 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

About The Huntress

Episode 1: Hot Pursuit

Episode 2: Captivated

Episode 3: Tailspin

by

Athena Grayson

## Copyright Notice

© 2015, 2018 Jen Sokoloski. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Published by Uncharted Worlds Media. unchartedworldsmedia.com

Cover Artwork: Steven Novak Illustration

# About The Huntress

_Getting him into handcuffs was the easy part...keeping him out of her mind is gonna take work._

Treska Sivekka is the Huntress--the Union's most skilled bounty hunter. Her targets? The psypaths whose mental talents summoned alien attacks on the capital planet that left her body shattered and her mind a blank slate. Now the last free psypath is in her crosshairs...if only he weren't her one chance at restoring her lost memories.

Alien attacks out of nowhere left the entire system reeling, but the aftermath caused twice as much destruction to the old social orders. Psypaths like Micah Ariesis and near-humans like the Hathori people became scapegoats for inexplicable devastation...and then rebels against the repressive, reactionary government that rose from the ashes. Now the last free psypath has one chance at victory for the rebellion...but it's the last Vice Huntress who holds the key.

Huntress of the Star Empire is a space opera adventure with sizzle. For more about the series, visit athenagrayson.com/huntress or join the Private Readers' Group at readers.athenagrayson.com/StarEmpire and receive notification of new releases right to your inbox.

**Find Athena:** athenagrayson.com | Facebook | Twitter | Private Readers' Group

**Other Books**

_Science Fiction_

Huntress of the Star Empire

Part One: The Chase | Part Two: The Snare | Part Three: The Catch | Part Four: The Release

Scions of the Star Empire

Book One: Scandal | Book Two: Fallout

# Episode 1: Hot Pursuit

## Prologue

The tiny Starhopper craft bobbed and staggered down the spacelanes leading to and from Capitol, the central orbit of the Civilized Worlds of the Jewel star system. It darted in and out of inbound and outbound lanes like a much more agile craft than the old hulk it actually was. The ragged man at the controls wiped sweat from his eyes and checked the readout from the rear sensors.

Quiet and green. Still, he did not allow himself to relax. His senses--the ones he trusted above the delicate technology of the hijacked spacecraft--told him differently.

He was being followed.

He flipped a switch to turn the subspace link newsfeed to audio. A voice blared into the cramped cabin. The news cycle still attended to the morning "morality is security" speech by Prime Minister Vakess. The pilot resisted the urge to spit when the PMs name emitted from the speakers. He settled for a mental curse in order to avoid a potential short-out of the ancient craft's systems.

But the newsfeed soon cycled through to local events. Just before the announcer spoke the headline, his psy-senses jangled alarm. He juked the stick down a bare nanosecond before the target-lock klaxons began to sound from the rear sensors. He shut down the noise with a mental command and the announcer from subspace began speaking of the detention center break and subsequent apprehension of the dangerous criminal by the heroic efforts of the Vice Hunters.

His readouts lit up as four craft of an indeterminate make flared into existence. The viewscreen showed their sleek profiles, and maneuvers that defied logic. _They're beautiful_. An ache blossomed in his chest. _If only --_

The viewscreen whited out as the first of the blasts vaporized his outer shielding. Seconds later, his inner shielding failed, and the cabin shuddered with the impact of a docking clamp, the clunk of talons closing on his hull a period at the end of a long sentence. He reached for the makeshift shiv that had gotten him this far, and opened a comm channel low enough on the subspace band to be ignored as simple feedback.

"My name is Wenn DiVrati. I am a trained psypath. I follow the code put forth by the holy monks of Ursis Amalia. To serve all civilization. To be at peace with myself and with the universe. To master myself and my talents."

The laser cutter's whine preceded the steadily brightening glow of a section near the back of the cabin. He rose from the pilot's seat and balanced the shiv lightly on his fingers. "I've escaped the Theta rehabilitation facility on the Capitol. Don't believe the subnews reports--it's no rehab." He ran his free hand over his bare scalp, shorn even of the topknot of his holy order, his fingers finding the pits the diodes left from where he'd ripped them from his skull. No more pain. No more blindness of the mind. Ever. "This vital information must reach the Restoration effort if psypaths are to be saved from extinction. The Vice Hunters are not ordinary trackers. They--"

The hiss of escaping pressure accompanied the groan of peeling metal and the first Vice Hunter stepped through. The man pointed a zapgun at him and fired. The crimson flash lit up the cabin and DiVrati flung his free hand out, his mind arrowing to a pinpoint of focused concentration.

The sensation of connecting to the universe again filled him with joy. At last! Free again to feel, to be, to sing in the universal song that coursed through all things. Such ecstasy, even as the energy blast burned his palm, singeing the skin from muscle.

The pain from his hand paled, though, compared to the shrieking that bounced around the inside of his skull. The bolt's force dispersed, but the effects of the rehab facility had done their damage. He fell to one knee, his good hand clutching the shiv.

The Vice Hunter failed to take the advantage, staring at his zapgun and at a second energy bolt hanging in mid-air, suspended by DiVrati's abilities. _Perhaps a chance?_ DiVrati thought.

"Please," he said. "I mean no harm to you or yours. I harmed none in my escape. I seek only to leave Union space." He put the force of all his willpower behind the words, weaving the energies of conviction around them.

The man's shoulders shifted, his internal tension ratcheting down a notch. Hope stirred in DiVrati's heart.

The Vice Hunter stumbled forward and a woman emerged through the opening. "Healix!" she snapped, shoving him hard. Her movements belied a grace he hadn't seen in ten years, ever since the New Morality swept through the Civilized Systems. "It's a mindsnake!"

DiVrati sought to keep control of the situation. "Wait," he said, sending a burst of will through the words in spite of the pounding in his head. "I don't want to hurt--"

Her beautiful features twisted with scorn, her blue-green eyes freezing cold. "Mindsnake," she repeated, the force of her own convictions slamming into his. He staggered with the sudden and strong sense of wrongness from her. _Abomination..._ His control faltered, and so did his will.

She brought her arm up and pointed it at him, showing the cuff wrapped on her wrist. She curled her fingers into a fist and squeezed. The darts flew out of their launch tubes, too fast and too close for him to stop with his abilities, depleted as they were.

Twin spikes of pain dragged a swiftly spreading numbness through his limbs. "You don't mean to hurt," she said, leaning in close so he could hear over the buzzing in his ears. He struggled for breath against the paralysis creeping through him and thought he smelled flowers. "But you do."

The wrongness crawled through him, centered on the woman. The interior walls of the ship wavered, and he thought he saw billowing silks and clouds of incense. But the temples were closed now, and the Hathori scattered or quarantined. He tried to shake his head.

"You're a mindsnake, and you can't help being what you are."

She rose and turned away from him. "Get the body. We'll need it to collect the bounty."

"They wanted him alive," the Vice Hunter protested. DiVrati felt his jaw locking up and fought it as long as possible. The connections he felt with the energies of the universe flowed through and around him, except for the woman. In her, they turned, reflected back on themselves and distorted beyond recognition. _She doesn't fit_.

"He's still alive. It's a new stasis-poison I agreed to test-run." She leaned back down and DiVrati stared up at her face. Such a lovely face. What was it about her?

In spite of the pain, he kept his eyes open and looked hard at her, with both his eyes and his extended senses. Her features blurred and shifted, revealing a different face beneath her own. No less lovely, but tinted the blue of a summer sky. "So beautiful...Im-possible," he stuttered. "You--the Union--wears the--face of--Hathor?"

Her eyes narrowed. "See, Healix? Mindsnakes are liars with no morals. They can't even see what's in front of their faces. Who'd confuse me with a Hathori?"

DiVrati's consciousness began to fade, and the tiny core of him panicked. The sterile whiteness of the detention center filled his mind. _I can't go back there. I'd rather die_.

Most sentients, when faced with these circumstances, would wake up to find themselves in the hell they would give all to escape from. Psypaths were not most sentients, and DiVrati was a desperate man. Pain warred with the paralysis as he forced his mental abilities down neural pathways and into muscle and blood. His eyes rolled back in his head with the effort of focusing on and slowing the throbbing muscle that was his heart. He would not go back to that place. Death was preferable to the living undeath that place held.

_Hear my voice_ , he thought, his eyes fixed on the silent, blinking amber light of the subspace comm. He shoved his last bit of willpower towards that comm, in the vain hope that the message would reach the right ears, and someone would know not of his life or his death, but merely of his existence. _I_ am _, and that is what matters_.

The gray crept forward, drowning out even the yellow light. _I am_.

The buzzing in his ears slowed to silence. _No more_.

His heart beat its last.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Huntress and Prey

The hooded stranger drifted through the marketplace in the dusty spaceport, stopping here and there to examine the junk traders' wares. Inside the rough homespun cloak, his fingers absently sifted through credit chits, seeking by touch those that were small enough in denomination to use when he settled on a purchase.

Alas, there was not much to buy. Tenraye was a poor world these days, and the galaxy was sadder for it. He remembered his first taste of Tenraye-grape wine as being the highlight of one of his father's endless social functions, back in the days before the New Morality came sweeping through the Civilized Worlds and excesses as mild as wine-drinking had become crimes against safety.

The Civilized Worlds once prided themselves on being the most advanced of the solar systems in the Nine Sisters star cluster. But when faced with the threat of invaders, they'd knuckled under to the fear. It was easy to believe that if only the Civilized Worlds had not flaunted their wealth, their decadence, their opulence, then the Marauders would not have targeted them for conquest. After the strike on Jewel, what had once been a fringe belief became a full-fledged cultural shift, spreading like a cancer through the entire solar system. Citizens of dozens of worlds, moons, and colonies frenzied themselves to denounce all forms of Immorality. As more individuals embraced the concept, more practices were sacrificed on the altar of fear. _As if the Marauders cared whether or not we drank wine_ , he thought. Their dreadnaughts had come from the remote outermost Jumpgate in the system, straight to the heart of the Capitol, with no more than moments' notice, and no reason why.

But the train of thought was one he'd ridden many times in the past decade, and there was no use in wasting anger on it now. Especially when he had to be alert. He drifted through the stalls, picking up a red plate here, a cobbled-together power cell converter there. Most of the traders at the shabby spaceport were dealing in either starship parts or selling off the leftovers of the formerly vast vineyard-estates where the wine was no longer pressed.

Dusty boxes of what used to be family heirlooms littered half a dozen booths...the accumulated status and wealth of families who no longer had a place in the New Morality. Those who could had left Tenraye years ago, either re-inventing themselves to fit in better with the new state of things in the Core, or striking out for the outer orbits. Those who couldn't, had to stand and watch while Militia ships landed and troops spread out to seize and destroy the winemaking machinery. And speaking of the Militia--a pair of distinctive red and silver uniforms were coming his way, no doubt out and about in an attempt to squelch any threat to security that an un-smashed bottle of wine might generate.

In a subtle movement, he brought his hands out of his cloak and to his hood, drawing it up over his head to hide the tawny hair that could be an identifying descriptor, were he compromised. The militia men passed him, and if he stretched his senses, he could hear their low chatter.

"--Due for patrol in Sector twenty-two, Southwest vineyard...heard there might be an illegal still in operation."

"Heh. Too bad grapes are fruit, otherwise we could just turbolaser the whole crop and not have to worry."

"Or sit back and let the Marauders take it."

Micah dropped his interest in their conversation when a stall owner turned abruptly, and placed a blue vase on the counter with an audible thud. He shifted his direction towards the blue vase. "Lovely home for a flower, friend," he murmured.

"Eh? The sturdy blooms'll grow in an old jar," the grizzled old shopkeeper muttered back.

Micah set a cred-chit down next to the vase. "All the same," he said. "A lovely home is a reminder of the nature of flowers."

The man looked up at him. Behind the milky iris of one badly-scarred eye, Micah could just see the red pinpoint of an ocular implant flaring to life. The man's hand shot out and snatched the cred-chit. "Mind you clean that thing before you use it. Wouldn't want your flowers gettin' dirty."

"Thank you, kind sir," he said, nodding his head. Yes, even in the middle of a dust-ridden slum, he could never forget the manners practically encoded in his DNA. He scooped up the vase, carefully wrapping it in a fold of his cloak.

The sun was beginning to burn off the early morning cool, and he found some shrinking shade in the lee of a building. Once in the relative dimness, he was able to more firmly secure the vase under his cloak, and tip the contents of the slender-necked vessel into his waiting hand. A keycard tumbled into his palm, with the hologram-logo of the spaceport flophouse etched into one side. And a note scrawled on a scrap of flimsy in sharply-cursive script. "Bring food," was all it said.

Having no way to argue, he complied. He spent another of his cred-chits at the vegetable stall on scrawny-looking succulents, some tubers, and a foil-sealed self-heating quarter cut of roast cluck-bird. "Guaranteed Non-Imitation," the package declared, which probably meant it was.

He spent more cred-chits at the fruit stall on a large bunch of plump Tenraye Blacks, the only fruit that didn't look as if it had already been sitting in the dehydrator all day. Tenraye black grapes used to be found in their legendary black wine, the rich vintage a joy to the palate and a delight to the senses. _It also tastes wonderful when lapped from a nude female body_.

Next to him, a kerchiefed woman stiffened and looked around suddenly. He stepped away abruptly, hasty in securing the grapes and mentally cursing himself. _Did you forget everything you were taught?_

He couldn't close his eyes to meditate, but he could control himself in other ways, and did so now, counting the measured treads of his footsteps as he made his way to the end of the market. He breathed in time with his footsteps and concentrated on reining in his thoughts and emotions.

The effort became easier after he crossed the market threshold. The long breezeway leading to the spaceport was only sparsely populated. When there weren't so many others attempting to repress themselves and their own thoughts, it was easier for him.

