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Kaltaarist village songs of joy and gratitude filled the hangar deck as Kaylenn entered unannounced. "Fleet Captain on deck," Saaryth announced as she glanced up and saw her. The circle of Kaltaarist pilots stood up from their seated, cross-legged positions on the floor to greet her.

"As you were," Kaylenn ordered, raising a hand. She looked at their eyes, and could see there had been tears. But only moments ago she had heard laughter.

"May I offer the fleet captain a drink?" Saaryth asked, extending the bottle they had been passing around. Kaylenn recognized the label on the exotically carved glass vessel. Velnyr, a Kaltaarist wine. She had had it once, an unusual flavor and a deceptively numbing effect. Though alcoholic beverages had almost certainly been a Kralite invention, Kaltaarists had refined the art with their own particular skill. As they had warfare, apparently.

"Thank you, no," she said politely. The smell of Kaltaarist wine on her breath was the last thing she needed right now. "I didn't mean to interrupt your...gathering." She wasn't sure whether to say 'festivities' or 'services.' Among Kaltaarists there was scarcely a distinction, some said, with life and death changing places like partners in a dance. "I came only to offer my personal commendation on your services and to offer my deepest condolences for the comrades you've lost."

"Thank you, Fleet Captain. Though I have already given your message to the entire squadron, as you instructed."

"I see. Well...if you require any particular memorial services..."

"None, Fleet Captain."

"Very well. If you need to contact your home villages to make arrangements-if any financial assistance to your relations back home are needed-"

"Contingency arrangements have already been made, Fleet Captain. Each village is always provided for by its regional collective." Kaylenn noted a few repressed grimaces of involuntary disgust from the other Kaltaarists. As if the suggestion that special considerations were needed offended them. The very notion of a society in which the individual is left to fend for herself was anathema to them. "As for notifying our home clusters-it seems only proper they be notified through standard channels, as I presume will be the circles of Kralite warriors killed in this war."

"Yes. Of course." Stone wall. Well, since all conventional forms of bribery had proved ineffective, there was only one thing left to offer. Risky, but then there were no safe paths left to choose from. "Lieutenant Commander, I request the pleasure of your company. Would you join me on a shuttle excursion to the surface?" She felt the worried stares all around her, and the hot anger of betrayal when Saaryth replied.

"With pleasure, Fleet Captain." She handed the wine bottle to one of her officers who accepted it with some visible reluctance. "You're in charge until I get back, Ventrie. Keep my bed warm for me," she whispered, leaning forward to kiss the attractive young feme who kissed back.

"Always," Ventrie replied with a smile.

A clear message to both of us, Kaylenn realized. To Ventrie and the rest of the squadron: Don't worry. My place is still with you. To Kaylenn: Don't get your hopes up.

§§§

Saaryth handled the controls as the space shuttle cleared the orbiting station and descended toward Keltrys IV. After clearing her flight plan with station control and the flight center on the planet's surface, she swung the shuttle skillfully around the ring-shaped superstructure of the gigantic military space wheel.

There, visible on the station's planetside space dock was the Kalthaar. Battered and charred about the edges, but still the pride of the fleet, Kaylenn thought with a smile. As Saaryth did a close fly-by of the docked ship, Kaylenn looked through the viewport and saw the flitting white specs of the space crews maneuvering with their thruster packs as they worked on the Kalthaar’s damaged sections.

"I'm told the Kalthaar should be battle ready in about four standard days, Fleet Captain," Saaryth remarked matter-of-factly.

"Yes, so I've heard. How do you feel about getting back into the fight, Saaryth?" The planet surface, bright green and blue, rose towards them in the viewport.

Saaryth's eyes never left the controls. "I do not relish the thought of losing any more of my sisters, Fleet Captain," she said calmly. "But, as our priestesses teach: If some must be lost on the hunt for the tribe to go on, that is the wisdom of Kaltaari."

There was a note of sadness hidden under her stoicism. And, just a hint of anger. "You must resent my kind for putting you and your sisters in this position, Saaryth."

She sighed, glancing up at the planet's curve now filling the viewport. "Yes. I suppose I do." Her jaw was a bit clenched. Kaylenn hoped letting Saaryth vent her anger in this neutral setting would help gain her trust. But now, it was Kaylenn's turn to open up. "It's a stupid war, I know. The Confederation and our former trading partner, the Vedran Alliance, wasting lives and funds over contested solar systems whose resources don't begin to justify the cost."

