing pressure on his bladder, when a sharp pain twisted in his stomach and he actually felt the blood leave his face.

"JD?" The doctor was standing right there, a hand on his neck. Dimly he could feel the man nudging at his bio tags.

"Nanites," he gasped. "They've figured out the alu-glass is, is in my..." the word became a groan and for a moment he couldn't even think to get the words out, much less speak, the pain unbearable. The doctor ran a diagnostic reader over him and nodded.

"They seem to be accumulating in the stomach. Interesting." Jackson tilted his head curiously. "You've done this before?"

JD squinted a glare at him. "No, they got into me the first time by -- ow -- magic."

"Unholy magic," Josiah threw in, and JD blinked, then blinked again, and once more, struggling to keep his eyes open. His voice came from a vast distance, and JD vaguely realized he'd been drugged.

"Case -- go -- town -- Travis--" he whispered through the drifting distance, muzzy and uncertain. He had no idea if she had heard or not before the narcotic seized his mind in a stifling blanket and threw him far, far away.

*~^~*~^~*

Steve Apman dragged the cap off the bottle with his teeth and drank thirstily. His leg throbbed painfully just as he put the bottle down and his hand tightened on its neck. "Ops?" he snarled.

A moment later a tentative knock was instantly followed by Timmons peering cautiously into the van. "Sir?"

"What happened?" he fixed the man with a cold, hard stare. His irritation rose as he shifted from foot to foot nervously. "Dammit, Timmons, we can do this the hard way if you want?" He reached a command thread out to his net, and smiled grimly when he flinched.

"The area was mined, and their weapons systems were able to adapt to threat faster than ours." He squared his shoulders and met Steve's furious stare steadily. "Sir, we have mobile systems; they have fixed systems. That automatically enables them to rack more softs; they may even have a full blown AI up there."

"I don't care! Do you understand?"

"Yes sir. I'm sorry, but I can't make our system go up against a full blown AI." He spread his hands helplessly. "No more than I could go up against a Fed warship."

Steve drew a deep breath, and absently uncapped the bottle and took another dose. "You can't do this, you can't do that. What can you do? Tell me one reason to keep your worthless ass on board?"

Sergeant Timmons hesitated, and Steve scowled. "Fine." He pulled his gun and shot the man in the head. Corcoran came running, three or four people trailing her. He gestured at the body. "Get rid of that before it stains the carpet?" Francis looked from the corpse to her boss, and nodded, and gestured to two of the men who had followed her into the vehicle.

"Who would you like to take on Ops, sir?" she asked neutrally.

"Put it on automatic," he said casually. It couldn't be any worse. "Francis?"

"Yes sir?"

"Do you think they have an AI up there?"

He couldn't pick out any reaction from her face as she shrugged slightly and said, "No, sir. I think they were lucky."

"Hm." He gestured to a free seat.

She glanced at it, and refused with a soft 'Thank you'. Her face was bruising nicely, and he spared a moment to wonder how the bruises looked on the rest of her body.

"Lucky?" He invited her to continue.

"A big holoprojector, an automated weapons system. You remember how the holograms flickered once the targeting locks initialized? Their computers couldn't cope with paralleling that many transactions. Lost the lock on the animation."

Steve nodded. That was more like it. "So their systems could be overloaded?"

Francis looked thoughtful. "Possibly. If we gave it too much to focus on at once."

"Make it so," he nodded decisively. Her eyebrows flickered. "Is there a problem, Francis?"

He smiled when she shook her head and backed out of the vehicle. "I'll get a strategy optimized based on your plan, sir." He settled back into his seat and absently took another gulp of the morphate enriched drink. He checked in on the command grid and Francis was already discussing strategies with the team leaders. He smiled as she shut down Ngede as he asked about Ops. The rest of the grid was quiet, and he nodded to himself. None of that chitter-chatter that had clogged up the grid on the last attack and contributed to the attack.

Maybe he should do something about the point team too. They had failed to break into the tinheads' village. Something of an object lesson about failure.

He smiled as the memory of Francis's blackened eyes and cut face swam before him. His eyes closed. Sleep dragged at him, and he nodded. A nap, he'd feel better after a nap, and then he'd deal with it.

*~^~*~^~*

"Any sign?" Chris asked as Vin walked up to the door. Vin shook his head, and Chris looked around, wondering. He couldn't sense anyone either, but sight carried further than mind, and it was easy enough to shield against. Vin was waiting patiently for him to look back, his eyes narrowed against the sun even under the brim of his hat.

"You okay?"

Chris shrugged. "Yeah." He wasn't entirely sure why Vin was asking about him, he wasn't the one who got shot.

Vin grunted, and after a moment added, "And the fed?"

Chris shrugged. "No one's panicking any more." Dunne was quiet, and his junior fed was heading back to town, apparently Joche had convinced her all was well. He turned his head a little to hide a secretive smile. Joche spun a good line. Hell, he might have believed it himself if it wasn't for the little matter of Apman's attack, a number of dead bodies, and still not being able to figure out why he'd woken tied down in a hospital bed. But apart from that, Mere details he mocked himself gently, apart from that, things seemed to have straightened out pretty well. "Jackson says the boy can be moved in a day or so." Vin nodded, and said nothing further. Instead he leaned against the wall, tipping his hat back off his head, and turning his face to the sun.