Being a psypath was becoming more and more of a curse each day.

He reached the hostel and consulted the keycard, then found the corresponding number. He slid the card into the lock, ignoring the faint twinge of sense-warning at the back of his mind, and pushed the door open to step inside.

He was grabbed by the wrist, spun around an entire turn, and shoved up against the wall. "You're late," a voice hissed in his ear.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The air in front of him wavered, indicating someone in a stealthsuit.

"I brought fresh grapes," he muttered back. "The good kind. Rich, globular," he dropped his voice to a whisper and drew out the next word. "Sssucccculent."

"You tease," she said, burrowing an invisible hand inside his robes. When he slapped it away from his pack, it went for the front releases of his undertunic. Seconds later, he felt cool, feminine fingers on his skin.

Tightness pulled low in his gut and he dropped the pack with a clatter. His own hands reached out to the empty-looking air in front of him, fumbling and finding her curves. He dragged her against him. "I never tease," he said.

Her fingers turned hard and she dug her nails into his pecs, dragging them roughly over his skin. "You're right, you don't," she said. "And it's a damn shame, too. People will think I never taught you anything." Invisible hands shoved his cloak aside. Invisible lips pressed against his bare flesh. Invisible teeth nipped at his skin, and the low tightness beckoned. He leaned carefully back against the wall as she moved lower, down to his abdomen. He sucked in deep breaths, her scent carrying to him, heating his blood. _Ahh, Hathori_ , he thought. _The galaxy's a sadder place without them_.

Soon, though, that all would change. Starting with him. In the meantime... "Trying to teach me a lesson again?" he asked, only a hint of wry mockery to his tone. He found the clasp for the stealthsuit's field and twisted the stud.

Her green eyes flashed up at him from his midsection as her form flickered into view. She licked her lips and grinned as she slid back up his body, her breasts brushing against his bare chest, enticingly held away from him by only the thin skin of the stealthsuit. "Simply trying to round out your education, Schoolboy."

Even after ten years, she still had the power to slide those nails of hers under his skin. "Xenna--"

"Shh," she murmured, nipping at his lower lip. "I was worried about you. When you disappeared on Vashta..." A shadow flickered behind her eyes and he didn't need to use his psypath skills to understand. In her own way, she cared.

He kissed her back, much more gently than her own aggressively affectionate attacks. "You knew I'd be all right," he said. "It was too risky for me to be caught then. I wasn't ready." And the archival codexes of the Vashtans had taught him much about his psypath talents. Talents he would need very shortly, if all went according to plan. "If it's any consolation, I missed you terribly every moment I spent on that airless tramp freighter." Safely hidden in a cramped closet in the already-thin atmosphere'd area of a slow-moving bulk freighter, masking his presence from the skeleton crew, living off carefully-preserved rations for weeks...he shuddered. Even his sparse quarters in the Restoration's home cell were preferable to that. Especially as the freight crew were militant, fully-realized, well-schooled proponents of the New Morality. The mere memory of having to sit through their purity chants was enough to inspire impotent fury in him. _Gods of all the senses, just take your damn cocks in your hands already!_

But for now, Xenna was here, and her hands were again moving over his skin, teasing more gently this time. And he had missed his partner, as much as she annoyed him. In one swift move, he lifted her under the arms and pushed her against the wall. "Let me show you what the Vashtans called the 'Grip of Mind'," he said. "And the...creative practical applications of it I devised, having plenty of time to think of nothing else on my way here."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Xenna wasted no time in shedding the stealthsuit, revealing her gloriously fuchsia, gloriously naked form. She kicked the suit into a corner while he secured the window shutters and failed to not look. His homespun cloak joined her suit and his tunic followed soon after. She activated a small jamming device for any electronic surveillance, then crouched at his feet and helped him out of his boots. They landed with twin thunks near the clothing.

Next, he sank down into the lotus pose and closed his eyes, extending his psionic senses outwards, mentally feeling the room. The walls were thick and undisturbed by surveillance. The fixtures, however...

He stretched his mind and sent a mental flick towards the bedpost. A hiss revealed the presence of a bug. Another one expired, courtesy of his will, from the nightstand glowlamp. He identified three more, one buried in the mattress even. He frotzed that one, but left the one in the pillow and the other one woven into the rag rug on the floor. One never completely eliminated all the bugs in a room, unless you wanted them to know you were onto them. Xenna's jammer would take care of hiding their activities from the remaining intact nanospies.

He emerged from the trance and opened his eyes to the sight of her naked form, bent over and rummaging through his pack. Her rounded ass was a lovely shape, perfect for gripping. The combination of scent and sight sent a tremor of lust through him. The aftereffects of the psy-trance left him more open than usual, and he caught the stray sensation from her. She felt his eyes on her, and she liked his hungry stare. To prove it, she subtly arched her back just that much more.

"What are you doing?" he asked hoarsely, his eyes glued to her movements. She knew very well what she was doing, he thought, and decided right then he wanted her on her hands and knees, just like that. _That's the pheromones talking_.

"Looking at your loot," she tossed over her shoulder, wiggling her ass again.

Maybe just right there, too. His hands were already at his waistband, releasing the catch. The heavy fabric scraped down his legs. "Xenna." He stepped out of his pants and strode over to her. "What do you think you're doing?"

She sat back on her heels and tossed him a sultry look over her shoulder. "Honoring my goddess." She leaned back, just enough for him to feel the heat of her body against his bare chest. "Thanking Her for bringing my partner back to me safely." She reached up to trail bright pink-skinned fingers along his jaw. "Living my truth."

He closed his eyes. Everything in the atmosphere between them guided him to one inexorable path. He traced her chemical signatures, his physiological responses, even the pitch of her voice.

He placed both hands on her waist and pulled her back, sinking himself into her. Her moan ended on a throaty laugh. "I knew you couldn't resist," she said, twisting her hips against his.

He wrapped one arm around her waist and put the other on the floor to steady himself. "I'm sorry." He bent down to kiss the nape of her neck. "Was I supposed to?"

He began to move slowly. She pushed back against him to increase their pace, but he held her hips firm. "None of that, love," he said. "I'm tormenting you, remember?"

"Don't be a bastard, Micah," she said. "Unless you're going to mean it."

"I could never be enough of a bastard for you, love." He chuckled low and nipped her earlobe. "You haven't seen my new trick yet." Nevertheless, he was a gentleman, obliged to his lady's pleasure, and increased his pace. The slick friction of their bodies sent shudders through him that tightened his stones and warned of impending release. He pulled her against him and leaned back on his haunches. She rose back with him, taking him deep.

Both hands free now, he was able to cup her generous breasts in his palms, teasing and thumbing the nipples to firm peaks. Her head dropped back against his chest. "One day," she sighed. "You'll finally learn my lesson."

His hands left her breasts, sliding down to palm over her stomach and between her thighs. He touched lightly, deliberately so, knowing that she preferred a heavier hand. It was part of their play. "Won't ever happen," he said. He kept his tone light, not voicing what they both knew as fact. He would never be the kind of lover she wanted. Needed. It was enough that they were partners and sought pleasure together. After all, even without a temple, Xenna was still a priestess of Pleasures Untold. "Now do you want to see what I've learned?" he asked.

"Tricks later," she said breathlessly, flexing her hips. "It's been too long since I've had a man inside me."

She had a point. Their time, after all, might be limited. He settled back on his heels and loosened his grip on her hips, allowing her to set the pace. They moved in a rhythm that was as familiar as it was exciting. It took a considerable amount of his mental discipline not to succumb to the need to simply pound mindlessly into her.

But still--he leaned forward and nipped her neck. "Wait."

"Are you mad?"

He put the force of his will behind his words. "Slow."

Her body responded, slowing the shifting of her hips. She groaned in frustration. "How dare you!" Her head whipped around and she glared at him, a flash of something almost hopeful coming to him from her mind. Her pheromones rebelled and the heavy scent of her arousal enticed him and almost convinced him to abandon his restraint.

Almost, but not quite. "Hush," he said, stretching out both hands. He drew in a deep breath, drawing in the power from the hot core that burned inside him, pulling it from the elements outside, the very air and earth and light, and directed his will.

Through slitted eyes, he watched as Xenna's body rose from the floor. A tiny flick of his finger spun her around. She looked down, looked back up, and gasped. "You're doing it!" she whispered, a grin breaking out on her face.

Carefully, he shifted his weight and gathered his legs under him to stand. Without moving his outstretched arms, he rose. He then turned his hand, palm out, and Pushed gently. Xenna flew back towards the wall and he hastily Pulled back at the last minute before she smacked into it like a rag doll. "Sorry, love," he said. "I need more practice."

She grinned again. "Not at all. It was a rush."

His smile stretched to match her own. "Just wait. You haven't yet begun the rush." Using only his mind, he pinned her against the wall and focused his concentration on keeping her there. He moved forward, close enough to touch--to kiss--and touched his tongue to her stomach.

She sucked in a sharp breath. It was followed by several more that turned into little half-gasping cries as he began to lick her skin. Her scent was heady, intoxicating. He'd missed the taste of her spice.

She tried to draw her legs up, but the levitation prevented her and she growled in frustrated effort. "Micah, don't tease!"

He flicked his tongue. "That's exactly what I'm doing, love," he said. "Feel this." He shifted his hands and his concentration. He placed both hands on her thighs, but sent the force of his concentration to her breasts.

"Oh!" she cried. "You--it's phantom touching!"

He would have corrected her--the psionic touch was very real on her end. His mind was actually triggering the nerve endings under her skin to respond as if to a physical touch.

She let out a ragged moan. "Can you--fuck me this way?" she gasped.

He shifted his concentration and she peeled away from the wall. "I'd rather just fuck you the usual way right now," he said, using his kinetic powers to lower her down within reach. "You weren't the one closeted on a freighter for three weeks."

"You poor baby," she drawled, locking her legs around his hips. She used her ankles to draw him to her, sinking him into her sweet heat again. She swiveled her hips to bring him in deep and rocked back and forth in her own pace. Her pheromones wound through his head.

Without warning, she dug her nails into his skin, cutting deep. A flash of anger sparked in him and he shoved her against the wall rather roughly before he could rein it in. He hadn't just missed her these past weeks. He'd gone into withdrawal.

Deep satisfaction radiated from her at the sudden change in pace and he cursed himself for falling for her tricks. "Dammit, woman," he growled. Her scent teased at him, inspiring the darker emotions.

"Don't tire yourself out," she whispered. "Don't fight it." She put her pheromones behind her words and he found himself setting a hammering pace, his body enjoying the fast and furious mating even if his mind made a weak objection to her playful manipulations. A sly smile curved over her lips as she threw her head back. "Don't stop--aii!" she ended on a small shriek.

It did him in. Weeks without her--without her companionship as well as her pheromones--weakened his resistance to her skills. And as a fully-initiated priestess, she had _skills_. The swivel of her hips, a flutter of her belly, her body tightening with shimmery ripples--he gave way to the pleasure that pounded through his skull, only barely remembering to shield his thoughts from broadcasting his hymn to the Hathori pleasure goddess to all and sundry in a fifty-meter radius. Heavy orgasmic heartbeats pulsed through his whole body in time with the ragged gasps escaping through his teeth.

He sagged against the wall, pinning her against it as well. Her fingers skritched lightly through his hair as she, too, breathed heavily from exertion. "I really did miss you, you know."

"I'm sure you kept busy." He slid away from her. Now that the edge had been taken off, he could afford to think further on the rest of their mission.

"Of course I did," she said from the tiny refresher unit. He heard the steam-sonic run its fifteen-second cycle and she emerged, fresh and sparkle-eyed, in a cloud of moist air. "I made friends with a lovely new recruit. A pilot."

His lips twisted in a wry smile as he stepped into the cubicle. "Restoration needs more pilots," he said. "I'm sure you did it for the Cause." As the steam-sonic recharged, he leaned his head against the wall and tried not to worry about the Restoration's desperate fight against the tide of the New Morality. Or whether his presence was more of a help or hindrance to them.

"Not at all." She smirked. "I did it for the pleasure."

"Good." His relief was sincere. So many years ago, he would have been scandalized--shocked by the notion that pleasure was an end of its own means. Hathori had been an exciting novelty--and a source of speculation and frustration on the parts of the ruling families. Speculation as to the reality versus the reputation for young bucks like he'd once been, and frustration for the ladies who moved in the same social circles, who couldn't understand the Hathori, yet couldn't keep their husbands and sons away from the Temple's halls.

But all that had changed with the New Morality. Unification, they called it. Unification of purpose and a cultural shift that had turned anything pleasurable into decadence, and rendered it condemnable. The Temple had been shut down by force, its priestesses and acolytes taken into custody and herded into "re-education" camps.

Oh, some of the ruling families protested--the elder Magnates had taken a long view against the radical movement--and suffered for it, losing assets and sometimes heads in the effort. The universe had changed, and the new buzzwords had become safety and sobriety. And the Hathori--the people for whom pleasure was a way of life dictated by their very physiology--the Hathori _suffered_.

Xenna wouldn't talk about her time in the camps. She'd resurfaced two years into the New Morality and made contact with the Restoration effort he'd consistently been a part of. When the camps were officially closed and the Hathori "released," there were far fewer of them around the galaxy. Some returned to Hathor, and there they stayed, their home orbit now interdicted and under quarantine.

The leadership made a political decision to house manufacturing facilities on the outer moons and quarantine its religious caste, in exchange for conditional membership in the New Union. Protection in exchange for suppression. The acolytes, priests, and priestesses of the Pleasure Goddess from temples outside the home system were exiled from the Civilized Orbits. Some returned to the homeworld, but many scattered throughout the outer orbits, making their way in isolation or in secret, under the noses of regional or planetary governors without the latest in genetic scanning tech from the inner worlds.