"The Galaxy, like the daughter of Kral, belongs to the strong," Saaryth said, reciting the Confederation war slogan, as she raised the shuttle's heat shields and prepped the ship for atmospheric entry.

"More accurately, the next Council term belongs to those ministers who have a successful military campaign to their credit."

"You must be resentful as well, if you believe that," Saaryth said as she switched the ship from nuclear space drive to air-cooled rocket propulsion. The ship trembled and the energy barrier beyond the viewport glowed white-hot as the ship dove into the atmosphere.

Kaylenn was at once refreshed and a bit taken aback by Saaryth's honesty. "I suppose, to some extent. The rules of politics and of war are the same as the Hunt of Kral: only one victor allowed. There's no way around that. At least in Kralite society. But a good warrior understands the value of allies. The Council does not." Saaryth remained silent, as though waiting for Kaylenn to say more. She was not going to make this easy, Kaylenn could tell. She had to be more direct, even if it meant putting her life in Saaryth's hands. Well, she had once already, she reminded herself.

"You've been honest with me, Saaryth, so I'll be honest with you. My government has asked me to suppress the role your people played in this battle, and I've refused." Saaryth looked up, suddenly, unable to hide her surprise. "That puts me in a very dangerous position. I don't believe my own crew or officers would assassinate me, even under Fleet Command orders, but I suspect some might be slow to defend me the next time I'm ordered into the line of enemy fire. I have to be certain the same is not true of you and your people."

Saaryth sighed, dropping the mask of composure and suddenly looked very irritated. "Fleet Captain, may I ask what you sought to accomplish by taking such a foolish risk?"

Kaylenn was completely unprepared for such a response. "I...I want my people to recognize what your people have to offer us. Saaryth, before this mission, I didn't believe a Kaltaarist could be a real soldier. I was typical of my people, but I realize now how wrong we've been. We've allowed a valuable resource to go to waste because of a stupid cultural prejudice. A stigma. If my superiors could just look beyond their stodgy-"

"You are a fool," Saaryth said coldly, looking directly at Kaylenn with stern eyes.

Kaylenn was stunned, but quickly recovered. "You overestimate your value to me, Lieutenant Commander," she barked, her anger surfacing. "Perhaps I could secure my position with my superiors by arranging a convenient accident for you."

"I'll gladly help you to arrange that accident, if it will secure the future of my people," Saaryth snapped back, setting the ship on auto-pilot.

Bright pink and violet cloudscapes raced past the viewport, framing Saaryth's angry, beautiful face. "What are you talking about?" Kaylenn demanded.

"Your superiors are already well aware of what our pilots can do. That's why we're here." Her eyes shifted a bit, as though she were hesitating. Then, she looked at Kaylenn and continued. "Our planning committees have discreetly negotiated with your ministers. We've agreed to help them with their war, and in return they have agreed to divert badly needed resources to some of our worlds which have been left to near starvation since this war began. The only condition is that we do not accept credit for any victory we participate in."

Kaylenn understood. "But you agree to accept the blame for any defeat."

"Of course. We care nothing about that, only about feeding our clusters and helping our people survive this war. And now you interfere with this reckless act of defiance and ask me to put my own people at risk to protect you! Why have you done this to us? What do you hope to gain?" Her eyes flared with anger.

Kaylenn almost smiled. At least now she knew where she stood. "Saaryth, listen to me," she said quietly. "My leaders are shortsighted fools, and the trouble with you Kaltaarists is you have too much faith in sapien love. Don't turn away from me! Listen. The Vedrans have learned the value of training Kaltaarists as soldiers. It's only a matter of time now before they and every sapien empire begin doing the same. Things are going to change for your people, whether you want them to or not. Whether they change for better or worse depends on you and others like you."

Saaryth looked at her with a hesitant curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"Play the game by the Council's rules, and your people will become scapegoats for every disaster Helkos suffers in this war. The few crumbs the politicians toss your way won't help you against the backlash that will follow when this war is over. You think your planets are badly off now? Just wait. When the next war comes, it will be that much harder for the Confederation to use your kind as fighters again. But our next enemy won't have that problem, you see?"

Saaryth looked shocked, almost like a child. Kaylenn continued to press her position, "Our politicians aren't like your planners. They think only of themselves, not of the problems their successors will inherit."

Saaryth glanced about nervously. "How then does your defiance help us?"