"You ever figure out what was going on with that Buck guy?" Vin asked after some time.

Pain throbbed deep inside his head and Chris shook his head, trying to dislodge the deep itch, and rubbed harshly at the back of his neck. A few seconds later the silence around them seemed to work on it and the pressure gave way to blissful lack of pain.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"You okay?" Vin asked. Chris looked at him, surprised. "Face pinched up." A smile twitched the side of Vin's mouth. "Could be eating invisible lemons, of course."

Chris shook his head, squashing his own smile. "Head. Probably the sun."

Vin looked up at the sky, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Maybe." Chris thought the cybe was going to let it go, until he sighed. "So. Buck."

The headache flashed back, and Chris closed his eyes against the light, far too bright. "What -- I don't--"

Vin looked at him narrowly. "You were married?"

Chris nodded, trying to push down the old, familiar anger. "Was. Until that bastard killed them."

"Who?"

"Sarah and Adam. My wife and son." Vin was still looking at him as though he'd failed some test. "What?" he snapped. "He walked in one night, and he tied them up, and he poured accelerant all around, and he burned them alive." Tears burned and he looked away until they should fade again. "Satisfied?"

"Nope."

Chris turned, his fist rising already, but it met Vin's cupped palm. The cyborg's grip slipped down to his wrist and grasped firmly; he took another wild swing with his left hand, and swore when that hand was seized too.

"What was his name?"

"I -- I --" He jerked his wrists savagely, to no avail. Vin shook his head.

"I'm not letting go," he said quietly. "I reckon they did something to your mind, priest."

"What the fuck are you talking about, tin man?" he growled. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the clawing pain in his skull.

"Enough!" Vin let go as Josiah emerged from the little building behind them. "Let him be, Vincent."

Chris stumbled back, the force of his own struggles unbalancing him when Vin let go. He reached down and palmed his weapons, his eyes flickering between the two men.

Vin was watching Josiah warily, and Chris couldn't figure it out.

Maybe he just hated all priests. That could explain why Vin had gone crazy on him. He straightened his back and glared, setting the weapons in their pouches, but keeping his hands just above them, resting above his hips.

Vin tilted his head fractionally. "You know about fixin' priests?" he said suspiciously.

Josiah shook his head, his shoulders slumped. "Can't put broken eggs back in the shell."

Vin paused a moment, then asked, "And cracked ones?" He grinned a little at Chris's protesting 'hey!'.

"I've looked for three years for the right kind of glue," Josiah confided, and stepped up to Chris, who held his ground. "Too much glue, not enough solvent." He cupped Chris's face in his hands. "I know a hawk from a handsaw." He looked troubled, and Chris jerked back away from him, feeling vaguely guilty when the man regarded him sadly, but made no effort to approach him again.

"What the hell are you talking about, crazy?"

Josiah smiled, apparently genuinely amused. "Oh no, you mistake me. My sister is the crazy one. I'm just waiting for the south wind." He sighed at the twin blank looks. "What do they teach in schools these days? Chris, I need to talk to you about Buck Wilmington."

*~^~*~^~*

Francis walked rapidly through base camp, thinking furiously. Ops was dead; she was going to have to find a replacement -- and once word got out, which she had no doubt it would, that was going to be nigh impossible.

She paused by the kitchen area, and called out, "Ngede, Halloran, can I have a word?" She kept walking. Somewhere out of the way. The grunts didn't need to hear any of this. She headed into her own quarters and busied herself setting out coffee. The real stuff. Even Apman didn't know she'd been hoarding beans. Her net warned her seconds before she heard footfalls, and said without turning, "Have a seat, gentlemen." She set the coffee to percolating, and took a perch on her desk. "Thanks," she smiled at them. Ngede and Halloran were sitting watching her, both faces blank and composed.

"We're going to have to come up with a revised strategy," she said steadily, looking from one man to the other. "Clearly, intelligence was incorrect about the cybes' village." Ngede snorted, and she allowed herself a brief smile, "Yes, okay, wildly inadequate, captain."

"We took nearly twenty five per cent casualties on that assault," he said in return. "We need more than a strategy, we need to seriously rethink whether this is even a viable target."

"No more frontal assaults, that's for damn sure," Halloran agreed.

"No," Francis nodded, agreeing. "Besides, Ops was reviewing the tapes, and pointed something out to me," which was one of the reasons Apman killed him of course, but there, we never claimed to have some exclusive deal on smart. Or sane. "We've got burn traces of at least three transports moving out from the mountain."

"Out the back door while we're knocking on the front," Halloran said flatly. He scowled and looked away, closing his mouth tightly before he could say any of the incautious words clearly burning on the tip of his tongue.

"Yup."

Ngede slapped his hand on the arm of his chair, "Now will you listen to us? You are merchants, not mercenaries--"

"I beg your pardon?" she cut him off sharply. He was caught in her cold stare and squirmed.

"You haven't had combat experience in ten years, ma'am," he added, reluctantly. "We do. That's why you brought us in. Ops was on the guild contract. When Apman murdered him, he voided the contract."

"Ops was on a support staff contract, and yes, we will be renegotiating that with the rest of staff."

Halloran laughed shortly. "Good luck."

She didn't let them see her wince; they weren't wrong. It was going to be damn near impossible to get anyone in the hot seat now they knew Apman would murder if there were any problems.