The Restoration attempted to help where it could. The Reverend Mother and her surviving acolytes found shelter in a remote orbit inside the dust cloud of one of the gas giants, isolated, but surviving. Restoration ships kept them supplied as best as they could. Micah thought that Xenna would have gone with the Reverend Mother--in his time at the Hathori Temple on Capitol, he knew they were close friends. But Xenna's personality spilled over into her choice to join the Restoration on the front lines, in direct conflict with the Union, and in direct danger.

"You don't have to do this, you know," he murmured. "I'm quite capable of attracting the attention of a Vice Hunter all by myself."

Xenna pulled a tiny disk from the pouch on her belt and breathed on it. The moisture from her breath puffed the disk and she shook out a thin, gauzy robe of gold mesh. "Hardly," she said. "To attract a Vice Hunter, you need to indulge in vice. You, my dear schoolboy, do not project vice." She motioned to the pile of his clothing. Against the gold mesh of her sheer robe, it looked like a pile of old rags. "No point in us running if they don't know to chase us."

He rolled his eyes and stepped into the steam-sonic. "In case you've forgotten my little demonstration earlier, they've quite the reason to chase me without flaunting it."

"Yes, but if you're calling the best of the Vice Hunters, you may as well go down for the best of vices," she called out. "And if you're going to be a convincing catch, you have to make a good run of it. In a good ship."

Xenna did have a point.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The steam-sonic hissed, blasting him with hot steam and sonic waves, erasing the sweat and the dust from outside. "And how fares our lovely _Delta Rose?_ " He raised his voice to be heard over the pipes.

"Thanks to a little creative foreplay, she's purring like a krax-cat. And just as deadly. My pilot hooked me up with a fantastic little black-market package of cloak-shields."

"Cloak-shields? Excellent." The little Delta-class transport that he and Xenna had called home among the stars had originally been marketed as a luxury vehicle, suitable for in-system junkets, or short trips through the smaller Jumpgates that linked the many planets in the solar system. Deltas were often the possessions of noble families and almost exclusively used by the wives and daughters of said families. The _Delta Rose_ had been his own mother's personal conveyance, until the New Morality changed the face of the Union. Luxury vehicles were decadent, and Deltas were notoriously unsafe by the measure of the New Morality. Basic shielding, laser guns that held barely more force than the average personal sidearm, and hyperdrives more suited for sightseeing in jumpspace than getting anywhere truly fast made the Deltas among the first makes of starship to take a hit in popularity, and Delta Stardrives had closed its virtual doors to the Union very soon after the Marauder invasion of the Capitol.

But needs being what they were, having a Delta versus having nothing made the Delta an attractive after-market choice, and the owners of Delta Stardrives had discovered that not only did the "discount" economy welcome them with open arms, but they proved to be innovative as well. All along the outer orbits, small groups of mechanics, techs, and enthusiasts had developed "mods" for the Deltas that turned them to purposes far greater--and far more effective--than their original design.

"So we've got cloak-shields now." He stepped out of the necessary cubicle.

"That, and an actual laser cannon that can blast a ten-kilometer asteroid to dust." Xenna was stretched out on the room's narrow bunk. Still naked, but with the contents of his pack spread out beside her. She was popping the succulent grapes between her teeth with relish. "Mmm...too bad Tenraye doesn't make wine anymore. But the grapes are a consolation."

He crossed the room and bent down to kiss her, using his tongue to steal the grape from between her lips. "Only a small one, love."

She pulled him down onto the bed next to her and he fitted his body alongside hers, then selected a grape and set it in the hollow of her navel. "Did you confirm contact?" In between light kisses along the plane of her stomach, he noted that her hipbones stuck out more than usual.

"I didn't," she said. "But I have it on good authority that you're--being tracked." Her voice caught as he found a ticklish spot.

"Whose?"

"The authority of the almighty credit." She stretched, and the grape rolled down into the crease of her thigh. "I couldn't bribe my way further into the landing queue, which tells me there's something governmental going on."

"And that leads you to believe I'm being tracked?" It had been work, the past few months. Hathori outside their homeworld required permits and special clothing to travel. Universally distrusted due to their pheromonal abilities, and downright reviled by Union loyalists, there weren't many places a Hathori could fit in the Civilized Worlds. He glanced over at Xenna's pack, at the golden face-mask she wore in public, beneath a hooded cloak with a thin inner layer infused with chemical neutralizers. If the cloak didn't give her away, the lush hue of her deep pink skin marked her as an enemy of decency and an automatic target for the Vice Hunters.

Far more than elite bounty hunters, Vice Hunters were trained in the cradle of the New Morality, some said by the architect himself, a person only known as Vox Unificus--the Voice of Unity. Micah couldn't keep scorn from turning up his lip. _The whole system speaks with one voice, and it's his_. And the Vice Hunters were his weapon. Vice Hunters trained specially to hunt down the biggest threats to the new government. Able to move about the worlds with impunity, and armed with the best technology and ships from the Capitol, Vice Hunters rarely bothered with conventional transgressions like interdicted luxury goods or illegal gaming rings. Vice Hunters set their sights on the highest-level threats to the New Union. But only one name gave pause to those who could read thoughts and bend the universe to their will.

Several other Restoration agents had also enjoyed that unfortunate honor. Eight years out from the first reported sighting--along with eleven Restoration spies who'd fallen to her--confirmed her existence, and then her identity, culminating in the plot for which he gladly volunteered himself as bait.

"Not only that," Xenna made a low purring noise in the back of her throat when he bent his head to go after the grape. "The out-system checkpoint's logs held records of a Singularity-class transport skiff entering the system forty-five standard hours ago."

He breathed in the scent of her skin and burst the grape with his teeth, letting the fruit juice touch her bare skin before responding. "Truly? A real Singularity-class? They're only a myth, officially." He darted a glance up to her face as he extended his tongue to lick the grape juice from her thigh.

She smiled lazily and sighed deeply. "Officially, a myth. That doesn't make them any less real to government sensor logs." She chuckled. "Our little huntress is here," she said, "and she's hunting you. Are you prepared to be caught?"

A warning chose that instant to sound in the back of his mind. "Funny you should say that," he muttered, rolling to the side and off the bed. His senses told him what he needed to know. "Three," he said softly. "Armed with stun-weapons and greed."

Xenna's lazy smile vanished as she folded her limbs under her in a defensive crouch. "I can take them." She slid an elegant pink hand under the pillow.

"Zap gun," he whispered back. "You're a naughty wench, aren't you?"

She grinned, more feral than humorous. "It's my nature and my right as a sentient being, and damn any sanctimonious twit who tries to stop me."

His eyes unfocused as he reached out and clouded the minds of the three individuals making their way down the hallway outside. "They're hoping for the standard reward for immoral activities. But how--"

"One of us must have been observed," she said. "The jammer wouldn't have tipped them off--their spyware is low-grade and clunky."

"Their powers of observation are not," he retorted.

"We're at a dilemma, then, aren't we?" A half-amused smile sliced across her face. "Two of us, but three bodies to hide."

"Or," he said, "one of us, with the ability to craft a palatable story and avoid detection of our true nature."

"Which do you think they could identify first? A Hathori, or a psypath?" She arched an eyebrow and reached for a robe.

He rubbed his temple and sighed when the robe covered up her generous curves. Since the New Morality swept through the Civilized worlds, too many things of beauty had been covered up and hidden away, to be replaced with other views, like the hard chill in the former priestess's eyes. "Either way, violence isn't the answer. There's too much risk in tipping off the Huntress that something isn't right."

Xenna reached for her mask. "Go." She fixed the golden-hued lumisteel covering to her face via the skin-activated adhesive. From behind the carefully stylized features, her voice rang hollow. "The Huntress is after you," she said. "It's your face that's on the nets as the last wanted psypath."

He nodded and stepped forward. Outside, he could hear footsteps approaching. He lifted her mask to look into her eyes one last time and they were as blank and hard as amethyst jewels. "Be safe, Xenna," he said. "Don't--" _forget who you are_.

She lifted a fuchsia finger and put it to his lips. "Don't you worry about me, Schoolboy." She replaced her finger with a quick press of the mask's cool mouth. "Now get out of here."

He pulled energy around himself and jumped. The leap carried him up to the high grille of the transom window and he nudged it aside. Below him the door opened and Xenna turned, pulling her hood up.

He pulled the grille back in place and paused for a second. Just long enough to hear her say, "There was a man here. He thought this was his room. I sent him away. I am calling for my escort now." Then he reached out to the overhang and pulled himself up, feet first, onto the roof before their sensor-sweep revealed his presence.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Micah fought the disorienting hollowness that told him he was overusing his talents and shoved more of his will into the tenuous thread connecting him to Xenna. _Believe_. He aimed the thought towards the planetary officials questioning her.

His muscles burned from holding on to the narrow ledge above him, but the physical pain came in a distant second to the headache he was developing.

"I'm sure you'll be hailed and lauded for your bravery," Xenna was saying. "Two of you against one of me--your courage will be sung in songs across the planet detailing your riddance of the Hathori Scourge that plagues this dump."

_Xenna, please_ , he begged her silently. _Just keep your head down and get out of there_. The growing feeling of unease swelled more in him, creating a distracted buzzing in his ears that just wouldn't go away. _Xenna, just go!_ The sense of urgency put pressure on him and it was all he could do not to crash back in there, fists flying.

"You mutants are all alike."

He froze at the deadly, feminine voice behind him. Why hadn't his senses picked her up?

"Turn around slowly." He felt a zapgun barrel against his temple. "You always seem to forget the rules of the slip-dance."

He did as he was told--not even psypath reflexes could avoid a blast at point-blank range--and turned around. Slowly.

Her hair was a shock of bright red above skin so pale she might never have seen a sun. But he couldn't mistake her for anyone but the fabled Huntress, even without the wrist tattoo she flashed at him. "It always takes two to slip-dance."

Her use of the vernacular made him raise his eyebrows. By all accounts, the Huntress was not only the best and most feared Vice Hunter in the entire Union, but also the most incorruptible. The worst kind of hunter--a zealot who truly believed everything she stood for. Regrettable, since her lithe, lean-limbed body looked made for pleasure--slip-dancing, so to speak--rather than its extermination.

"Not necessarily," he said. "Sometimes it takes three or four."

Her lip curled up in a snarl. "Pervert," she said. "I expect nothing else, coming from a mindsnake who keeps company with the scum of the galaxy."

He was grateful for Xenna's absence in that moment. The Hathori would have gone for the Huntress' throat at the insult, and he may very well have to contend with a dead Xenna. A universe without Xenna in it would be unconscionable. "One man's perversion is another's pleasure. It's only kinky the first time you try it."

"Shut up." Was that a blush staining her cheeks?

"I believe the Union's arrest procedure still merits the condemned a modicum of free speech," he parried, simply to keep her talking. Distracted from the subtle movements of his left hand, moving in a modified kata pattern designed to focus his telekinetic gifts towards relieving her of the utility belt at her waist.

"You believe wrong," she said curtly. "Vice Hunters are authorized to preserve the safety of Union citizens against the threat of psypath activity with extreme prejudice."

Almost...there. The belt loosened from around her hips and slid soundlessly to the ground. "Extreme prejudice seems to be your specialty," he said, rolling his eyes upward, to where the zapgun still rested against his temple.

She dropped her hand to her hip. "I do what I have to--" Her attention shifted to her belt--or lack of one--and he took his chance.

He dove forward, folding his body to duck under her arm. He hit the ground with one shoulder and rolled over the utility belt, coming up with it in his right hand. With his left, he motioned through the kata for protection with barely enough time to escape the hot blast of radiation from her zapgun. The heat dissipated against the invisible wall of kinetic energy. The monks who had trained him found the technique difficult to describe, but once learned it was very simple--he focused his telekinetic abilities in a fixed area and concentrated on pushing everything that occupied that area away.

His ears popped at the sudden decrease in pressure--his talents pushed away _everything_ --and he rose onto the balls of his feet. The belt banged against his thigh when he pulled his arm under his cloak and started running for his life.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

S _onofa_ --He was halfway to the hangar before she caught up with him. Treska's blood boiled at her own stupidity. Her arm came up again, only this time, she didn't waste energy shooting the zapgun. Energy weapons were useless against psypaths. First rule was to never let a psypath hypnotize you. Second was not to waste your charges shooting at one. She was damn lucky he hadn't reflected the charge right back at her.

As her feet pounded the hard, pitted surface of the spaceport hangar, her mind catalogued the do's and don't's of what made her a successful Vice Hunter and tracker of the dangerous criminals known as mindsnakes. Never let them into your mind. Never let them out of your sight, if you planned on keeping them. And never, ever, ever trust a damn word any of them said.

Psypaths had gifts that laid open the minds of others before them. A mindsnake could make you think and do anything it wanted, all the while leaving you believing it was all your idea. Only the most rigorous mental discipline could resist a mindsnake, and even then-- _you're better off shooting before you lose your mind to their will_.

She stopped running and turned her outstretched arm. Closing one eye, she sighted down the length of her limb to the wrist-dart strapped there, and with a flick of her fingers, sent the dart whizzing towards her quarry.

The slender dart flew true. Just prior to the faint, watery flicker of the psypath shield he'd put up, the dart slowed, delicate vanes stretching out to spidery contact points whose ends overloaded the kinetic energy field and broke it down. The vanes ejected the dart's center in a silent puff, and the tiny, bright-hued tip buried itself in the back of the psypath's neck.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Poison Dreams

Micah felt the whisper touch of something on the back of his neck at the moment his kinetic shield faltered. Seconds later, a cold, narcotic rush flooded his bloodstream, making his eyes blur and his stomach rebel.

Damn! He wove between crates of goods, repulsor carts, and parts piles with no particular destination in mind. A personal atmospheric craft loomed closer in front of him, and he clenched his left hand in the kata for Lift and leaped for it.