"If enough captains like me and enough squadron commanders like you stand together, they can't keep the truth bottled up. We can build a legend together, Saaryth-you and I!" She felt hot blood racing as she laid a hand on Saaryth's arm. The dark-eyed feme looked a bit frightened, almost as though confronted with a maniac. Kaylenn calmed herself, withdrew her hand and reined in her ambition. "What I mean is that we can help turn public opinion in your people's favor. In Kralite society, military success is the first step toward political power. Imagine your councils having a say in how the Confederation is run!"

For an instant Saaryth's eyes sparkled, then an instant later, darkened with fear. Then they turned away and the cold, defensive calm returned. "No. We want no part of your politics."

"Isolation is a luxury you can no longer afford! You've learned to kill. Now learn to reap the benefits of the kill, as you do on your hunt. Just as we do on ours."

Saaryth dropped her head back against the headrest of her flight seat. She closed her eyes, the cloud-veiled red sunlight streaming through the viewport painting her face in a wash of blood. "When I was a young girl in my village, our priestess would scold my classmates and me for hoarding food, or not dividing the workload evenly, or fighting over the attentions of a friend. 'The moment you let jealousy or selfishness or greed into your heart, you become like Tryl, the Mother of Evil who stabbed her own sister in the back and sold her soul to the demon Kral so she alone could claim the daughter who brought all suffering into the world.' I never really took any of that seriously. Until now."

"You've come this far," Kaylenn said, feeling genuine sympathy for Saaryth's pain. She'd never felt sympathy for weakness before, and feeling it now frightened her a little. She'd never imagined that kind of struggle could take place inside so capable a warrior as Saaryth. "You know you can't turn back. You and I need each other."

Saaryth raised her head and glared at her. "And, that's why we're here together?"

"It's not the only reason," Kaylenn said, hiding nothing as she gently ran a hand across Saaryth's face. The other feme's features softened. "Unless you're blind, you saw that the moment we met." Saaryth took Kaylenn's hand in both of hers and kissed it. She stroked Kaylenn's hand softly against her own cheek and looked into her eyes. "I've been honest with you about what I want."

"Power."

"Power I would eagerly use to help those I love. Tell me what you want."

"A better life for my people."

"And, for yourself?"

Sunlight broke through the clouds and washed in a warm orange glow over Saaryth's face. "That, you already know." She smiled, and Kaylenn felt a great warmth passing through her as their fingers interlocked.

§§§

Ralyn's mind rode the currents of time...

Currents taking shape in ocean waves, warm against soft, tingling flesh. The sound of the surf breaking on a sandy beach touched her mind. She felt the warm night breeze touch moist skin glistening in the light of three moons. She felt the gentle caress of strong hands, the warmth of eager lips. The soft yield of one feme's breasts against another's. Two hearts beating swiftly, hot blood racing.

She played time forward, just a bit...

Kaylenn and Saaryth lay together in each other's arms, their bedchamber dark and silent save for the slow, steady rhythm of their breathing and the soft, distant crash of the waves against the shore. Ralyn sent her robots. They shifted into normal space-time, gliding into the chamber, a spray of tranquilizing mist riding on a warm gust of seabreeze passing through an open bay window. Saaryth stirred and moaned in her sleep as the extractor needle stung her shoulder. She drew in closer to Kaylenn. Ralyn felt a bitter sorrow as the second robot took the sample of Kaylenn's DNA and both machines shifted back out of space-time. Ralyn had seen what lay ahead on this timeline, and treasured what time these two had left.

Ralyn's mind slipped several weeks forward along the timeline, to a large moon orbiting a gaseous giant planet. A misty moon of swamps and marshes. Battle craft, heavily armored laser tanks glided along, five feet above the marsh waters, suspended by magnetic forcefields. In Ralyn's mind the immense, black-hulled mobile fortresses resembled swamp-dwelling water insects flitting across the steaming surface of the marsh as they vied with each other for strategic advantage. The gleaming yellow beams of their laser cannon cut through the dense gray mists, gas pockets and huge clumps of swamp vegetation exploding in fire.

One of the floating battle tanks was hit by the lancing beam of a laser, its hull ruptured in flame and black smoke. The tank faltered, hitting the water and turning toward the marshy bank, a wave of brackish water rising in its wake. As the craft struck semi-solid ground, the fuel from its ruptured tanks spilled into the swamp water and ignited.