"However, the merc contract isn't touched by--"

"Guild law, twelve-fifty. Prima facie evidence of contract breaking behavior includes unlawful execution without trial or benefit of due process of any employee of the contractor, whether guild member or not, whether under contract or not." Ngede said calmly, and lifted an eyebrow at her. "There are exceptions of course, but Sergeant Timmons was neither drawing on Apman, nor under external control." Despite his words he didn't move, and she hoped that meant they weren't about to break contract. Although -- her own contract was guild. Just because she hadn't been back in a while didn't mean she couldn't go. And with Ops dead, Ngede was right, Apman had activated the mortal jeopardy clause. She could leave.

"So you're leaving?"

There was a long silence, until Halloran shifted uncomfortably, and she knew she'd won. All they needed to do was play out the rest of the dance.

"We contracted for a job; it's bad publicity if we walk out," Halloran said finally, not meeting her or Ngede's eyes.

"We have ten dead comrades to avenge," Ngede said, his dark eyes cold and hard. "We shall not leave until that honor is complete."

Ten. The troops were listing Ops as a war death?

"You will have your chance to avenge your fallen--"

"Yes. We will." And she knew that Ngede did not mean to count Ops as a casualty of war. The cybes would only pay for nine of the deaths. There would be a reckoning with Apman. She drew a deep breath.

"Very well. If that's the case, best we look at the information so far."

She offered both men a thread on the data so far -- the destination of the escape transports, the numbers still at the primary installation; enemy combatants --

"You shot a fed?" Halloran remarked. "Not always politic."

"He's a kid; got zero backup, and the local Axe isn't due for a month. We should be long gone."

"Taking evidence with us," Ngede said without looking up.

"Naturally," she agreed. No point setting Clans against feds when they didn't have to. Even if a small part of her wished she could. "The fed's dead by the way." The two men nodded, still running through the rest of the field data.

"The merch was in the transports."

"That would be my assessment, yes."

"Hmm." Halloran frowned. "Secure lock on the destination?"

"No. Tagged them with satcom. The pictures --"

"I see." Halloran nodded and glanced at his fellow team leader. "Ulim?"

"No data on the secondary site?" Ngede asked.

Frances shook her head. "We didn't know they had one until they took off."

He looked politely incredulous, "And no one thought to check?"

"We didn't realize how well prepared they were. Bad planning, bad recon," she didn't back down, "Now, who was on recon and intel?"

Ngede's dark eyes flickered for a second and Francis nodded. "Exactly."

"You have a plan?"

"Steve has a plan," she tried to keep her disdain for it out of her voice, with marginal success. "'Raze them to the ground'."

"Seems counterproductive. No merch left if we do that."

Her lips twitched. Well, the contract was fee plus ten percent of the profits. Steve was too angry to think clearly about this. No profits and the fee rose with penalties.

Ngede sighed, and she waited. "Send a team out for recon up here then," he double tapped a spot on the electronic map, and they both leaned forwards as the scale opened up. "Get a composition sweep off the satellites if we can. What was the analysis on the transports?"

"Hundred and fifty to two hundred passengers," Francis pulled up the relevant section of data. "Depending on body mass and age."

"Two hundred plus if there's a lot of juveniles."

"Yeah." She spared a thought for how it was easier to think of them as juveniles than children. Children were human. These -- weren't. "I was thinking of asking your team to go," she looked at Halloran, ignoring the sudden tension in Ngede's body.

Halloran nodded. "Okay."

"Purely recon. Any trouble, pull straight back out."

"Yes ma'am."

"And if you can plant any jammers or stoppers in the area, so much the better. Requisition 'em if you haven't got enough. I'll leave the quantity up to you, but you're going to have to go in by foot, so don't get too carried away."

"I think we'll figure it out," Halloran said dryly and she smiled.

"I'm sure you will too."

"And my team?"

"I want you to sniff out the primary installation. Make sure we haven't missed anything."

"Ops isn't-- ah," he stopped as she shook her head. Ops' team -- those remaining members of his unit -- were refusing to do anything but maintain pre-existing data streams, and she could hardly blame them. The last guy to show initiative had gotten shot for his pains.

"Okay."

The two men stood and she stood with them. "I'll look forward to your reports," she shook hands with them. "Good luck."

She sat down with a thump after they left, and dropped her head in her hands. The bruising on her face was hot and puffy, and she straightened and leaned over to her emergency med kit. Another go over of the tissue repairer should settle that. She ran the little pack over her face, and peered in the mirror, then did it again, ignoring the burn that was her cells protesting at the speed-heal. The bruises were faded yellow when she finished, and she turned her face to and fro, checking that they didn't show too badly, then put down the TR, mostly satisfied.

*~^~*~^~*

Ezra found himself part of the child-rearing team without quite being sure how it had happened. He'd smiled tentatively at Mareen, and allowed a couple of small children to use him as a substitute bed, and suddenly he was stuck with them.

He was in hell. He was supposed to sell merchandise, not get to know it. Tors tugged at his coat jacket and he forced a smile. "Yes?"

"Wanna go."

Oh good grief.

"Ezra?" Mareen walked up and grinned at him, "Down the corridor, first left." She tugged at Tors' nose, "And don't let her kid you, she's been looking after herself for this sort of thing for three years."

"Aw, Mareen," Tors complained, pouting.