The power behind his focus should have propelled him up to the top of the craft, but already his body awareness told him that his fingers wouldn't form in the right configurations, and the buzzing in his ears was growing louder. Nevertheless, he reached for the bottom rung of the ladder leading to the access hatch and swung himself up.

He had to keep calm. The Huntress, as she was known, had to have a reason to be incorruptible. Just a glimpse was all he needed. What built that wall of confidence in purpose around the fabled Huntress? He had to find out.

And then he'd tear it down, brick by brick.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska forced herself to slow down. Too many Vice Hunters allowed themselves to be distracted by the chase, forgetting that at the end, the most dangerous prey still had defenses. She swung her head this way and that--aha!--he hung upside down from an atmo craft.

That poison should be working any minute. The new formula, the one they swore wouldn't kill the target. After the last botched bounty, she'd made her anger known. A dead psypath brought in only a fraction of the money a live one did. Heavy on the narcotics and light on the neurotoxins, the lab said. _This better work_ , she thought. _I need him alive. And unconscious_.

The unconscious part was more important than she let on. Since the last job, she didn't want to have to deal with shoring herself up from mindsnake tricks. And ever since she'd started really researching them--not in the official government annals, but in the undercities of legend and anecdote, she'd heard some things about psypaths that made them all the more frightening, to her at least.

There was an old woman, for example. She lived in one of the lowest levels of the metropolis that covered the entire surface of Capitol, down in the levels where the sun never shone, and where the people were forgotten--and had no care--about what went on "up there." Their lives remained the same no matter if Union, Restoration, or Marauder claimed the capital planet. "A psypath can kill you with a thought," she'd rasped. "Or worse."

"What could be worse?" Treska had asked.

"A psypath can also see your deepest desires...and make them come true."

She'd dismissed the old woman's story after she wheezed a hoarse laugh at Treska's expression, but the doubts were there. Other denizens of half a dozen worlds confirmed the notion. Psypaths could read minds--your deepest secrets, and your darkest desires.

She took careful aim at the man's hanging body and fired her zapgun.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Micah's leg muscles were screaming with the effort of hoisting himself up the ladder to the access hatch. He didn't need to see her to sense she was behind him and closing fast. He shoved the belt end into his mouth and gripped it with his teeth to free his right hand. He hoisted himself awkwardly a few rungs up the ladder, while his left hand formed another kata, one infinitely more familiar to him than the attack and defense formations.

Having a gentleman's upbringing sometimes left him at a severe disadvantage. He would never dream of confronting an opponent with anything but the sword or energy pistol--it wasn't honorable. So he'd gravitated towards the lesser disciplines in his brief training at the monastery--towards the disciplines of empathy and misdirection and disguise. Through the buzzing in his ears, he focused on projecting an image of himself two rungs below his actual location. Time was running out and he needed to catch his breath before that ran out, too.

He looped his arm around the ladder rung and closed his eyes. _Think. Control. Focus. Open_. Without the distraction of vision, he could hear the subtle hum of machines all around, feel the slowly warming metal of the craft looming beside him, and sense the living sentience of the Huntress approaching him.

He trod on dangerous territory at that moment. The knife-edge of his consciousness pressed against the natural barrier of self that existed for every self-aware being. The instinctual knowledge of the difference between Self and Other tended to be a clear line, until the right kind of pressure was applied. Sometimes, that pressure came from religious experiences, other times, philosophical leaps of understanding. With increasing rarity, that pressure came from a talented psypath.

His inner sense of honor rebelled at the thought of even approaching that limit. It simply wasn't done. One did not breach another's privacy--it was a code among Noble houses in the old government. And a taboo among psypaths--intruding uninvited on another's thoughts was a transgression. Forcing one's way into another's mind was grounds for termination. The skill was only taught to prevent unconscious triggers.

But the days of House rule were long since past, and the days of psypath honor--if they ever existed--counted for nothing. It came down to survival. He pressed forward with his mind and the barrier between her mind and his became fluid, malleable. His perspective shifted, blurring between where he knew he was and where he thought he ought to be, riding her mind.

Curious...he felt almost a sense of peace, when confronted with the stark absoluteness of her mind. Her convictions were firm, well-traveled pathways of luminous thought. Most of the time, thoughts were jumbled, tripping over one another, looping around themselves, doubling back over some nagging point of conflict or intense opinion. But the thoughts of the Huntress hung on a structure, a solid progression from A to B to C, illuminated so strongly in the mindscape that they may as well have been beacons. Hypnotic, really.

He pressed forward, hating himself. _This is what the ancient masters warned us against_. Peering into another's mind, even shallowly like this, carried a voyeuristic thrill to it that was addictive. Past the ordered thoughts and into the deeper, emotive impressions that served as "gut feelings" convincing her that her mind was made up, and that she was in the right.

He peeled back the layer of surface thoughts and burrowed deeper, where the thoughts became more fluid, random, disordered. He prepared himself for the maelstrom of deep thought and--

Ran headlong into a wall.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska shifted her arm a fraction and prepared to take another, better shot when a wave of dizziness swept over her, along with the sinking, familiar feeling that came just before the Voice.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if that would stop the Voice from sweeping into her consciousness like some horrible, omnipotent confessor that saw each and every unclean thought that crossed her mind. She squeezed off the shot just before the Voice drowned out everything else.

ENEMIES OF THE UNION ARE DANGERS TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNION! THE VICE HUNTER ELIMINATES THREATS TO THE SAFETY AND SANCTITY OF THE UNION WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE! THE VICE HUNTER DOES NOT HESITATE! THE VICE HUNTER OVERCOMES THE LIES OF ENEMIES OF THE UNION!

Her feeble mental protest died a premature death. _I didn't hesitate!_ She fumbled at her utility belt for the cylinder containing her inhibs and cursed--the bastard had her belt. _I'll kill him_ , she thought. _I'll do it with my bare hands, and find some creative way to do it, bounty be damned_. White hot fury blanked out the screaming Voice in her head until it subsided.

She set her jaw in a stubborn line and fired a third shot. She tracked the dart with her eyes and knew--like she knew with the other two--that she'd hit her target.

So why wasn't he on the ground, out cold and ready for capture?

_Fool_ , her mind answered. _It's because he's not actually there_.

The clang of the hatch of the atmo-plane closing confirmed her suspicion. She ran a few half-hearted steps towards the access ladder before giving it up for futile. Even she couldn't stop a ship.

She veered off towards the southern end of the hangar, where her own ship was berthed. Fortunately for her pride, the control chip to remotely start the damn thing was in a pocket of her jacket, rather than clipped to her belt. She thumbed the code sequence while she ran, and by the time she made it to the gangplank, the ship hummed quietly. She paused a bare nanosecond to admire the leashed-predator thrum of finely tuned engines before she dashed down the corridor and flung herself into the piloting couch.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Praise the stars that his body knew what to do in a fight or flight situation, because if he'd been driven by his shell-shocked mind, he'd be lying immobilized on the hangar floor instead of in the pilot's seat of the old-fashioned atmo-plane.

He flipped three switches, turned a lever, and activated the engines. Pre-flight checks in these antiques were thankfully short and relatively automated. They just didn't make 'em like they used to.

The vertical liftoff engines flared to life with a depressurizing whump and he gently guided the plane upwards, ignoring his lurching stomach. The readouts on the sensor array spun up and out from the tri-D projector, skirling out from the central point indicating his present location. Electronic signatures lit up where the other craft were berthed, and real-time cameras sent monitor projections beneath the bright dots and lines of solid objects.

His viewscreen brightened as the walls of the spaceport sank away, revealing the bright blue-violet skies of Tenraye. He rose fast, and the dusty wasteland of the spaceport gave way to slender fingers of green in the distance. He picked one and turned the plane's nose towards it.

The plane's controls were sticky, compared to what he was used to. He wished Xenna were here--she'd love to fly this thing, as she loved to fly anything with wings or a hyperdrive almost as much as she loved sex. She'd have something suggestive to say about the way he handled the stick, too.

His struggle with the controls took all his attention for a few minutes, but once he had the plane pointed the right direction, he could no longer keep the shock from creeping back in. He wiped sweat off his face and flicked the cabin's air circulators to high. His left hand formed the kata for Self-Control in an attempt to slow the poison's progression through his system.

How had a Vice Hunter developed an impenetrable shield around her thoughts? A steel wall around her mind? He resisted the urge to drive the memory completely out of his mind, knowing he'd need to analyze his failure if he was to prevent its repetition.

She must have been trained, surely. But that didn't make any sense. The Union focused on termination of psypaths, without exception. From the first disappearances to the all-out police actions, the Union sought to remove the psypaths altogether.

Oh, the public word was that, like the Hathori, the psypaths were quarantined from the general population on reservations--interdicted locations safely removed from the well-traveled spacelanes and populated planets in the system.

But the psypaths knew the truth. Perhaps too late. The New Union wasn't interested in talking. One by one, the other echoes--other psypaths whose presences he felt no matter their distance--faded and silenced, leaving Micah alone.

Wenn DiVrati's decayed last transmission was the only thing that suggested anything but quick extermination. He couldn't comprehend a situation where a psypath would be willing to train anyone in the Union's forces in defense tactics. He couldn't comprehend a situation where a psypath would be permitted to do so, even if he or she were willing.

Some of the sparse inhabitants in the outer orbits were rumored to have resistance to psypaths--likely because their brains were so alien to the human and near-human races who bred psypath traits. But the Huntress was no alien.

His prox-alarm blared and he focused on his display. Nothing lit up the diagram, but the real-time camera showed that something was on his tail. He stretched his senses to their limit, focusing his conscience on what streaked behind him, narrowing the gap between their two craft at an alarming rate.

The ship was sleek. Too sleek for sensor readings. _Damn!_ He moved the stick and juked sharply to the left, reducing his altitude along the way. The green vineyards below gave way to browner ones. Behind him, she matched his maneuvers. With the skies as clear as they were, his chance of shaking her was slim. Unless--

He jammed the stick forward and the plane leaped, slamming him back into the worn seat. His ears popped just as he breached the sound barrier with a deafening boom. The prox-alarm fell silent, and he shifted his course, making for the mountain ranges to the north. It was a long shot, but the mountains might give him a place to hide.

He hugged the ground whenever possible, but his senses jangled again in minutes, just in time for him to kill the prox-alarm, and there she was, riding his tail like a stubborn parasite.

If he couldn't shake her, maybe he could shut her down. He increased altitude and formed his left hand into the kata that would allow him to extend his consciousness. He floated out of his body with a disorienting jerk, and searched for the other consciousness that should be the Huntress.

She burned like a beacon, the flames of zealotry advertising her presence, and he arrowed towards her. _Stop_ , he projected towards the surface of her mind. _You don't want to do this. It's dangerous and you could get hurt. You can track him later_.

He withdrew from the surface of her mind just in time to yank the stick up and keep himself from shaving the top off of a jagged peak, but the move cost him. Spots swam in his vision and he reached for the auto-piloting switch.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The mindsnake didn't do too bad of a job flying that old tub, she thought. But he was no match for a top-of-the-line Singularity-class needleship. Treska relaxed in the piloting couch, the couch's hide molded to her body. Small movements of her limbs controlled the ship's systems, and a virtual-reality HUD kept her informed of everything going on outside, making the ship a true extension of her body. When he juked, she skipped. When he dove, she tumbled and cartwheeled after him with the exuberance of a child. The Huntress enjoying her chase.

So when the thought pressed against her mind that it might be too dangerous to continue pursuit, she scowled. A little slice of doubt crossed her mind. She could track him from a safe distance, maybe ease off and let him settle into a trap of his own making.

_Or you can get the nine hells out of my brain, mindsnake!_ Her hands twitched, and two missiles fired from the Needle's belly gun, straight towards her prey, dead ahead.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

O _h, no she didn't_ , Micah thought as he snapped back into himself with an even bigger jolt than he left with, his pride smarting. The targeting alarm shrieked, and he dove the atmo-plane down, barely clearing a high ridge of mountainside. The range gave way towards more gently rolling foothills. One of the missiles blew away a chunk of the ridge behind him, but the other one stayed stubbornly on his posterior.

He rolled to the right, knowing it was a useless maneuver, when a sudden inspiration came to him. Xenna's voice--as if she were there beside him--shouted, "Kill the engines, you dolt!"

He didn't hesitate. He yanked the control chip from its housing and the entire panel went dead. Eerie silence filled the cabin and his guts turned to water as the plane began a rapid drop.

The missile bypassed him and detonated a scant few meters off the end of his nose. The blast sent him at an oblique angle to the foothills in front of him. He flipped the switches to bring the engines back online and the cabin hummed back to life.

Without the engines. Redlines stretched all the way across his field of vision. The old girl just didn't have it in her. He uttered a curse under his breath and wished for Xenna again. She would undoubtedly know some trick to jump-start the plane. But his training didn't extend into the realms of the heroic and all he could do was hang onto the stick and divert his will towards cushioning what he could of the old atmo-craft as the ground came up to fill his viewscreen.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska sent the _Needle_ into a dive after the aged craft. Like a raptor after a broken-winged songbird, she caught up to the craft and slid the Needle under it. "You're not getting away that easy," she muttered. Her fists clenched and she moved her forearms ever so slightly. The ship responded with its usual sleek grace and she cradled the old craft in her "arms" as the _Needle's_ anti-grav engines created a cushion of null-g space that allowed both vehicles to bump gently to the ground.

Or rather, enter into a very controlled stumbling, shuddering, sloppy stop. But one that resulted in the occupants of both craft still among the living.

She slipped the piloting cowl off her head and rose from the couch, pausing only to grab a spare utility belt from the cargo hold before vaulting down the gangplank.