§§§

Three weeks after Kaylenn's victory near Keltrys, Kaylenn and Saaryth lead an expedition to the surface of the third moon of the planet Bekryn, in Vedran-held space. Inside Kaylenn's command tank her crew assessed the damage to their heavily armored craft.

"Crew, don battle gear and abandon tank!" Kaylenn choked out through the stinking smoke and marsh gas as she sealed her body armor and pulled on her filter mask and helmet. "Fan out! Saaryth, you're with me." She felt the heat of the fire and saw the flickering yellow of the flames as the boarding hatch dropped open, the tank's interior flooding with smoke. She mounted the heavy laser rifle at its place on the armored shoulder of her battle suit, attaching the power pack lead. "Sweep the jungle and run!" she ordered through her helmet radio. "Head north!"

Saaryth and the other five femes in her crew charged out of the burning hovertank and ran toward the dense jungle foliage just beyond the water's edge. The low gravity made coordination difficult. Kaylenn cursed under her breath as she slogged through the thick mud. She trained her laser on the jungle and fired, swinging the beam in a wide arc, as she would a scythe. The rest of her people did the same. Seven beams of shimmering yellow light swept through the immense, dark green ferns ahead of them.

Screams came from the jungle, followed by beams of light. Skaal, the soldier to Kaylenn's left had not time to cry out as the enemy's beam took her head cleanly off. Kaylenn could only stare as her armored corpse crumpled slowly into the muck. Kaylenn screamed and fired at the source of the laser beam. "Forward!" she screamed. She kept her eyes on Saaryth, directing her fire to protect her. "Drive in! Kill them!"

Trinnyth, another of her soldiers went down screaming as her legs were cut from beneath her. Even sprawled in the mud, legless, she continued firing her laser into the jungle. Leafy green plants brushed past Kaylenn's filter mask as she bounded into the jungle. There was a thundering explosion behind her, momentarily bathing the jungle in yellow light. She dropped, bits of red-hot shrapnel raining down around her like flaming hail. The smoldering red fragments hissed and sputtered in the reeds and marshy soil. "Saaryth!" she called out.

"Here," Saaryth answered, off to Kaylenn's left somewhere.

She turned and saw an armored figure crouched in the tall reeds, firing into the jungle. Kaylenn swept another tract of brush with her laser. Apart from her beam and Saaryth's, there were only two others firing from the brush off to her right. In addition to Trinnyth, one other soldier apparently had not gotten clear of the explosion in time. Patching her helmet radio into the unit com frequency, Kaylenn beamed out a message. "This is Kaylenn. Who else is out there? Over."

"Zelyth, syr," one voice replied over her headphones.

"Marn, syr," came another. So, the dead one was Kelnyr. Kaylenn remembered her slightly. Young. Raw, but tough. Kaylenn checked the energy level on her power pack. She had used up about half the charge, and they had burned out a wide piece of jungle. All they were doing now was making themselves an easy target for the enemy's heat sensors.

"Cease fire!" Kaylenn ordered. "Fan out, stay in radio contact, and head for the ridge! Once we're clear of the jungle, we'll get a message to one of our hovertanks. Over and out."

Crouching low in the brush, Kaylenn made her way toward Saaryth. She came upon the charred, dismembered body of a Vedran soldier, her molten shell of armor still smoldering around her corpse. Saaryth crawled from under a damp cluster of ferns. Water streamed in rivulets down the glass plate of her respirator mask. Kaylenn could just make out her lover's strong, dark eyes behind the fog of Saaryth's labored breath. Their hands joined, bulky metal-cased gauntlets frustrating any true contact. Kaylenn desperately wanted to hold her, but the damned suits made that impossible. "Are you all right?" Kaylenn asked urgently.

"I'll live," Saaryth replied, her voice crackling breathlessly through the helmet mike. "And you?"

"I could use a bath," she chuckled. "Come on, we'll rendezvous with the others on the ridge." As they struggled through the mud and dense foliage, working their way up the sloping terrain, Kaylenn's thoughts spun angrily. She focused on the lined, dark-eyed, dour old face of the Fleet Command officer appearing on her private subspace hololink in her quarters. The Vedran subspace relay on Bekryn's third moon is an easy target, the withered old hawk had chirped out, with just the hint of a bitter smile crossing her thin, bloodless lips. The Kalthaar alone could do it. Fleet Command's intelligence reports on this moon's fortifications had plainly been a compound of lies. How many Helkan femes had already died on this mud ball just so Kaylenn's political enemies could be rid of her?