Mareen laughed and turned her around, swatting her on the ass to get her going. "Go on, shoo!" The child ran to the door, turned and poked her tongue out at them, and then scuttled away, laughing.

"Have you eaten, Ezra?" she asked, a little shyly he thought, and he shook his head.

"I have barely had time to do anything but follow young Yenna's instructions."

Mareen nodded, a sad look in her eyes that faded almost immediately. Ezra forbore to ask. "Would you like to eat with me? I was just going to the refectory."

Ezra smiled and held out his arm. "I would be enchanted, my dear," he said gravely, and winked at her when she looked at him doubtfully. She laughed softly, and accepted his arm gingerly.

"The kids'll be fine. They've all stayed here before, they know where everything is."

"What about the younger children?"

Mareen sighed, her pace slowing unconsciously, "Most of the tinies are with their parents. We can't care for them under about three. They need too much attention."

"Children can be demanding little things."

"What? Oh, no, not that exactly." She wasn't going to elaborate, it seemed at first, then added, a little bitterly, "Medical necessity."

"Medical? But--" he looked back, but the door was shut and there was no sign of any of the kids.

Mareen's mouth twisted. "Here's something I bet you didn't know," she said, a hand absently rubbing at her flat stomach. "Half of all cybe pregnancies end before the first trimester. Of those who make it as far as birth, one in four die before the age of three years. Alu-glass poisoning kills another one in ten. Adverse reactions are about one in one hundred in a cybe's lifetime." She looked down into Ezra's face. "The 'attrition rate' of natural borns is half that of createds."

Ezra stared, appalled. "I didn't realize--" Had she lost one? He snatched a quick look at her. She couldn't be more than mid twenties, at most. Why would she have risked a child so early in her life?

"Most meat-folks don't," she said, a little bitterly.

"Do you create -- I'm sorry, it's none of my business."

"No. It isn't." She stopped and looked at him. "The only people still creating cybes are the Church. They have to. The second a cybe buys out, they leave. Gone. Never look back."

"I had no idea."

Mareen shrugged and started walking again. "Refec is this way," she said a minute later. "Take the elevator down to fifth, and turn right -- it's right in front of you."

"Aren't you coming?"

"I don't feel all that hungry for some reason," she said shortly.

Ezra shook his head, and tucked her arm closer. "I can't have that. You deserve a break from those little terrors. I will not mention so much as a hint of a word about any subject of any controversy."

Mareen snorted. "Think you're quite the charmer, don't you?"

Ezra turned up the charming smile and widened his eyes. "Who, me?"

Mareen laughed.

"That's better. Now, let us explore the delights of your refectory."

*~^~*~^~*

Delights were not exactly the right word, but he made no comment on the emergency rations, or on the glass of viscous, faintly glimmering liquid that she -- and most of the cyborgs eating there -- chose to drink with their meal. All the same he was not entirely sorry when a klaxon went off, deafening him. Mareen tilted her head for a second, then swore. "Playtime's over, Ez," she said and pushed her chair back. "Back to work."

"Of course." He grabbed up the energy bar and hurried after her. "Only, what exactly is happening?"

She glanced quickly at him, then slide a quick, cool hand over the back of his neck before he could duck away. "Huh."

"My parents' choice," Ezra said in response to her pursed lips.

"It's going to make things difficult for you. We might have an adaptor somewhere. I think we tried one on Nathalie."

"Adaptor?"

"Plug you into the grid."

"Would this not do?" He held out his wrist, and she shrugged.

"Maybe. I'd have to ask Teccy." She peered at the bracelet and shook her head. "How you people survive, head blind and mushy like you are." She shrugged again and let go of him. "Teccy says if you have the frequency 87.2 opened up, he can patch you."

Ezra blinked. "That was quick." He carefully concentrated on opening the named frequency, leaving a DMZ between the outside broadcasts and his own neural net, just in case.

That's better, Mareen said cheerfully, and Ezra stumbled.

"Telepathy?"

Mareen shook her head. "Short range radio."

"Thank god for that," he muttered.

"If you were a proper human being, of course, you'd have telepathy," she added casually, and he gaped at her before catching the twinkle in her eyes.

"What was the alarm about?" he asked, trying to forestall the flirting.

"We've got a mercenary group trying to survey this site and the main base."

Ezra's eyebrows lifted. "That was quick."

Mareen nodded grimly. "We didn't have a choice. We had to move the kids out." she smiled faintly. "Now they're here we can put the failsafe into action."

"Failsafe?"

"Ezra, I like you, I really do, but a girl has to have her secrets."

"Especially the ones relating to the safety of her family."

"Especially those ones, yes."

*~^~*~^~*

Once hooked into the public grid, Ezra was riveted by the ongoing traffic. Everything from systems to logistics seemed to route through public first. He wondered what exactly they considered too sensitive to share with an outsider. It was only when he tried to reach a thread out of the base that he found out.

"Sorry, Mr. Standish," a male voice said to him even as his thread was blocked. "No externals until you've been verified by the council." He didn't sound remotely sorry.

"Of course," he agreed calmly. Well, it was hardly surprising, even if it was going to make things harder. Okay then. He squared his shoulders. Mareen was nowhere in sight and he had work to do. He looked around thoughtfully. The thought nagged at him that it would only take two children to pay off his debts. Maybe even gain a little goodwill from the Church while he was at it. Restore errant cybes with proven genome to their eager embrace. He controlled his facial expression, his biofeedback keeping every autonomic system under steady, ruthless control. There was a relationship with little Tors already, he thought. It would be easiest to take her; her and maybe Hassan, or one of the tinies.