The access hatch of the atmo-craft popped just as she was leaping for the ladder. She couldn't help but notice the way his shoulders bunched and stretched as he pushed himself up out of the hatch. _Sometimes I forget they look just like us_.

"I don't want to have to hurt you," he said, flattening his body along the top of the craft's hull.

She found her footing and scampered up a few rungs. "I'm the armed one," she shot back as she reached the top.

He'd skittered away from the hatch, his body stretched out flat along the sloping surface of the aircraft's wing. She raised her eyebrows. "Are you hiding from me? Because it's not working."

"I've no wish to engage you, Huntress," he said. "I like my freedoms as much as the next sentient being."

Her lips twisted. "That's too bad, because your freedoms put other people in danger. Let's not draw this out any longer than necessary." She lifted her wrist to aim her trank-shooter.

But by the time she'd squeezed off a shot, she realized she was playing right into his plans. He hadn't been hiding, so much as holding himself in place. His hands lifted from the aircraft's surface, his body began to slide down the wing, and faster than she would have suspected, he slithered over the edge of the wing.

Dammit! Stupid, stupid. She took a step and realized that giving chase wasn't the smartest thing--she'd be flat on her ass in a heartbeat.

She hustled back down the ladder in time to see his feet hit the ground ahead of her, and hear his soft footfalls in the dust still settling from their landing. Their tangled craft had touched down--or rather, thumped down--on a gently rolling hillside in a snarl of vines that looked dead on first glance. But as she followed his disappearing figure into the lines of framework supporting the vines, she realized that only the top parts of the vines appeared dead. The undersides, and the vines beneath the top layer, were all alive with riotous growth. As her boots landed on the soft loam, she felt the squash of ripe grapes, and the slightly off-balancing slide of burst fruit. A heavy, heady sweet scent filled the air. In other circumstances, she might like to stop and enjoy the lushness of the vineyard. Before busting it for illegal production of wine-making crops.

In the now, however, she focused on making her way through the tiers of greenery. The wide aisles made it easy to follow him--the old-growth vines were so thickly twined around their frames that it would be impossible to crash through them with the weight of a near-human body alone. Maybe a Treemian could do it, or someone armed with a laser cutter and some time on their hands, but her quarry had neither, and seemed focused on making his way to the structure she saw at the foot of the hill, a squarish structure in the estate-style, whose well-kept grounds had seen better days. _Oh, please, head for that building_ , she thought.

As if she'd commanded, his steps carried him through the outer gate and into the enclosed courtyard. From her spare utility belt, she pulled five tiny spheres and activated them as she ran towards the courtyard. The spheres zoomed from her hands, zipping out to the four corners of the building, with the last one soaring high overhead. A pyramid of energy flickered to life, terminating behind her, and locking them both inside the abandoned house.

A fierce grin tore across her lips. _You make this almost too easy, mindsnake_.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The stitch in his side sent stabbing pains with every indrawn breath. In the quiet cool of the building, Micah searched for indications of a hiding place or a bolt-hole. Most estate houses had at least one, in the case of an aerial attack from raiders, or planetary emergency--something leading down and into the ground. And if it was a winery, there ought to be more than enough ways into the basements.

Tremors made his steps shaky. If he didn't find the bolt-hole soon, then his final destination would be wherever he fell over. Behind him, the halls of the house were suspiciously quiet. Too quiet. She was, after all, the Huntress. His instincts, his senses, his gifts, all told him that the silence was Not a Good Thing.

He was being hunted.

He found a niche, carved into the thick walls of the structure--likely at one time a home for a piece of showcase art--and leaned into the smooth curve. He needed to buy a little time. His shaking left hand contorted into the kata of Silence. His mind quieted, and his heart rate slowed, no easy feat considering the poison had kicked his system into high gear to facilitate its own spread through his body. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down the back of his neck, and he could almost hear her steady breathing as she made her way towards his pathetic hiding place.

_Remember you wanted this_.

His arsenal of offensive maneuvers was underdeveloped, at its best. But perhaps a defense--distraction and redirection--might work. He closed his eyes, picturing the layout of the house, and extended his senses. She was not far behind him, but close enough to the hallway leading to the far wing. He searched for and found an empty crate in a distant room and braced himself. What he was about to do was risky at best--focusing his consciousness enough to move something that far away meant he'd be leaving his own body open to attack--but the reward just might be worth it.

He had to twist the fingers of his left hand with his right to form the kata for Escape, but his mind flew free of his body. The landscape changed and suddenly, he was in a cold, dark world, shadows on shadows the only things indicating there was anything around him at all. Small bright spots flashed at the edges of his "vision"--tiny lives of insects or small rodentia, and the quickly fading mental imprint on the box he'd targeted. His mind flew towards it and he wrapped tendrils of will around the object. With a mighty mental shove, he sent the box flying against the wall, shattering its prefabricated polymer structure.

The act took its toll on him and his focus slipped back towards his body in the darkness, pausing only to briefly observe the location of a great number of tiny life forces at one spot in the wall in the far wing. The bolt-hole. As he pulled back to himself, the space around him grew brighter. He aimed for the brightness of his own body and returned to himself just in time to feel her fingers close around his neck.

His eyes flew open to meet hers, so close to his own. With his mind still not quite anchored, his consciousness traveled to the contact points of her fingertips against his skin. Once again, the line blurred.

_A discrete mind becomes fluid and interconnection occurs when a conduit of touch is present_. The scrap of ancient writing tweaked his memory just as he encountered the wall he'd found before. True to the wisdom, this time the wall was soluble. He was halfway through it, into the darkness of her mental landscape before he realized what he was doing. At once horrified and intrigued, he froze himself from penetrating any further into her consciousness. Even his worst enemy didn't deserve to be so--violated. A wave of nausea rushed through him at the depth of his own unconscious depravity. But her hands were squeezing and his air was dwindling. His eyes focused on hers and what happened next could only be explained as a purely defensive move.

Hints of green fire in her eyes flared, and found an answer in his, and suddenly, her mind opened wide to his. Curiosity, attraction, desire, the awareness of his breath mingling with hers. The thrill of the chase, and the elation of capture, but the emotions masked different, deeper ones that the mind laid bare. A need for touch, a craving for physical contact. Banked fires of sexuality waiting to flare into life--all they needed was a breath of air to fuel them.

With an invitation like that, was it any wonder he couldn't resist? Was it any wonder that the images readily came to his mind--her skin exposed, his hands a hue darker against her bare body. Images of her thighs wrapped around his, a catch of her breath and the speed of her pulse and the way he imagined her skin might taste all jumped from his mind to hers, even as he pulled his own focus back into himself.

He looked back out of his own eyes to find her hands still around his throat, but her lips nearly brushing his. Her eyes met his again and a small, helpless sound came out of her throat. Her indrawn breath was enough for her body to make contact with his, tips of breasts brushing his chest even through layers of clothing starting heat in his belly and invoking an answering flicker in her eyes.

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the fire snuffed out.

"Get out of my mind," she hissed, shoving away from him.

He lunged forward, ready to run again, but her turn away proved to be a feint. She twisted back towards him, her fist catching him square in the jaw. He went down like a rock and was out cold before he hit the ground.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Even with repulsor cuffs, the son of a bitch was heavy. Treska hooked both arms underneath his and pulled him along the floor. His hands, cuffed in front of him, floated a dozen centimeters above his body, while his feet floated similarly above the floor. The rest of him, however, was dismally obedient of gravity. She hauled him along on his rump, the utility weatherall cloak he wore rasping along the flagstones.

By the end of the hallway, she was out of breath, sucking in huge lungfuls of air that included the scent of him. Something woodsy and warm, with an undertone of something that made her whole body flush, and at the same time infuriated her, because it reminded her of his callous disregard for the privacy of her mind.

And maybe the way he'd invaded that privacy, too. She jerked him perhaps a little unnecessarily hard over the threshold of the estate and called her perimeter balls to her hand. Their anti-gravity technology helped enough so that she could drag his unconscious form with one arm rather than both. Still, it was a hard walk up a long hill and by the time she reached the Needle, she was out of breath and a little sweaty.

But good hard work had its rewards. Her charge was less than spotless, having been dragged through the dirt of the vineyard, and she felt at least partially vindicated. She'd had enough time to at least work up a good anger to burn through any...other feelings she might be having about what happened the moment she caught up to him.

She used her remote to put the Needle in preflight check and drop the loading ramp. Her perimeter balls were about out of juice and his body was more of a dead weight with each step forward. _Nobody's this heavy._ She grunted as she lifted his shoulders up onto the cargo ramp. _He weighs more than a Treemian, I swear_. She dragged him up the cargo ramp, her muscles straining with the effort. His cloak caught on the rim of the ramp, and the mighty shove she gave him made her feel a tiny bit guilty. Dead carcasses of herd animals were treated more gently than this. She turned to close the ramp and her legs tangled in the trailing edge of his cloak. Her muscles, spent as they were, couldn't get her back on balance, and she crashed towards the floor, landing full on his body.

The contact sent shocks through her. For a second, she just sprawled on top of him, stunned at the realization that sentient contact--the physical touch of another sentient being--felt so foreign to her. Something way down inside her, in a place she didn't visit very often, wanted to know why that was, when contact was so natural and--and right. So right that it should be sought out and indulged in as often as possible.

Her forehead prickled, and the moment passed. She rolled off him angrily, muttering under her breath. "Indulgence of vice brings danger to the Union. The virtuous citizen is the protected citizen. Peace comes through restraint." It was enough. This time, thankfully, it was enough.

She rolled to her feet and went to the storage panels along the inner wall. From the panels, she assembled the equipment she kept there. Two sets of heavy-duty repulsor cuffs--one set for the wrists and the other for the ankles. The anchor pads that converted the cuffs to floor and ceiling-mounted restraints. And the one tool that allowed her to do her job so very well.

The neural disruption collar was specially designed to short-circuit psypath powers. She fitted the slender circlet around his neck and snapped it into place. A little LED light flashed from red to green indicating full power to the circuit. The tiny diodes pressed to the base of his skull sent feedback to his neural system any time an attempt at telepathy or telekinesis was attempted.

Or at least, that was what the lab at Special Affairs HQ said. She'd be protected from psypath attempts to coerce or compromise her thoughts and actions. Although, truthfully, she preferred the old way of just knocking their psychic asses out for the ride back to the Capitol. But a recent discovery of a cache of hidden, secret psypath records showed that ancient psypaths had the documented ability to invade the dreams of others when unconscious. Psypaths were a menace, both awake and asleep.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

She used the last bits of energy in her perimeter balls to help hoist him vertically by the repulsor cuffs. Once he hung, immobilized, before her, she began patting him down for weapons. After all her precautions against his mental abilities, she'd feel really stupid if he managed to shiv her with a fruit-peeling knife or something. His thighs through the loose native pants felt lean, but not without muscle. Well-formed. She told herself it was purely an aesthetic observation. She removed a dagger from his boot and set it out of reach on the work table. "What other goodies are you hiding from me, hmm?" she muttered.

As her hands made contact with his hips, she found her utility belt. "Ha!" she snatched it from around his waist. "I ought to slap you with this thing for stealing it from me."

Only it was she who got the shock when his pants slid down to his ankles with barely a whisper of fabric. She found herself almost nose-to-groin with his...groin and she jumped back, bumping into the work table and sending the items on top of it clattering to the floor. _Oh, smooth, Treska, she thought. The man can rip your will from your mind with a thought and steal your sanity on a whim and you lose your cool over his body?_

Her forehead began to prickle. She rubbed it with one hand and closed her eyes. With her free hand and her eyes still closed, she secured his pants with a zipcord. The scent of male enveloped her and her heart sped up. Something about it made her think--treacherous thoughts. Thoughts she had no business thinking. Thoughts that cast him not as a dangerous, powerful being, but as just a man, whose body was as real and fragile as hers.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

# Episode 2: Captivated

## Stripping Down

Treska dropped into the piloting couch, guiltily relieved that she could avoid him for the next few hours, but afraid of putting the cowl over her head--every time she closed her eyes, she could see him again, naked. His lean legs, dusted with dark gold hair that thickened the further up his thighs, into a nest that held--it.

It. His--man-thing. _Oh, for suns' sake, call it what it is, a little voice in her head insisted. A pe --_

Cock.

Where did that come from? she wondered. Her education hadn't included the vernacular. Maybe it was the combat training, with the rough-tongued Special Forces soldiers. Or the Citizens' Deportment training that had created an aversion to swearing. It wasn't professional--even for a Vice Hunter--to refer to...body parts...by gutter nicknames.

And yet...it didn't feel completely brazen to think of it as a cock. Maybe she'd learned it young, before the Marauder attack on the Capitol. Maybe it was one of those words from the Time Before.

She had no memories of her life before the attack that had devastated the Capitol. The Marauders had come in their knifelike dreadnoughts without warning, from the furthest, oldest, largest Jumpgate in the system. The ancient one at the edge of the system itself. The Marauders emerged from the Jumpgate and rained fire upon the metropolis that covered the planet. Dreadnoughts had appeared in other orbits at the same time, a coordinated assault that ended just as quickly as it had begun, leaving several planets in ruins. At the Capitol, buildings a thousand stories high had collapsed, killing hundreds of thousands within their walls, and millions more in the aftermath of the destruction. Then, just as suddenly, they vanished back through the Jumpgate, leaving the system entirely, and no less of a mystery than when they appeared. But millions had died, and tens of millions were left wounded, or lost without trace to the depths of the under city.