Kaylenn burned with hatred inside her armor, fantasizing about having those witches in Command taken out and flogged before pushing them out a space station air-lock and watching them bloat and explode in the vacuum of space. She wondered if Neltryn had been able to get the Kalthaar to safety behind the second moon before the enemy's destroyers had found her. The heat of her rage began giving way to a cold, numbing guilt rising in her stomach. She had done this. Her damned ambition had led her to gamble not only her own life, but Neltryn's, her crew, her ship-and, the feme she loved.

Kaylenn and Saaryth emerged from the jungle, Marn and Zelyth joining them atop the mossy green ridge overlooking the lush valley and crooked, swampy coastline. Bekryn dominated the horizon, a bright salmon ball of cloud-streaked brilliance half visible behind the distant gray mountains. The planet filled half the western sky, its two other moons hanging pale white in the dull copper-blue sky. Kaylenn scanned the valley floor and swamplands with the optic visor in her helmet. Her hovertanks were hopelessly scattered, a few distant flitting black specs against the water, yellow laser bursts and fires glowing in the distance. Most were no doubt already fleeing back to their landing craft, the Vedrans in pursuit.

"Open all com channels," Kaylenn barked out over her helmet radio. "Scrambler frequency to all units. Following message: Retreat to carrier ships, launch and pick us up at-" Her sentence was cut short as Zelyth screamed, cut in two by a laser beam. There was a clap of thunder as her laser's power pack exploded in a blinding flash. "Take cover and lay down fire!" Kaylenn ordered, pushing Saaryth to the ground and falling protectively on her as a second laser volley flashed by, blasting away a piece of the ridge. The towering black hulk of an enemy hovertank rose over the smoking, blasted crest of the ridge, its laser cannon trained on Kaylenn's position.

"Surrender now, or die," a feme's amplified voice boomed out of the hovertank's observation dome. Kaylenn raised her laser to fire, but before she could even aim, a second hovertank rose into view off to her right, just behind Marn. Both hovertanks landed, one at either end of the ridge. Boarding hatches dropped open, and armored femes poured out. Kaylenn found her position surrounded by ten enemy soldiers, their lasers trained on her. "Throw down your weapons, now!" the voice from the first hovertank ordered.

Kaylenn glanced right and saw Marn had already dismounted her laser and was kneeling with her hands in the air. Kaylenn growled in contempt. She looked at Saaryth, lying there beside her, still holding her laser and looking up at her, as though requesting orders. Over the years, Kaylenn had imagined this moment a thousand times over. To die in battle like a Saardra warrior of legend, her spirit joining the honored dead in the assembly of the goddesses, the spirit of Kral looking on. She looked again into Saaryth's brave eyes, sighed and dismounted her laser.

§§§

"Move!" The shock of the guard's stun prod was like a hot knife entering Saaryth's back. The jolt raced through her, and her head swirled, the bright white flood lamps illuminating the mining tunnel spinning wildly around her. When her head stopped pitching, she felt a grainy layer of powdered stone against her cheek, sharp bits of shale pricking her flesh. One of her hands rested on the soft, warm body of the prisoner who had collapsed from exhaustion a few moments before. "Get up," the Vedran guard ordered, prodding Saaryth's ribs with the toe of her boot. "Back to work!"

Saaryth stood, dizzy as blood rushed to her head. She felt something wet trickling down her forehead and touched it. It stung. Her fingers came away smeared with blood and dust. Two other guards took the fallen prisoner by her arms and dragged her through the mine entrance, toward the lift leading to the surface-level domes of the asteroid. The feme's head bobbed feebly as she was dragged away. "What will they do with her?" Saaryth asked.

The guard sneered in contempt. "Spaced," she said coldly. "Unless they want to gut her for spare parts first. We need arms and legs and organs for our soldiers on the front, don't we?" She smiled, and it made Saaryth ill. "What's that look for, you mewling Kaltie?! She was a Kralite. What was she to you?"

Saaryth knew she had to handle this very carefully. Perhaps the guard could be reasoned with. "I think I can get her back to work, if you'll let me help her. My people have meditation techniques, and nutritional supplements I think the hydroponics could-"

"Shut up! The camp commander sets procedure. They don't work, they die, and you're close to death right now! Get back to the ore cutter, you Kaltie whore!"