He shivered a little, and pursed his lips, telling himself it was the idea of genetic modification that crossed the germ line. Heritable cyborgs. Natural born. Natural. No. The tinies would require steady supplies of alu-glass, and Jeshu knew what else. Best stick to the ones more or less up to spec.

It was a pity he hadn't been able to call up his ship, but he could work around it.

The important thing was that he get the kids -- the stock, he corrected himself firmly. Bad enough that he'd made friends with it. He knew enough distancing techniques. Time he started using them, he told himself firmly.

Tors danced up to him and smiled, and he smiled back before he could stop himself.

"Ezra, come an' play," she insisted, and grabbed his hand. He blinked a little, and added another difficulty to the list. It looked like it might be harder than expected to forcibly move a cy-kid. Stock, he corrected, and closed his eyes. No wonder he had wound up on a dead end planet one step away from being a child minder. He really wasn't fit for anything else.

"Come on!"

"I'm comin', child, I'm coming. Good lord, a little patience wouldn't go amiss."

"Show us a game, Ezra," she insisted, and he smiled weakly at her.

"Have you ever played Olly-olly infree?"

She shook her head, along with several others, and he smiled. "Well, it's a little like hide and go seek..."

*~^~*~^~*

Josiah sighed. The hardest things in the world to say were also the shortest. He is dead. They lied. It's over. He walked away from Larabee and found a comfortable looking rock, and sat on the ground against it. "Join me," he said, and Larabee folded his arms.

"Talk."

"Drink first." He took a flask out of his shoulder bag and sniffed at it before tipping a mouthful back. His eyes watered, and he wiped at his mouth before holding it out. "Trust me, it's better this way." Reluctantly, Larabee sat down near him, and took the bottle. He too sniffed at it cautiously, his eyebrows shooting up before taking a generous swig.

The man had to have an asbestos throat, Josiah thought, watching with interest as Larabee showed no sign of discomfort, but instead took another mouthful before handing it back.

"Good stuff," he complimented, and Josiah inclined his head.

"I stole it direct from the monastery," he confided, and sighed. The fire dimmed in his belly and a slow, warm lethargy slid through his veins. The world slipped back a pace, and the voices became only whispers. Larabee laughed under his breath.

"Always go direct to the source," he agreed, and blinked owlishly. Well, maybe the man wasn't as tolerant of the firewater as all that.

Where to begin? There was the easy place, and the hard place. He sighed again, and considered the flask for along moment.

"Well, crazy-man?" Larabee asked, apparently tired of waiting.

"I'm thinking on it," Josiah told him, and frowned, chasing thoughts that seemed to swim away, the truth refracting just that little bit away from his grasp.

"I have a sister," he said. He was going to need more firewater.

"Congratulations. Did Buck kill her too?"

Josiah half smiled. Well, at least the firewater was working. "No. Contrariwise you might say." He pulled the cap off the flask and sniffed. Maybe in a minute.

He waited for the thought to percolate through Larabee's less than sober brain. When it seemed there would be no reaction, he shrugged and took a little sip. Hmm. He capped it again and put the flask down between them. "Hannah has some problems," he confided. "A little like you." He thought for a moment, "Well, if you were female, the daughter of a Church Inquisitor who sold you to a breed farm and then had you excommunicated when you tried to charge him with rape and unlawful imprisonment."

Larabee said nothing and Josiah stared at the flask. She won, of course. Their father had never been one to do things the legal way if there was a principle -- or a quick buck -- to be had.

Then the baby died. He'd never really gotten to the bottom of that -- if he'd been there maybe he'd have known, or been able to find out how and why. But by the time he heard and came tearing back, she was already in the hands of the Sisters. She was feeling much better by then.

Much better. Scarily better. Larabee wasn't the first PI to be recruited because of latent psi and a tendency towards incipient insanity.

"I asked a friend in the Sisters to look after her. They took care of everything." Court case, cyborg baby, lunatic teenager... Everything. The Little Sisters of the Compassionate, the Merciful. So compassionate, so merciful. Such good doctors.

A reaction. Larabee looked up, and away again.

"Yeah. You spent some time there too. Right after the fire."

Larabee nodded and his eyes drifted back to the firewater. "I don't remember much," he said as though to the ground, but Josiah heard.

"Have some more. It helps me think more clearly," Josiah told him sadly.

For a moment Larabee didn't move, then he leaned over and took the flask, tilted it back, eyes closed.

"Do you remember having a Calling before you went there?"

Larabee looked up silently but Josiah ignored him. "Hannah didn't. Six weeks there, and she was as sane as--" he hesitated. Perhaps sane wasn't the word he was looking for. "The sisters look for a certain sort of --" he stopped again. "The sisters maintain the breeding lines for cyborgs and some others." Which didn't say enough by half.

He held out his hand and Larabee passed him the flask. "Mendeleyev," he said with a snort. That stuff definitely improved on acquaintance.

"The cybe?"

"You know who Mendeley -Mendelee-- Joche's name comes from?"

Larabee shook his head and took the flask back.

"Peas."

Larabee blinked.