But a scant few had been born in that fire. Treska's first memory was of flaming skies and crumbling buildings. Her life began in fire; from the ashes of the attack, she sprung fully-formed, but completely blank. Damaged, yes--medical nanites had stitched her broken body back together, while the provisional government of the New Union shaped her mind. The Time Before no longer mattered--it was a mystery that happened to someone else, somewhere else. And if the occasional flash of an object, a scent, or a taste at the back of her tongue seemed familiar, the maddening chase would only get in the way. _I've never remembered a person before. And never so intimately..._

Her mind skittered away from the thought before the Voice could force it elsewhere. _Time to move on, Treska_ , she told herself. _Before your thoughts betray you_.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Back on Tenraye, a bare pair of fuschia legs hugged by soft leather boots that went up over the knee stepped over a pile of unconscious male bodies wearing the uniforms of the Tenrayan Provisional Force. Flakes of ash swirled around her voluptuous form, disturbed by the dust-up, only to settle lovingly on her naked skin. Dark berry lips curved up as she peered into the distance, waiting for a signal.

She leaned against the battered ground craft, arching her back in a pose that displayed her impressive breasts to their best. Not that anyone could see beyond the odd field rodent, but it didn't do to let bad habits creep in. Suppressing a sigh, she glanced over at the trio of deputies who'd promised they'd teach her a lesson about vice in the Civilized Worlds. With an offer like that, how could she refuse?

Sadly enough, they proved to be serious. Two of the three were true believers, fully subscribed to the asceticism of the New Morality. The only "lesson" they wanted to teach her was legal apprehension with full respect of her civil rights as a sentient, until such time as she could be repatriated to her homeworld or remanded to a "care facility" for rehabilitation. She pursed her lips as a distant speck on the horizon became a shadow that stretched over the fertile, overgrown fields between the settlement and the mountains. _Been there, done that, got the scars to show for it_.

The shadow grew as her lips curled up in a sneer and she tossed a pair of suppression cuffs in the air and caught them before hooking them onto her belt. The sweet moan of anti-grav engines sent the overgrown field grasses rippling across the sun-drenched prairie like great waves, coating her with a fine, tawny layer of particulate plant matter. The approaching hovercraft maneuvered its bulk into position above her, whipping her hair against her face.

At her feet one of the true believers stirred. She kicked him in the jaw and he went down again, blood leaking out from the cut on his face in the shape of her boot heel, just as a retrieval cable descended from the ship. She caught the cable and placed one foot into the stirrup just in time for the cable to retract.

She rose in a cloud of pollen. Once, worshipful lovers had dusted her body with gold, adoring her for the sacred pleasure she brought them. Now, the lovers were rushed and secretive, the sacrament unsanctioned and unsanctified. No one painted her with gold. Now, she painted them in blood, and the dark face of her goddess thirsted.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska moved out of the planet's gravity field, the atmospheric beacons chiming an arpeggio from the navigation system. At the high note, the green beacons activated, and she woke the ship's ion drive. As the _Needle's Eye_ switched from atmospheric to extra-planetary nav, the sounds of the ship changed. She noted a distant hiss as the habitable cabin pressurized, the electronic hum of the radiation shielding and the power down of the atmospheric jets. A moment later, the ion drive hummed to life. She confirmed the navigation one last time, and activated the drive.

Even at ion speeds, it would take her some time to make it to the Jumpgate station. Although the Jumps themselves took hardly any time at all, she was still at least a day out from the Capitol. Once the _Needle's Eye_ was properly pointed towards the station, she started in on the paperwork. She entered data for the Confirmation of Acquisition form, the Transactional Acceptance form, the legal forms identifying her bounty as having legitimate forfeiture of sentient rights, and finally, her time sheet and expense report.

She scowled at the flagged entry for the atmo-plane that had been damaged in the chase. She didn't like being challenged, and as a member of Special Affairs, she often wasn't. But the flag was an automated one--nothing personal. It would simply trigger an investigation of the crash site. And probably a lot of damage to that house. She dismissed a twinge. Once upon a time, that estate had been somebody's home. Even chasing a mindsnake hadn't completely kept her from noticing the beauty of the architecture.

The buildings that had gone up to replace what the Marauders had destroyed was of a much more utilitarian aesthetic. Synthetic materials with shielding and sensors of multiple kinds, built in pre-fabbed, modular sections that could be reconfigured to a variety of uses, albeit limited in style. According to the Prime Minister, it was a return to the solar system's ancient roots, thousands of years ago.

She logged the paperwork in a secure transmission and dismissed the sense of finality as her imagination.

Intel said that this one was the last one. The last psypath to roam freely about the galaxy. After him, there were no more left to neutralize, and the galaxy would be safe from them. _And I'll be out of a job_.

Looking at him, hanging in the repulsor cuffs, one wouldn't think a psypath would be much of a threat. But the mental powers psypaths commanded were awesome and terrifying.

Her first assignment had been crewing a freighter laden with precious metals, destined for the treasury on the planet Collista. She and her fellow Vice Hunters had set a trap for the pirates planning to attack the freighter. They discovered the leader was a psypath who used his mental powers to coerce the pirates into doing his bidding. In the rout, the psypath targeted one of her squad members and the man turned on his own comrades, killing two other Vice Hunters before she took him down.

Many of the psypaths she tracked weren't as vicious as the pirate, however. Based on information from Special Affairs, they discovered and removed members of the Union parliament under psypath control, attempting to sabotage the gears of Union government. The poor souls were so well-controlled that they truly believed their protests of innocence, insisting until the end that they acted of their own free will.

Before the raid on Ursis Amalia--the home of the monastic order that had formed around psypath talents--several vocal psypaths spoke out about their rogue brethren, insisting that the flaws were in the individual and not the talent. They were eloquent debaters, and public opinion briefly swung their way, until Prime Minister Vakess released evidence to the contrary, with coordination from Capitol scientists, in an eloquent speech before the leadership. "It is the talent that creates the flaws. This power corrupts those cursed with it and renders them a menace to the security of the Civilized Union." The data presented by the Prime Minister demonstrated a clear correlation between the possession of psypath talents and their use for exploitative purposes.

Ursis Amalia had responded by tightening their restrictions on trained psypaths. They actively sought out those born with psypath talents and brought them to the monastery to be trained to use their abilities responsibly. They even produced their own justice force to track and subdue rogues, which the Prime Minister used briefly, until a psypath enforcer made an attempt on his life. Vakess was gracious to Ursis Amalia, and allowed them to recall all their psypaths to the jungle planet, imposing restrictions on themselves with travel and activity outside the Ursis system. Psypaths voluntarily registered and carried permission documentation to travel anywhere in Union space, and the Union passed legislation giving planets and individuals the right to deny services or entrance to any psypath.

Vakess encouraged people to see psypaths as tragic individuals who would unavoidably become dangerous, while the Director--that is, the Director of the Office of Special Affairs, and her boss--focused on the core truth. Tragic or not, like rabid animals, psypaths had to be taken down. Before or after they went bad, it didn't matter. Or rather, it shouldn't matter.

The psypath she'd tracked a few months ago--an escapee from the Detention Center at the Ares Arcology--hadn't "gone bad" yet, it seemed to her. But that one had been farked up from the start of things. Wenn DiVrati had come to Prime himself, to beg the Prime Minister to allow the Ursis system to secede from the Union. Treska wasn't part of the original team that had taken him into custody, and she was uneasy with the confusion surrounding exactly why DiVrati had been taken, or why he'd been taken to the detention center in such secrecy. Once he'd escaped Ares Arcology, he'd become a fugitive and she didn't have to question his guilt or innocence. _But I didn't mean to become his executioner_.

The poison in her wrist tranks was a new strain developed by the lab, intended to keep a psypath so deeply unconscious that the psypath would be unable to even unconsciously influence the sentients around them. The lab miscalculated, and DiVrati died in her arms, babbling nonsense and filling her head with sour fear of going back to the arcology. So much fear that his talents tore through her training and made his fear her own.

Those last moments haunted her more than she cared to admit. She'd wavered in her purpose in the face of that fear. Something so terrifying as to cause a sentient being to race towards death rather than return to it--it unnerved her. As much as DiVrati's behavior. His eyes had focused on hers for an agonizing second. "So--beautiful," he'd said.

She'd killed the man and he called her beautiful.

The Director dismissed her concerns. "It was an accident. He was a fugitive. You were in extreme circumstances and you took the necessary steps to secure the safety of the citizens of the Union. That's all you need to know." He'd considered the matter dropped, and she didn't object.

Prime Minister Vakess' personal visit had eased some of her doubts. In low, measured tones, he assured her that, although the loss was regrettable, it further demonstrated that even psypaths themselves were tormented by their talents.

But the next time she had to visit Ares Arcology, she found another place to be. In the intervening months, her own response to the mad terror had faded, but the doubts--and DiVrati's wild-eyed death mask--had not. In the end, he'd been not a god-monster, ready to rip the thoughts from her mind and the will from her body, but a frightened human male. Just a man, if only for the moments right before his death.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

When Xenna emerged from the trapdoor in the floor that housed the hatch, the glowing gold assessment of a Vultron female took in her appearance. "Oh good. You've had your fun."

She scowled. "Not so much." Her lip curled. "Had some real True Believers." She shook her head. "I expect corruption. I welcome it. It's understood. This zealotry...I have never understood it."

Ahveen's golden eyes narrowed. Her tightly folded wings gave a shiver; the Vultron equivalent of a shrug. "I have never understood humans or their need to ascribe intelligent intent to nature. Urges to mate or instincts to kill have no morality to them. They simply are."

"Ascribing intent to instincts is a way to belong." Xenna shook out her cloak. "You don't understand humans because you don't understand loneliness. You're part of a hive mind."

"I have individuality. The pursuit of it is of great import to us." Ahveen took her cloak with a russet-skinned claw. "This 'New Morality' movement is not individual."

Technically, it wasn't 'new' anymore, either. Ten system years ought to have been plenty of time for hysteria to have passed and calmer heads to prevail. She couldn't deny her own fear of the unknown aliens in the abstract, but the New Morality's grip over people was characterized by an almost-slavish devotion to reliving the horrors of the attacks as if they'd just happened, and the belief that they were about to happen again at any moment.

Instead of bothering to continue dusting the cloak, the Vultron stuffed the whole thing into the reclamation drawer. "The scents of Hathori are the breath of their goddess."

"You make a better priestess than I do. Want the job?"

"I believe I am missing a critical element, in that I am not Hathori." She gestured to Xenna to sit on the bench.

Next, she pulled off Xenna's boots. When she turned towards the reclamation drawer, Xenna held out a hand. "Wait. I like those and we don't have so many resources that I can get another pair."

Ahveen dropped the boots. "Then you may sanitize them before we leave orbit. I should not need to remind you that bio-matter reveals more of our activities to the Union than we can control."

"And the shocking news that there's a Tenrayan cell of the Restoration would ripple through the inner orbits and blot out the very sun itself." Xenna's mouth twisted. "Still, leaving this orbit would be nice."

"You may do so at your leisure, but that shocking Tenrayan cell requests a de-briefing." Ahveen flashed a grin. "I reminded them that Hathori dress does not bother with undergarments." The Vultron woman shook her head, sending the flexible, skinlike tendrils across her scalp dancing like a nest of snakes. "I do not think I am grasping the nuances of humor with your kind."

Xenna smirked. "No, you're getting it. I think the Tenrayan cell is a humorless bunch. I can't blame them, given what this dustball has become."

Ahveen smiled again, showing a mouthful of razor-sharp points capable of breaking through the tough outer shells of the giant insects that were her people's main source of food. "It would be good of you to remind them, Priestess. Perhaps a benediction?"

A cold blade sliced through her midsection. "I'm not a priestess anymore, Ahveen." Her lips twisted in a sneer. "I've been Re-educated, remember?" She set the boots aside and worked at the clasps of her clothes. The constables that detained her had taken the lovely gold mesh robe and replaced it with a serviceable gray jumpsuit. The chemically-treated fabric scratched her skin, leaving irritation where sensation should be, in the name of protection.

The buttons refused to release. "I can't--" She squeezed the clasp until her fingers hurt, but it refused to budge.

Ahveen's sharp-eyed, golden gaze zeroed in. "Tracking buttons. I should have anticipated incarceration measures in a garment meant to be its own prison."

"Get them off me, now!" She pawed at the garment now, suddenly trapped by the bindings at the cuffs, ankles, neck, and waist. No stranger to bindings in more desirable situations, a priestess of the Hathori goddess knew the difference made by intent. Her breath came more sharply and even the spacious cargo hold became too close, with too little air. The camps had issued garments like these. At first, they'd been ordered to wear them, until the administrators figured that Hathori refused to be self-conscious about their nudity, even in unpleasant atmospheric conditions. Like the others in her block, Xenna had woken up one day to find the garments had been put on her while she was unconscious. _Endure_ , the senior priestess she was housed with said. _We will prevail. The goddess will shelter us_.

Her fingers became clumsy, her movements jerky instead of graceful. "Get this--thing off me!" The fabric prison tied her without her consent, and rage boiled up from her midsection.

Ahveen snarled low in her throat in response. Her claws came out and her voice deepened to gravelly roughness. "Hold, Priestess. I will free you." She sliced through the garment, shredding it to ribbons.

Xenna tore at the ribbons of the coarse fabric, contorting her body until she lost her balance and fell against the Vultron. Ahveen's wings came out. "Shh-shh-sh." The alien woman's claws nicked at Xenna's wrists and throat, sliced at her waist. Cut straight through the crotch and down her inner thighs until she reached the fabric closures at Xenna's ankles.

Above her, Xenna struggled, gasping. A gentle flap of the Vultron woman's wings sent air currents soothing against her exposed skin. Ahveen undid the clasps on the short vest she wore to protect her torso and shrugged out of it. Her leathery skin surrounded Xenna and the touch-contact soothed her.

The hum of the ship's life-support system sent vibrations through the bulkheads. Xenna's heartbeat slowed to match the harmonics of the hum. She slumped in the other woman's arms and felt shame pickle her innards.