It was like trying to reason with a two-year-old in a large, strong body. Saaryth could not give up, not while there was still a chance to save the other prisoner. "Listen to me...production is important to your people. You need all the workers you can get. I can help-"

The guard brought the butt-end of the stun prod crashing against Saaryth's chin. Stars flashed across darkness as she fell backward into the dust. She dimly heard booted feet crunching against the stone dust, angry voices all around her in the blackness. She felt someone laying upon her, softly. The touch seemed familiar. Kaylenn's breasts against her own. Was she dreaming?

"Stand aside!" the voice of the Vedran guard said angrily as blackness faded to swirling gray. As harsh white light streamed through the gray, framing the guard's stone-hard features and cold eyes. She could see the muzzle of the guard's laser pointed at her. "For the last time, move aside!"

"You'll have to kill us both." Kaylenn's voice, inches beside Saaryth. She tilted her head back painfully, and there was Kaylenn, laying upon her, directly in the path of the guard's fire.

"Don't think I won't!"

"Don't be stupid. You're behind in production as it is. Kill me, and you'll have riots to deal with. That'll set you back even farther. I'm the only thing keeping my people in line. Your commander wouldn't take kindly to your killing a ranking officer. Neither would her superiors in your fleet command, would they? They might need to trade me for some of their captured officers, you know."

The guard glanced nervously around at the other guards and the work details they were covering. Three other armed guards joined her, forming a circle around Saaryth and Kaylenn. "I'm responsible. Punish me, if you need to set an example."

"On your feet, both of you," the guard ordered. "We'll let the second-in-command decide this. Move."

§§§

The wounds left by the neural whips stung as Saaryth shifted in the darkness on her sleeping pad. Every inch of her body tingled with lancing pain. Her wrists still ached from the manacles. At times, it felt as though they were still beating her. The air was hot and filled with the smell of a dozen over-worked femes crowded into a small cell. All around her was the sound of raspy breathing from femes curled in fetal positions on thin mats laid on the hard metal floor. She glanced up and in the dim gray light saw the silhouette of a guard's helmet and laser in the corridor beyond the glass port in the steel door.

"What did you think you were trying to do," Kaylenn grumbled irritably from her mat beside Saaryth's.

Saaryth turned her head to look at her lover. Saaryth winced at the sight of the festering red welts covering much of Kaylenn's body. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I only meant to save the life of one of your people."

"Let me explain something to you: the only way to stay alive in a production camp is to stay up and working. The strong survive, the weak don't. It's as simple as that."

What kind of monsters were these people? "These Vedrans are savages! I think I'm beginning to understand why your people fight them."

Kaylenn almost laughed, then sighed. The long journey from the Bekryn system and three weeks as a Vedran prisoner and Saaryth had learned so little about Kralite cruelty. "Welcome to life among the daughters of Kral, my first one. We Helkans are no different. Our production camps are just like this one."

Saaryth was shocked. She had never believed Kralite society was as evil as the priestesses had luridly painted it to be in their sermons. Until now. Had Kaylenn done such things? She looked at the feme beside her, and wondered, in fear. "How can you do this to each other?" she whispered in anguish. "Don't you feel anything for each other?"

Kaylenn sighed in obvious frustration. "At the moment, what I feel is pain! Leave me alone and let me at least try to sleep." Saaryth turned carefully on her mat and put her fingers against the back of Kaylenn's shaved head, finding the pressure points at her neck and temples. "What are you doing?"

"Relax. Empty your mind of anger. Forget the shadows of the many. See only the light of the one."

"Don't waste your Kaltaarist gibberish on me! I don't believe-"

"Trust me," she whispered in Kaylenn's ear, kissing her softly on her cheek, then on her naked shoulder. "Rest. Let your anger flow from you. You're so tense." She carefully massaged Kaylenn's neural centers, applying the precise pressures, as she had been taught in her adolescence. "Don't fight the pain. Surrender to it. Let it pass through you and away, like the anger. Like everything." She whispered the ritual chant of the cleansing, modulating the tone of her voice to take Kaylenn to the next sensory level. "Forget the shadows," she whispered ever-so-softly, continuing the massage, accessing the next pressure point. "The many are one. The one is many. Choose the one. Remember only the Mother, Kaltaari." Kaylenn moaned deeply as she slipped into the first level of the trance.