"Pretty peas. And monks."

The further elaboration didn't seem to produce enlightenment. "Genes; cross breeding." He eyed the flask and left it where it was. "Cybes are the Church's big success story. No offense, " he added, twisting around to look at Tanner, who looked bemused, and shrugged.

"Ain't all that of a success," he said laconically.

Josiah laughed silently, "Sure. How much is that want worth again, son?" and laughed again as Tanner turned away.

"Big success," he repeated. "And they weren't even looking for it."

Funny. The firewater didn't seem to make it that much easier after all. How to say it?

"They didn't mean to kill Adam."

Larabee froze. "Hannah told me. They were," he drew a deep breath, "they were watching the blood line. Your reaction times in the war were -- too fast."

Larabee shook his head. "What?"

"You got yourself flagged up, soldier. And then you married into a suspected empath line. Everything was fine, and then," Josiah shook his head, "I don't know what went wrong. Sometimes the sisters -- my sister -- are less coherent than they could be. You went away. A milk run. So you left them. And something happened to them, and when you came home, they were all gone."

"Sarah--"

"I'm morally certain no one was meant to die. Hannah tells me no one was meant to die." He didn't dare look up. It was bad enough that he could feel the maelstrom of Larabee's emotions, even through the double dulling of far too much firewater. "I believe there was some -- miscommunication. They were supposed to harvest Adam -- Adam's genetic code, get a sample for the records. From what I know, Buck suspected something was wrong at the clinic and took Adam home again, and--"

Larabee's face was white and motionless. "And they died."

"Yes." Josiah sighed. "Or, no, not entirely."

"What?"

"Buck isn't dead," he said flatly. "Whoever murdered Sarah and Adam, and I have no idea who it was, because someone a long way up the tree is protecting them, decided to scapegoat Buck. I believe they may even have seen it as the ideal wedge to take you into the Church and keep you there."

"Buck didn't kill them?" Larabee asked numbly.

"No, Chris. Your husband did not kill your wife and son."

Chris didn't move, his expression didn't change, and even the winter edge of his mind only shivered a brief second, a blade of ice, as sharp and as fragile, dissolving.

"But Buck killed them." He spoke it as an article of the faith.

"No." Josiah reached a hand out and pressed it to Chris's face. "No, son, he didn't. He couldn't ever have done it. Remember?"

And he pushed.

*~^~*~^~*

Chris fell.

tumbling into nothing /
Disappearing. voices, whispering, Buck's voice an undertrack to the roar, words indecipherable as he strained to understand. A child's high laugh, shrill over the waterfall of sounds, a scatter of glittering madness.

Sarah -- take care, Chris -- take care Chris --

bodies, rolling, tumbling, faceless, eyeless, screaming, black, hollow eyes burning

zhangfu...

fire, red dancing in the edges of his vision, flickers, turning, twisting, come out,
come out where I can see you!

Ah, Chris... Chris, it's okay Chris, you'll be fine... Chris, listen to me...

No one there. Blackened ashes, greasy, staining his fingers, acrid on his lips. oh, nothing, nothing, a rag, a hank of hair, bones roasted in a shell of emptied flesh, crackling underfoot, death, every, death...

He wanted those arms around him, that voice wrapping him, come back, Buck, please, come back...

words whisper on, not hearing, am I here? am I real? Am I dead?

Adam was tugging at his sleeve, "Dad, Dad, I want to come too!"

Buck scooped him up under one arm, "And leave your Mom and me?" he pouted.

"Daaaad!"

Chris laughed and ruffled Adam's hair, one arm wrapped around Sarah who was smiling at him.

"You be quick home, Chris," she ordered, and dragged him down for a kiss that left him gasping and aching for her.

"Hmm. Competition," Buck said cheerfully as Sarah let Chris go, and leaned down to kiss her too.

"Hey!" Chris protested, laughing, "I'm the one meant to be getting the farewell!"

"Hmm," Buck took his time, and then grinned at Chris. "I guess we can carry on after he's out the way." He put Adam down and wrapped both arms around Chris. "Gonna miss you," he whispered, kissing him as thoroughly as he had kissed Sarah, warm and solid. He didn't want to go, tightening his arms around Buck, then reaching out to pull Sarah in too. He leaned back from Buck a little, breathing fast, and blindly kissed Sarah's cheek, her lips, the two of them so real in his arms, bodies pressed against him, their love burning like a living thing. They stood like that for a long moment until Adam elbowed his way into the middle of them and glowered up at them. "Me too!" and they smiled into each others' eyes, and Buck reached down and Adam scrambled up and locked his arms around Chris's neck.

"Bye, Dad. Come home quick!"

"Out of the mouths of babes," Sarah smiled, and swatted at Chris's butt. "Sooner you're gone, sooner you're home."

Chris took a step back. Adam hung between him and Buck for a moment and then let go, leaning his head on Buck's shoulder.

Chris found a smile from somewhere for him, "I'll be back before you know it," he said, looking his son square in the face.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay." Adam gave a huge sigh.

"You still here?" Sarah teased. "Don't forget the coffee this time."

He snorted and swung into the pilot seat of their small transport. "Cupboard love. It's fine until you want something, but then it's go away, Chris; sell the foals, Chris; Chris, bring me flowers."

Buck grinned and called "Damn straight! None of your cheap bouquets either! Orchids and bellflowers!"

"And diamonds!" Sarah called.

"As well ask for the Moon!" Chris laughed.

Buck looked thoughtfully at the transport, "Well, if you think it would fit..."

"And chocolate!" Adam joined in and Chris shook his head, still laughing as the door closed. Buck's voice carried over the sound of the engine turning over.

"Coffee!" Buck was on his knees. "For the love of God, Chris, the coffee!"

He activated the external mic. "Remember that position for later," he called, and pulled up and away, but not before he heard Adam asking,

"What's Dad mean? Mom? Why's Dad laughing?" and nearly losing control of the control yoke he was laughing so hard.

The last thing he heard was Sarah Connelly yelling, "You just wait, Christopher Larabee!"

let me be dead...

want death...

"Chris!"

Fire burned his stomach and he swallowed trying to hold it back, but failed. A disgusted noise told him someone had been too close. The voices quieted to a murmur, the low rise and fall of unshielded minds whispering.

... madman, crazy, danger, danger, restrain him, drug him, hold him...

Kill him.

A low note under the babble.

A whisper in the storm. You're going to die, you know...

And his last thought was yes, yes, let me die...

*~^~*~^~*

JD stared, hand half outstretched, not knowing what to do, too shocked to do more than watch as Josiah and Joche dragged Chris Larabee into the little clinic, each man taking an elbow. Chris was struggling wildly, twisting, kicking, biting -- but completely silent.

Nathan turned sharply, took in the scene with one sharply indrawn breath, then with swift, efficient moves opened a case. He grabbed a patch from what looked to be a box of sedative doses and rushed over. There was no chance at first, Chris was struggling too violently and he was reduced to hovering near, the sedative patch flat in the palm of his hand waiting for the least opportunity to slap it onto Larabee.

"Do it!" Josiah snarled at him. The old priest had always sounded whimsical before, halfway mad some days, halfway sane others, but never quite to scary to JD as he was in that moment. Now he sounded like thunder, a whip-crack edge to his words that jolted even JD to move for all that his body refused more than getting up into a sitting position.

Nathan joined in the battle to control Chris. JD saw a glimpse of white eyes, rolling back as Chris's back arched -- one hand slammed out and Tanner caught it, held it. The cyborg crouched next to Chris, making the grip look effortless even as Chris's skin showed white around his fingers.

"Getting to be a habit, peng yu," Tanner said mildly, adjusting his hold on Chris, immobilizing that arm out full length. "Doc?" There was a confused struggle for supremacy, a ripping sound, and Chris's shirt was torn and Nathan's dark hand slapped hard against the pale skin of his chest, pressing and holding until the patch stuck. The dark hand lifted away, leaving a little white square in the middle of a red palm print, and then all the hands were pulling away, and Chris was crumpling in on himself, eyes closing. His lips moved words stumbling for escape, but no sounds came out, and JD winced at the look on the man's face, at the tears and the rough agony, and looked away, embarrassed to be a witness to such pain.

"He'll sleep now," Nathan said, and Joche nodded, letting go, stepping back.

"For how long?"

Nathan pursed his lips. "Couple of hours at least. The patch is unpredictable on psi."

Joche nodded. "We have enough time then."

"For?" Tanner asked before JD could.

"Getting out."

"I thought we were going to stay," JD blurted, and Joche threw him a glance and said simply, "No." JD subsided, reddening, feeling as though he'd missed something obvious, even though he couldn't imagine what it was. Which didn't improve things.

He shook his head, frowning, then felt the weight of eyes on him, and met Tanner's. The man's face was expressionless, and JD felt like he was being judged and found wanting. By the guy who'd mind ripped him, he reminded himself, but his eyes were drawn back to the still form lying on the floor.

"It's not fair," he said helplessly, his eyes on Chris. He didn't quite mean to say it, but Tanner's face softened a little, even if JD did feel like just finding a hole and pulling it in after him.

"Life ain't fair."

JD pressed his lips together tightly and nodded once, then again, more firmly. Yes. Life wasn't fair. "I meant -- I saw a picture," he said quietly, he wasn't quite sure who to. "They looked happy." He looked at Chris as long as he could bear to, then away again, and swallowed. It wasn't fair. Even Buck would -- wait -- where was Buck?

He froze for just a second and even as Tanner looked over, catching the minute change in his posture, remembered, and reached instead for his glass of medicine. A thin line drew itself between Tanner's eyebrows as he took in the alu-glass JD was drinking. JD ignored it and concentrated on getting the disgusting stuff down and keeping it down. He wasn't a cybe. This was medicine, and he wasn't a cybe. He unclenched his free fist and smoothed out the sheet.

"Does that happen often?" he blurted, nodding at Larabee.

"To priests?" Tanner asked, and JD nodded.

The man shrugged a little, and shook his head. "Depends."

"On what?"

Vin shrugged again, his eyes on Larabee. "On what they did to break him open." Something in his tone told JD to leave it, ask no more questions. Nonetheless, the questions teemed beneath the surface. Who were 'they'? 'Break'? Did someone torture Larabee, and for what? Why? Was that why someone had murdered his family? Did he know something or do something, or have something -- his imagination ran riot, a thousand mystery novels and conspiracy stories feeding it.

JD looked again at Larabee, and the man looked frail and broken, splayed out on the tiled floor.