"A benediction, Priestess." Ahveen smoothed a sweaty lock of hair from Xenna's forehead. "As much for you as for them." Her yellow eyes held Xenna's, anchoring the Hathori woman to the present. "Your goddess still speaks to your heart."

Xenna inhaled deeply, catching the bleak dessication of her own pheromones of fear overriding the dry whisper of Ahveen's favorite skin balm. She pulled away from the Vultron's embrace and straightened. "A greater benediction would be to find out if our Schoolboy's been able to turn the Huntress." She stuffed the remains of the detainment clothing into the reclamation drawer and stabbed the panel. The satisfying sound of molecular disintegration soothed her troubled emotions. "Thanks for the lift." Naked, her confidence restored with her freedom, she released the door that led to the main cabin. Perhaps a benediction was what she needed. Every small rebellion against the paranoid asceticism had to count for something. And there were worse ways to pass the time while they waited for word that the Restoration's weapon had penetrated the heart of the Union. Or the heart of the Huntress. _Oh, Schoolboy, I hope you know what you're doing_.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Without A Map

"N _eedle's Eye_ , this is Tenraye Jumpgate station, confirming your pre-filed jump plan to Eston, please acknowledge."

The scratchy male voice echoed through the cockpit and Treska adjusted the volume. She didn't want her passenger waking up. "Tenraye station, this is the Needle's Eye, transmitting a change in plans. I need priority access to make the jump to Galladance."

"Deviations from filed plans are subject to approval from the schedule manager." The connection popped. " _Needle's Eye_ , please confirm. Did you say Galladance?"

Treska's lips tightened. "You have the data, comm. You tell me."

The comm officer cleared his throat. "Specs on your craft are at the edge of compatibility with that long of a jump."

_No, they aren't_. The Needle's Eye could handle that long of a jump just fine. It was only the specs that said otherwise. "Am I queued for Galladance or not, Comm?"

A moment later, the comm opened again. "Needle's Eye, this is the schedule manager for Tenraye Jumpgate station. We've transmitted an alternate route to get you to Galladance in two Jumps. Suggest you take that one and save yourself the maintenance bills."

"Standby to receive authorization override from the Department of Special Affairs, manager. Unless you don't mind me docking for the wait. I'm sure there are many interesting things for a Vice Hunter to see aboard your station."

The comm went dead. Several minutes later, the channel reopened and a third voice came through. " _Needle's Eye_ , you are cleared for jump to Galladance. Objections have been logged for insurance purposes, and you're third in queue. Move into position at chronometer mark. Safe journey, Huntress. Tenraye out."

Treska leaned back in the piloting couch with a smirk. Funny how all sorts of obstacles dried up with a clear idea of who outranked whom. She flipped the HUD to her forward view and the smirk faded.

The Jumpgate hung before her, impossibly big, hanging in space and dwarfing even the longjump freighters capable of transporting an entire colonial settlement to an outer orbit planet in two jumps. The structure itself was intimidating--a massive ring, set inside another ring. The banks of floodlights mounted on scaffolds were easily the size of buildings, yet they illuminated tiny slices of the Jumpgate.

The scale didn't bother her as much as the Jumpgate itself. It, and its dozens of cousins, could be found in each orbit around the Jewel, from the innermost habitable orbit of the Capitol all the way out to the frigid edge of the system, where only comets survived. The Jumpgates bent space, creating stable wormholes through which a ship, properly configured, could leap from one orbit to the next, and cut ridiculous amounts of time off the journey.

The Jumpgate and its brethren had been here longer than any of the sentient races in the system. The architects of the Jump system were long gone or long dead, and even the scholars who'd spent generations of lives studying them had no idea where the Jump architects had gone, who they were, or how they'd managed to leave such enduring and perfect means of transport--along with instructions on how to use the transports that all the species in the star cluster had been able to figure out. That last fact alone made them as gods.

But Treska didn't have gods. She had the Union. She had her experiences. And the Jumpgates had let the Marauders in. From the edge of the system, all the way into the Capitol orbit, in one Jump. With no warning.

She saw the stars behind the Jumpgate ripple as gravity warped inside the ring. The engines of the _Needle's Eye_ strained to maintain her position--this wasn't her turn, so she kept her distance.

The Jumpgates operated on an automated schedule, opening between systems in a pattern that relied on timing--if you missed your jump, it could be days before the Jumpgate cycled back through. But each Jumpgate connected to the orbits adjacent to it.

The distance freighter disappeared into the ring, winking out of existence between one instant and the next. The next freighter lined up and drifted towards the gate. Tenraye was a medium-sized Jumpgate, capable of reaching several orbits sunward or outward. The smallest gates only Jumped one or two orbits in or out, acting as local spokes leading to larger Jumpgates, which in turn led to more populated destinations.

The next ship vanished, and Treska's HUD chimed to indicate her own impending Jump. The piloting couch responded to her body's movements and she accelerated towards the gravity distortion that filled her field of view.

Between one moment and the next, her control of the ship ceded to the gate. The Needle's Eye entered Jumpspace, and time and space moved out of order.

For some, Jumpspace was an amazing journey, not unlike other mind-altering activities, most of which were outlawed in the New Union. For others, it was a time of terror, requiring tranquilizers. Treska suffered mild nausea, which she attributed to the head injuries she'd sustained back in the Marauder attack, and hallucinations, which she could also attribute to the head injuries, but since she never told anyone about them, she couldn't be sure.

She compensated by pre-loading the necessary commands she'd need to re-enter normal space, and kept her visions to herself. They were the only secrets she dared or desired to keep from the Union.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The hovercraft landed outside a shabby-looking farmhouse of traditional Tenrayan architecture, clinging to the side of the fertile foothills leading to the continent's main mountain range. Clad once again in a micro-mesh shift, she left the transport, carrying the boots she refused to recycle. Tenrayans liked their curves, and the conical roof of the main domicile reminded Xenna of the awnings that shaded the circular pools in the Hathori Temple where she'd been trained as a priestess.

"Inside. The others are waiting." Ahveen began moving objects from what looked like a pile of worthless junk, until parts of the hovercraft began to fade from view.

She left the Vultron to finish camouflaging the transport and entered the building. The main floor was dust-filled and empty, save for a few bits of broken furniture that had once been beautiful. _That's the story of Tenraye, isn't it?_ The only decoration of note was the delicately-carved scrollwork around the arched doorway at the head of a staircase leading down. Someone had taken the time to clean the ornamentation, right down to the textures on the grape leaves.

She descended the stairs. The modestly-sized landing held three separate doorways, each obscured by heavy fabrics. The rough weave only looked simple--the fine hairs on her arms stood on end, warning her away from touching them. "Disruptor netting. Very nice."

A photonic ripple traveled through the center of the curtains. They parted to reveal a thickly-built human with tawny brown skin. "Welcome, Priestess. You grace us with your presence." He stood aside and held the curtain back, gesturing her inside.

She catalogued his features and her memory supplied a name. "Lord Bran of House Samedi." She bowed.

He returned her bow, inhaling deeply as he rose. His pupils dilated and he stepped forward, his hands sliding around her waist. Through the thin mesh of her robe, the warm contact points of his fingers sent familiar sensations through her, igniting well-traveled paths in her mind and body. She turned her head and accepted his kiss.

Long moments later, Ahveen cleared her throat from behind Xenna. "Apologies, friends. The local constabulary's been alerted to the absence of their detention team."

Xenna sighed. "On to business, then." She disentangled from the lord, who affixed a slender nasal filter to the bridge of his nose. She preceded him into the main room past the curtain. The lower floor opened up to a much larger domicile. A low-ceilinged main room held furniture that had been reclaimed and repaired. Sumptuous fabrics covered the seating, patched with care instead of reupholstered, because the bulk of the Union's textile manufacturing had turned to utilitarian fabrics.

The room was dominated by a conference table. A Treemian male stood at the head of the table, next to the main comm console. Besides him, Ahveen, and Xenna herself, the rest of the company were humans in various shades of tan.

One by one, they fitted nasal filters, while Xenna shook her head. _Whatever gets them going_ , she thought. They insisted on as many protocols and niceties as the most uptight of the priesthood ever had in the Temples. _For all the good it did us_. When the fire rained down, her goddess had not cared.

Lord Bran joined the Treemian. "Our intel has confirmed the presence of the Huntress on the planet, and intercepted comms indicate she's captured her prize. Ladies and gentlemen, the plan is in motion."

Xenna folded her arms and stayed near the door as the assembled humans, most from the Noble Houses, engaged in some self-congratulatory vrax-crap. The Treemian noted her expression and cleared his throat.

The sonorous tones of his voice interrupted the polite and unfocused murmurs of the group. "Priestess, you have some information to share?"

Xenna stepped forward. Finally! She touched the spot on her earlobe that resembled the base of an ear ornament, and was designed to be mistaken for just that. The tiny disc came loose and rested on her finger. She balanced it carefully on her fingertip until she found the input node on the comm station.

The station stuttered, then fluttered to life. "Apologies for the state of the feed," she said. "I didn't find myself in the most advantageous of angles."

The visual feed shook, then turned sideways, flipped upside down for a few seconds, righted itself, and finally stabilized at an oblique angle. The audio cut in and cut out, sometimes degenerating into static and sometimes returning to slashes of conversation. Or rather, barked-out orders, interspersed with chants of the New Morality.

"I told you. True believers." She met Ahveen's gleaming gold gaze, which flashed with dark amusement.

A pale human cleared her throat. "What are we looking at?" She tilted her head. "Priestess, if you mean to show us the indignity you suffered--"

Xenna grit her teeth. "If I'd wanted to do that, it would take more than a debriefing and a single vid-feed. I didn't just _happen_ to be apprehended in the spaceport." She stabbed into the holographic video feed. "Look at what's parked in the landing bay."

Several of the members tilted their heads in puzzlement. Xenna closed her eyes and shook her head. She should have volunteered to be bait. Schoolboy was so much better at handling these debriefings. "The ship," she said finally. "Look at that hull. It's like nothing we've ever seen. The shape doesn't match anything I know of."

"Cross-referencing with known databases now." The Treemian glanced down, then back up. "No matches."

"There's been some question as to how the Union's Vice Hunters have been so quick to track down our agents." Lord Bran pressed a closed hand to his mouth. "I've, ah, had my doubts as to the security of our communications between cells."

They were doubts shared by Micah, but Xenna wouldn't let that on. The bigger a mystery he remained, the safer her Schoolboy would be. "What do they need with advance intel when they can outrun us and be there waiting?" As she spoke over the murmured protests of the group, her hand passed through the sleek outline of the strangely-shaped ship. "That's the Huntress's craft. A day ago, we weren't even sure Tenraye was our rendezvous point. We barely had an hour before they were onto us."

Another woman spoke up, her cultured, inner-orbit accent unsuited to her words. "So the Huntress has captured her prisoner? She's taken the psypath?"

Xenna had to bite her tongue. People like Lady Bes-Alluran bankrolled the Restoration. For their own selfish reasons, but the money didn't care. "Yes. There's a good chance she's apprehended Ariesis."

The Lady's nostrils flared slightly. Good. She'd remember by the surname that Micah was one of her own. One her kind had shunned, once. Now their last hope of returning to any semblance of the lives they'd once lived.

The Treemian spoke. "Local law enforcement reports a stolen atmospheric craft and pursuit, followed by reports of an altercation at an abandoned estate south of the settlement. No word on the resolution." The Treemian looked up, his heavy features shifting into a slight frown. "Reports are already being scrubbed from the newsfeed."

Lord Bran clapped his hands together. "I'd say this calls for celebration."

"Only from a certain point of view," Ahveen murmured. "It takes me entirely too close to the Union mind to wish to celebrate the capture of the last psypath."

Ahveen's opinion wasn't a lone one. Another lord cleared his throat. "No call to celebrate just yet." She recognized his skin tone as native Tenrayan. The scar slicing across his face gave him a rakish, dangerous look that Xenna might find appealing in half an hour or so. "The Huntress is still at large. The Union is still exporting that ridiculous asceticism masquerading as security. My ancestral lands, right here on Tenraye--"

Lord Bran cut him off. "Yes, Lord D'Arno. Most of us have suffered grave losses. Some irreversible." Bran's features shuttered. "This begins the remedy of that. It's taken us years to grow the Restoration past the losses we've suffered."

"And we're no closer to freeing ourselves from the Union's stranglehold than we were ten years ago!" D'Arno thumped a fist on the table. "I have assassins! Trained assassins--"

Xenna pushed away from the wall, cutting him off with her body and her words. "Who will fall against the anti-corruption forces before they even reach the inner orbits. Don't you think we've tried?" With her anger, her body temperature heated, and even the Treemian began to scowl. It was times like these when she wondered at the Restoration's motives. What was the use of bringing back the old star empire if the Noble families were just going to go right back to murdering each other for power plays?

Ahveen put a restraining hand on her arm, and when she glanced at the Vultron woman, she saw her lips had pulled back from her needle-like teeth. "Now is not the time to do the Union's work for them." To the lord, Ahveen rippled her folded wings. "Ten years of analysis and means testing by the best pattern-shapers still left on Vultary have shown, at best, a seven percent chance of an assassination attempt altering the trajectory of behavior. Even the death of the Prime Minister himself would, at best, alter the momentum but briefly. The assassination of a Vice Hunter--a target trained to expect and defend against such things, would simply be a waste of a good assassin. Best to save your assassins for use against other Noble houses."

"Why I never--"

Xenna snorted. "No, you've just never been caught."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Being in the piloting cowl gave the illusion of floating in vast, empty space. Immense, and very, very dark. Most of the time, Treska welcomed the sensory deprivation. It gave her some peace and quiet. Only once had she ever experienced something outside accepted norms inside the cowl.