§§§

Kaylenn sat perched on a narrow stone ledge behind a boulder, high over the rushing rapids of a river. Beside her lay her former lover, her throat slashed, her blood running red into the stream at Kaylenn's feet. The two suns of Kalthaar, the ancient mother world of her race, were setting behind the distant mountains. Kaylenn heard a sound of claws scraping against rocks down below. She carefully drew a wooden arrow from her quiver and placed it against the rough bark string of her wooden longbow.

§§§

§§§

She awoke to find herself back in her cell in the Vedran production camp on the asteroid, femes huddled closely around her, asleep in warm darkness. Darkness suddenly comforting, warmth suddenly welcome. Saaryth's hand gently stroked her forehead. She turned, and her lover lay beside her in the dim gray light, her eyes shining, her lips drawn back in a smile. The pain of Kaylenn's wounds was gone. She felt only love washing through her. They kissed, and for that moment, nothing else in the universe mattered.

§§§

Ralyn watched as the timeline wended its way forward, the weeks slipping by ... one... two... three...

§§§

Kaylenn seized Marn's arm just as she raised her miner's drill to kill the feme lying at her feet. Kaylenn swung her around and struck her across the face, knocking her down. The other Kralite prisoners who had gathered round to watch the fight shouted in anger at the interruption. "Idiots!" Kaylenn screamed, kicking dirt in Marn's face as she sat up. "What was it this time? A few crumbs of rations? Sex? Stupid. This is the third fight in two weeks! Haven't enough of us died on this rock already? Can't you see you're just making it easier for the guards? They don't have to watch us if we kill each other!"

Never a fight among the Kaltaarists, she realized with frustration. They shared their rations-and themselves-with each other evenly. That included Saaryth, she knew. The other day, Kaylenn had attacked another Kaltaarist she had seen laying with Saaryth, but Saaryth had stopped her. "You are my first one!" Kaylenn had screamed in helpless rage.

"We do not have 'first ones,'" Saaryth had answered harshly, though with a hint of doubt in her eyes. "One of us may not own another." That still infuriated Kaylenn, but she had to stay focused. There were a lot more Kaltaarists left alive here than Kralites, even though her people had outnumbered Saaryth's to begin with. They could hold out longer in these damned mines. They helped each other. Drew strength from each other.

"We have to work together, with the Kaltaarists, if we're to escape."

"Escape?" Marn said with incredulity, a sneer on her face as she stood up, brushing the dirt from her worker's coverall. "Escape to where? There's nothing above this hole but dead rock and vacuum."

"The next ore ship will land here in six days. We can be ready by then. We kill the guards, seize the lift, and take the ship. Simple."

Marn laughed, spitting into the dirt. "Simple? Like our mission to Bekryn?" Kaylenn fumed. A few of the others spat or guffawed. "Maybe if Neltryn were here-"

"Neltryn is dead. I'm all you have now. If you want to survive-"

"Neltryn would be alive now...everyone would be, if you'd stayed on the Kalthaar where you belonged, looking out for the crew. But no, you had to take command of the hovertanks to protect your precious Kaltie whore!"

Kaylenn stepped in toward Marn, turned sharply and brought the heel of her hand up against Marn's chin, slamming her jaw against her skull and knocking her flat on her back. As she stepped over her, Marn twisted and swept her leg around, knocking Kaylenn's feet out from under her. Kaylenn tumbled into the dirt.

Marn stood over her, raising the miner's drill above her head, the other Kralites cheering. Kaylenn threw a handful of dirt into Marn's eyes and rolled to avoid the drill. As the drill bit dug into the ground behind her, Kaylenn curled and sprang her legs out, landing a kick that sent Marn sprawling backward. Kaylenn pulled the drill from the ground. Marn tried to rise, but Kaylenn kicked her across the face and knocked her flat. The cheering grew louder and louder as Kaylenn raised the drill to strike. She looked into the faces of the others, the Kralites eager for a resolution, the Kaltaarists sad and indifferent. The eyes of one face in the crowd fixed on hers. Saaryth.

Saaryth stepped forward, knelt by Marn and protected her, as Kaylenn had once protected Saaryth. "Enough," Saaryth said, wiping the blood from Marn's mouth. The Kralites roared in rage and hatred. The Kaltaarists silently looked on. Kaylenn crashed the drill point into a rock to silence her people.

Cooperation was impossible, she realized with grim resignation. She and Saaryth would have to escape alone.

§§§

To be continued in February...

Dissent, Book I of the Nexus series is a novel soon to be published by Phase 5.