JD jumped when Josiah walked around Chris and, to his growing unease, came over to JD. He leaned against the side of the bed, so close JD felt the urge to back up, and reflexively leaned away, obscurely threatened by his proximity. Josiah brushed a hand over JD's white knuckles where he unconsciously gripped the mattress, and whispered, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." He nodded and walked away to stare down at Chris as he lay, sleeping, still twitching as he slept. "Good instincts."

Yeesh. JD rolled his eyes and spoke without thinking. "You know, once, just once I wish someone could manage to not be cryptic Kelly around here, okay?"

Joche turned sharply to face him. "This isn't the time or the place, even if I wanted to, to educate an ignorant little off-world fed," and it wasn't clear as he spat out the description which part offended him more -- JD being from Celaeno instead of Tianya, or his job, "in the realities of the Church of Humanity."

JD flinched then squared his shoulders. "Look, I can't help if no one will tell me what's happening," he said as firmly as he could. Was he the law around here or not? The thought slid through his mind that maybe he had better not ask that question out loud...

"You know what's happening, kid," Tanner said laconically, and leaned down to lift Chris easily onto the other bed. Nathan pulled the covers down and then draped them over Chris, covering him gently. "As much as any of us," he added almost to himself, tilting a look at Josiah. "Though maybe there's them as know more than most."

Josiah looked back at him, and then lifted his head to look around the room and meet all the men watching him. He seemed about to speak, and then laughed, pointing towards the wall. They all looked, but there was nothing there, and when they looked back at the old priest he was slouched on a chair by Chris's bed, seemingly asleep.

*~^~*~^~*

Night fell. JD slept noiselessly in his bed. The kid was improving with every minute Nathan had claimed, with a grimace that suggested that he wasn't all that happy about it either. Josiah reckoned Nathan preferred his clients to let him do the work, not have bio-mech medics on call in their very bloodstream, putting him out of work. Vin was outside, along with Joche, watching the approaches to the village. Josiah smiled as a grunt from Nathan attracted his attention. He lifted his eyes to where Nathan was curled up in the improvised bed on the floor. The man half woke himself up and turned over, mumbling unintelligibly, swatting at his pillow as though to beat it into submission, then subsided again.

Chris made some small, pained sound. To Josiah it sounded like "fire..." His face lost its mask and deep, wrenching grief tugged at him. He stood and turned away, walking to the single light burning in the night.

"I know," For a moment Josiah's body blocked the light, his shadow casting a terrible darkness over the room. He turned, and accepted it, the truth behind the lies. When he moved the shadow dwindled, and he was only a man, old, and sad. He walked back to Chris's still form. "I know."

Chris didn't move, and for a long while Josiah simply watched.

"I'm sorry, Christopher," he said softly. "Are you listening to me in there?" He touched the soft blond hair, brushed it back. "Or are you walking?"

He closed his eyes. This was -- not his fault, but his responsibility. He had chosen to make it so.

"Even if Buck had died," he said quietly, "it wouldn't be the end. Not for Buck at least. Maybe not for you either."

He waited, and then composed himself. Time to try again.

*~^~*~^~*

"Chris," A world suddenly laid itself out before them, a vast, white plain. Featureless. Empty. "Chris."

Chris turned. "Where is this?"

"You know where." Josiah looked around. "You just need to see."

Shapes formed under the surface. Curious he walked towards the nearest one, and it was as though a sheet, thin, insubstantial, and stronger than anything he knew, lay over the shape. He tugged at it, and nothing moved.

"That's not enough, Chris." Chris looked up. Josiah was in color. The reds and browns of his battered haphazard clothing made him look dirty, out of place, wrong.

"Violence wrought this," he gestured at the landscape that shuddered and twisted as his hand pointed at it, curving up in jagged lines that didn't quite subside. "You want it. You know the shape of it."

Chris shook his head. "You're crazy, old man."

Josiah nodded. "Yes."

Chris wound his hands in the white fabric and pulled, harder and harder until the fibers embedded themselves in his hands, but still they held, refused to tear. Nothing changed.

"It is not enough to demand change," Josiah said, walking towards him. He held out his hands. They were full of something black, that scattered and fluttered to the ground as though a wind lifted ashes and tumbled them -- no!

"You have to want to know. You have to want to remember. You have to want to change." He was standing by Chris now, and his hands turned over, and somehow the world was filled with ash, and it outlined the figure under the sheet, a woman lying on a bier, and somewhere in the blank, barren world a man screamed, "Sarah!"

The fabric tore apart, bleeding from its edges, and he was looking at a blackened, bloated face, and he dropped to his knees, incoherent with grief, the only word left a never ending, ever-echoing, unanswered, 'no'.

Ash drifted, gritty on his tongue, bitter between his teeth, stinging his eyes. He wiped at them and felt liquid smear. He pulled his hand away and there was blood on his own hands -- "Buck?"

"Remember the rest, Christopher--"

Chris looked at Josiah, and instead of the crazy old man saw a man, strong and powerful, hair clipped, clean shaven, immaculate in the robes of a Priest Inquisitor.

He stumbled backwards, and the man's face grew sad. "Ah. You begin to remember," he said softly.

"I know you."

"Yes."

"I--" and it was gone, lost, tumbling away into ash-stained night.

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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fandoms listed herein. I am certainly making no money off of these creative fan tributes to a wonderful, fun show.