Forget it, she told herself sternly. It was only the one time. A single dream, and her physicians upped her med dosage right away, citing an imbalanced combination of the biochemicals that made up the inhibs. Stronger inhibs, no more dreams, no more problems. Nothing to set her outside being an exemplary Vice Hunter. She'd just drop the cowl over her head and close her eyes to see the afterimages of the lights and switches of the manual cockpit controls.

The images burned on the backs of her eyelids weren't, however, the ones from the cockpit. No, her mind wanted to go back to the cargo hold, to the pale-eyed mindsnake back there, sleeping off her dreamy cocktail.

_Double suns, can I stop thinking of cock for just one second?_ she thought. _Focus on his face --anything else! Or better still, fly the damn ship_.

But Jumpgate calculations were standardized; she executed them with a flick of her eyes. Her hands, on the couch's arm controls, smoothed over the sensory hide with practiced ease. She used small movements of her legs to control the drive differentials and felt the slightest shiver from the ship as she slipped into the rhythm of Jumpspace.

_It's like making love_ , she'd thought once, during her pilot training. Just before the Voice hammered down on her. She shifted her legs, making tiny corrections in the flight path. She tried not to think that way, and had mostly been successful, the one erotic dream an exception. She had no memory of making love. _I don't_ make _things_.

But this time, with the image of a naked man burning the backs of her eyelids, it was hard not to imagine that her fingers stroked over the naked flesh of a lover and not a machine. That the soft embrace cradling her was that of a great beast of a man, rather than sensory skin, beneath which pulsed tactile receptors and delicate, intricate technology hooked up to a great beast of a machine. That the pressure feedback from the couch was the response of pleasure.

As she settled more deeply into the couch, and her body took over where her mind wasn't needed, the unoccupied part returned once again to nag at her experience in the cargo hold. In the darkness, she wondered now if she hadn't hesitated, just a bit, when his pants dropped too far--did she stop for half a heartbeat and just breathe him in?

Something low curled in her belly as she remembered that strange set of images that flashed in her mind at that moment. Of taking him in her hands. Of stroking him, feeling heat and hard flesh underneath satiny skin. Of seeing his pale eyes turn smoky. _He jumped in my hand when I touched it_.

But--she didn't touch it! Did she? No. Of course not. The Voice would have punished her for excess. It was just curiosity. Curiosity invites learning, and education opens the way to knowledge. She could almost hear a voice speaking those words--his voice.

Just curiosity. She drifted even deeper, deep breath and deep darkness slipping her barriers away. "I would very much like to learn the ways of love with you." Herself, speaking those words. _Heh_ , she thought. _Doesn't even sound like me_. But her mind wasn't deterred by commentary, and the scene unfolded.

She sat on soft pillows upholstered in sumptuous fabrics. He looked up at her, amusement pulling his lips upward in a slight smile while a look of open curiosity shone from his eyes. In a fluid move for someone so--gangly, really--he rose up on his knees in front of her. The sides of his silken robe slipped apart, revealing a long, narrow stretch of his bare body that she wanted to touch. She reached out a hand, but he shifted around behind her to cradle her between his thighs. "What--"

"Hush," he murmured, his voice close in her ear, the breath from his lips tickling stray hairs on her neck. Her stomach curled, the sensation somehow familiar, as if she'd done it before. Like she knew exactly how his lips felt on the nape of her neck. His hands, at her shoulders, made her realize she was as naked as he was and she glanced down.

Relief flooded her. Her skin wasn't its usual space-tan white, but rather a soft sky blue. Just a dream, some small part of her realized. A dream with a wrong-colored dream-body.

She braced herself for the Voice. In the early years, she'd had erotic dreams like this one. Dreams of a place with luxurious furnishings, sumptuous food, and intoxicating scents of incense and perfumes. Then came the doctors, and then the inhibs, and the dreams left. Her heart sealed up and quit making so much trouble for her head, and that was the end of that.

Heat seeped from her dream lover's thighs to her hips, from his chest to her back. He wrapped his arms around her and palmed her breasts lightly. Tiny shocks of pleasure arrowed from her nipples to deep in her abdomen. He followed their trail with his hands, fingertips sliding downward to cup her breasts, teasing with flutter-touches the sensitive undersides before moving downward. Pleasure coiled low in her belly, alongside the taut fear of the Voice.

But her mind was quiet while his hands continued to move lower until he reached the crease between her hip and thigh. She twitched at the light touch on ticklish flesh. Maybe not quiet, she thought. Would he touch her there? Between her legs? Between the plump and naked folds both foreign and familiar to her? _Suns, I hope so!_

She could feel the rigid line of his cock pressing against the small of her back, the heat of it sending warm, liquid sensation pooling through her entire midsection. She spread her bent legs a little wider, hoping against hope he'd take the hint. Part of her wondered why she didn't feel horrified, ashamed at the way she felt. What her body was doing when it opened like a dew-kissed moonflower under his fingers.

Her hips swiveled upwards as his finger stroked downwards, parting the slick, wet petals of her slit. _Yes, just there_ , she thought, lifting herself just so. The question of how she knew just where she wanted his finger became irrelevant as he found the sweet spot. "Oh!"

Shimmering waves of melting pleasure raced along her nerve endings in time to the slow and rhythmic invasion of her body. She was tight and wet around his fingers at first, but as her hips moved faster, her channel slicked even further. Her head dropped back against his shoulder and his fingers moved faster in and out of her.

"More," she gasped, thrusting her hips up to meet his touch. He added another finger to the one thrusting inside her, and twisted them just so. He flicked his thumb over her clitoris.

Her hips shot upward almost violently as the waves turned to a maelstrom. Heat rushed through her body, from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair as a pulsing, hard climax seized her limbs. The rush of blood turned to roaring in her ears, as her inner walls throbbed in time to the hammer of her heart.

The roar turned to a--screech. She came back to herself with a start at the screeching, just in time to note the heads-up display's hyperdrive readings slipping into the red. Her hands fumbled for the controls to recalibrate the coolant system. Sweat trickled down her forehead and the small HUD bars indicating her vitals jumped for several minutes before minimizing, and the drive readings shifted down into amber, then green.

She pulled the ship out of jumpspace with shaking commands. As soon as the subtle hum of the jumpdrive downshifted, she flung the piloting cowl off her head and took several deep breaths of the cold, recirculated cockpit air. "What the nine hells was that?" she asked aloud.

_Another dream_ , her mind answered. _And a really good one, too_. With shaking hands, she fumbled at her belt for the small pouch containing the cylinder that held her inhibs. She popped one and bit hard down on the bitter-tasting capsule, and took several deep breaths to clear her head.

A subtly familiar, musky scent permeated the small room. As she sat up, she realized it came from her. She moved, and little shocks zipped through her, starting and ending between her legs. She reached down and felt the dampness that had leaked through her thin skinsuit. She pulled her fingers away, shaking again.

Why now, after all this time? After she believed she truly had herself under control? And why so vivid? She even remembered the way he smelled, like cool water and male musk. The pale, wiry hairs dusting his legs as he cradled her. The squarish, blunt tips of his fingers circling her nipples, and the way his cock curved slightly to the left, even when erect, pressing into her back.

_Steady, girl_ , she told herself harshly. _It was just a dream, dammit!_

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Over The Line

Lord Bran held his hands up for order. "Lord D'Arno, your objection is noted, along with your...alternate suggestion." He paced the circle of the room, going behind the chairs of each of the assembled resistance members, pausing behind the chairs of the Nobles in unspoken emphasis. "If your house resources are still plentiful enough that you can waste them on an effort, or make an attempt to break the Union government without the aid of the Hathori underground, then by all means, build your own resistance movement." He finished as he passed by Xenna, and she heard him, _sotto voce_. "Ancestors know, I've had enough of running this one."

Xenna spoke. "The Union's nano-spy technology is spreading. Orbits as far out as Guerre's have garrisons equipped with Union tech. It didn't take long for the Tenrayan militia to detect my presence."

"And worse, the cult has a foothold within its ranks." Ahveen's deeper feminine voice put a punctuation mark on the statement that Xenna's Hathori tones couldn't have.

Lord Bran nodded. "Information is what's needed now. We must understand why the New Morality has such a firm grip on so many diverse peoples and cultures in the solar system. Up to now, we've had safe haven across the frontier orbits."

"This far out, the cult's grasp should be weakening, not growing. Even with evangelization, the cult should have changed." Ahveen's expression grew serene as Xenna calmed down. Unlike the humans, she wore no filter, as she preferred to experience the Hathori pheromones undiluted. Her own connection to her hive gave her some resistance to Xenna's physiological influence, enough for her to detect Xenna's effects often before she did. The talent made her invaluable in analyzing the Union's resistance technology. "It has not evolved in its nature nor its goals, and that is troubling."

"More to the point," Xenna snapped, "None of us can evade all the checks and sensors required to get into the heart of the Capitol's government center. But a high-profile prisoner? They'll let him in the front doors."

Lady Bes-Alluran raised a hand. "There is a plan for extraction?" Her expression shifted into a cautious mask.

Xenna felt her pheromones actively kick in. "Do you think--" She began, fists curling at her sides. Let the bitch feel fear and cower at the world without a psypath in it.

Ahveen stepped between her and the lady. "The details of that are of no concern to this cell, and it's best we don't discuss further." She steered Xenna towards the anteroom, past the Treemian and into privacy. Lord Bran and the Treemian followed, sealing both the electro-mesh curtain and the wooden door.

The small cellar still held the heavy scent of Tenrayan wood and Tenrayan wine, but the casks were empty. Save for one, whose contents were not the liquid wealth that required aging. Lord Bran gestured to the Treemian. "My personal aide, Calivon."

For the first time, the large, thick-limbed alien spoke with inflection. "D'Arno's bluster is motivated by opportunity; he still believes the New Union can be corrupted. He aggravates for surgical strikes that leave most of the system in place and envisions himself one day commanding the tentacles of the New Morality's reach."

Ahveen outright laughed at that. "D'Arno hasn't yet encountered real Union forces out there orbiting that gas giant as his moon does."

"Do not underestimate him," Lord Bran cautioned. "D'Arno's kept the peace in the shadow of that jovian. Most of that orbit's swimming with pirates of one clan or another. He keeps them in check by keeping them just on the edge of all-out war with each other."

"His position in the Iolian orbit has afforded him some protection." Calivon's bass rumble was accompanied by an airy counterpoint as his reinforced lungs--evolved for high-gravity Treemia's unique atmospheric blend of gases and particulates--processed the lighter Tenrayan air.

"The Union interdicts my homeworld and my people, while D'Arno gets a pass?" Xenna's lip curled up.

Ahveen laid a restraining hand on her arm. "He is a useful fool to them. I am most concerned about that lady in there."

Lord Bran cleared his throat. "Bes-Alluran has been sheltered from the worst of the interdictions. She is only now engaged in the resistance because of the Union's interest in the heavy waters of her house's homeworld."

Xenna snorted. "Union cut her out of the deal, didn't they?"

Ahveen grinned. "Bes-Alluran sent some cousins from a minor branch of the family to the Capitol to be trained as Enforcers. She has only recently learned that their training has overridden their familial loyalty."

Lord Bran nodded. "The usual spy networking of the Noble houses cannot compete against the New Morality's training. Whatever they're doing in Government Plaza, they're doing it exceedingly well. This plan is our best hope of discovering how the cult keeps such a grip on its adherents. If your psypath--"

"He's not _my_ psypath. He's my partner, my friend, my student, and my initiate." _And I'm worried about him_.

"Micah Ariesis is the last psypath for a very good reason." Ahveen's voice became soothing. "He is capable. None know more about the ways of the psypaths than he."

"That's because no others are left." Xenna's bitter edge accompanied the tang of her pheromones. She pressed her lips together. "Apologies."

Lord Bran adjusted his nasal filter. "Priestess, if there were another way, we would have taken it. For now, we must trust in Micah's abilities to allow him to do his part."

"And we must part company now, to do ours." Calivon the Treemian motioned to the door. He and Ahveen filed out.

Lord Bran held her back. "I bid you the luck of the smile of the goddess." He took her in his powerful arms and stared down at her, his broad features showing concern. "You will have to venture uncomfortably close to the inner orbits. They're no place for a Hathori priestess. I wish--"

She held one fuschia finger up against his sensual lips. "Then I will not be a Hathori priestess. But for now--" She kissed him deeply. Her inner core, the part of her that touched the goddess through pleasure and sensation, reached out.

She pulled it back. There was a time for benediction, and a time for action, and this was a time for action. She followed him out of the anteroom.

The Treemian and Ahveen were discussing travel plans. "We will rendezvous next at Rumaru. There's a garrison there, but the Rumaru Jumpgate is one of the largest in the system. We can get almost all the way to the Capitol in two jumps."

"It'll be a hard burn, but we can make it in the _Delta Rose_." Ahveen showed teeth at the prospect of the excitement of a long jump.

Xenna strode out of the anteroom, a wry smile twisting her lips. "There's just one problem. Those moralistic assholes have my ship."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

J _ust a dream...just a dream..._

The inhibs burned bitter on her tongue. A small spot, just to the left of her tailbone burned where she thought--knew--that his cock had rested, pulsing and erect, while he pleasured her. Her skin remembered. But how could her body remember what never happened?

She stalked out of the cockpit, gulping in lungfuls of the cooler air in the corridor. Air scented with the chilly chemical tang of the atmo-scrubbers, rather than the heated musk of her own body. She stopped herself from slamming open the sliding door to the cargo hold--if he was still out, she didn't want to wake him up. The only time a mindsnake wasn't dangerous was when he was dead. But asleep would do, in this case.

Sure enough, he hung on the wall, sagging against the repulsor cuffs that held his wrists. His head drooped. Golden locks of hair fell down over his forehead, obscuring his eyes. He looked so peaceful. