The Great Presence

Venemis sat cross-legged on a field pad next to the navigation console. The flickering buttons of the Arctic's control panels illuminated her face. A black robe covered her to the chest, leaving her arms outside it stretched along her sides. The skin exposed looked waxen, rigid. There was no visible movement to her

The shimmering white-hot glow of the Great Presence loomed large in Venemi's unseeing eyes. A great undulating rumble echoed in her unhearing ears. She was submerged in a hypnotic trance that helped her access a prescient awareness beyond the spectrum of any known species in the galaxy.

Abruptly, as though she had found a necessary key, her mind climbed a notch out of it. Reaching blindly to the hyperdrive yoke at her right side, she eased off the locking bar and wrapped her fingers around the lever. She waited until the vision of the light filled her vision, then delicately pushed the lever forward.

The Great Presence vanished as a quiet hum of human voices filled her ears. She pulled off her noise-cancelling headset, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the muted bridge light, and peered through the viewport.

They had arrived.

She casually looked around and observed that all the stations were occupied, but none of the Humans seemed to be watching her. Keeping her movements small and inconspicuous, she reached into one of the pouches hidden in her sash and keyed her comm once again.

She'd spent the last three rest periods recording a message for Malkor and his ships lurking in the Cell System and then figuring out how to tap into the ship's short-range transmitter. A sharp voice from one of the officers at the sensor station cut through the chatter on the bridge. Venemis ran her eyes quickly over the displays and found the tactical one. She felt her cheek winglets flutter with fear. Three ships were angling in toward the Arctic, one from the starboard side, the other two from behind. The markings on the display were all in an unreadable script, but he knew the ships had to belong to Malkor.

Her winglets fluttered more and harder. If the attackers had gotten her message—and if the blockade commander decided a loyal Falmeri was worth saving—they might go easy on their prey, at least until they'd battered most of the life out of it.

If the commander wasn't feeling so charitable, Venemis knew all too well what they were capable of. She had betrayed Yavanna as well as the Avari who fled Arkania Prime to escape Malkor.

She may have seen her last star rise.

The deck gave a sudden jolt. Venemis jerked in response. She was losing control over her winglets that flailed around uncontrollably. She was fully expecting to see a flash of laser fire or a wall of flame from a missile blaze through the bridge wall. But nothing. She looked at the tactical again, frowning.

And tensed. The jolt hadn't been a Reza attack, but the recoil as a shuttle separated from the Arctic's cargo bay. Even as she watched, it headed toward the inner system and the planet Ranie Centauri at a very high speed.

She clenched her teeth. If Taisen was hoping whoever was in there would escape, he'd already lost his gamble. Two small fighters veered off from the host of Reza, accelerating in turn as they chased after the shuttle. Venemis couldn't make out the readings on the tactical screen which was in Human language, but she had no doubt the two Reza pursuers would catch the craft long before it reached Ranie Centauri or even the relative safety of one of the mining stations in the asteroid clusters. They would catch it, and with a barrage of laser fire or the more delicate twist of a tractor beam, they would destroy or capture it.

On the tactical screen, she barely made out that the Arctic was now moving away from the inner system and the fleeing shuttle. Attempting, no doubt, to clear the system's collection of orbiting debris and reach a safe hyperspace jump-off point before its remaining pursuer could get into combat range. Venemis eyed the tactical, noting that the Reza had put on a burst of speed of its own.

She frowned. The remaining pursuer. The last of three Reza ships that had been sitting at the Arctic's entry point, ready for combat.

A point that Taisen had deliberately specified out of the handful of safe vectors available. Was it simply bad luck that had brought them to a spot where three ships had been waiting?

Venemis let out a wry smile. The dark-skinned alien probably didn't know enough about the Cell system.

But in that case, why hadn't he come out of hyperspace much farther out and done at least a quick recon before committing himself and his ship to this vector? At least then he might have found a way or route that would have given his shuttle a better chance of getting somewhere before it was destroyed.

A cold chill ran up her back. No, Taisen couldn't be that short-sighted.

Which left only one other option. Taisen had arrived on this particular vector because he wanted the Reza to attack him.

Venemis looked back and forth among the banks of displays, trying to make sense of it all. Was the Arctic just a feint, a diversion to let the actual intruder slip into the Cell system unhindered? Could there be someone out there aiming for the asteroid clusters, maybe, moving stealthily in the hope that with Reza attention focused out here they wouldn't be spotted until it was too late?

But she couldn't see anything like that on any of the displays. No other ships, no other vectors, no indication of anything else in the system. Surely the Humans would have their own vessels marked, even if they were stealth ships and undetectable to the Reza. Wouldn't they?

The pursuing ships put on an additional burst of speed. Venemis watched nervously as it finally reached firing range.

Abruptly, as if Taisen had just noticed the threat coming up on his starboard side, the Arctic made a sharp turn away from its attacker. The pursuing ship opened fire with its heavy blasters, and a large piece of the ship violently detached itself from the Arctic's flank and fell backwards. The Arctic struggled to maintain its angle of attack and had to shift direction, just slightly, the Reza adjusted its own vector to match.

And suddenly Venemis realized what was going on. The object falling behind the Arctic wasn't battle debris from the Reza attack, as he'd thought. It was, in fact, another of the Human's shuttles and the Reza was about to run straight into it.

Venemis's first horrible thought was that the shuttle would crash into the oversized bridge viewport that marked all of Makor's combat ships. But the ship's commander spotted the obstacle in time to twist the ship aside.

Unfortunately, there wasn't time to twist it far enough. The shuttle missed the viewport to slam instead into the portside weapons cluster, wrecking that group of lasers and missile launchers and setting the ship spinning.

A second later the view outside the Arctic's viewport spun crazily as the Human ship spun around. Venemis gripped her armrests, fighting against vertigo, as the Arctic's movement brought the stern of the tumbling Reza ship into view. There was a flash of laser fire, and the fiery yellow glow from the Reza ship's thruster nozzles flared once and then faded as the damaged engines behind the nozzles shut down. Venemis held her breath, waiting for the salvo that would blast the helpless ship into oblivion.

The salvo didn't come. Instead, the Arctic slowed, waiting for the Reza ship's momentum to bring it closer. The Human ship moved up and over, settling itself above the Reza ship's dorsal sensor ridge, out of line from the remaining port side weapons clusters. On the tactical, the green lines of two tractor beams winked into existence, connecting the two ships. The hazy circle of a Crippler net spun out from the Arctic's hull between the tractor beam projectors and wrapped itself around the dying vessel, sending a high-voltage charge through the hull and eliminating the possibility that the crew might activate a self-destruct system.

And as the Arctic turned toward hyperspace, all the pieces finally fell into their pattern.

The escaping shuttle was programmed to run on automatic and had been a diversion. But not for a second ship. Taisen had brought them to that particular spot because he wanted the Reza to chase him. This whole thing had never been about revenge, destruction or even just sending a message. Taisen had set up this entire scenario hoping to capture a Reza ship.

And he'd done it.

"Queen Venemis?" Taisen's voice came from right behind her. He was perched on the Arctic's command chair.

Venemis jerked. "You called, Commander?" she managed.

"We'll be travelling to a nearby system to hand off our prize," Taisen said casually as if they'd just picked up an order of spare parts from the mechanic shop around the corner. "After that, we'll be returning to Arkania Prime. Will you need rest time before we leave?"

"A few hours should do," Venemis said. The mental toll of Third sight always left her shaken.

"Understood," Taisen said. "I trust you found the exercise interesting?"

With an effort, Venemis calmed her floundering winglets against her cheeks. "Yes, Commander," she said. "Very interesting indeed."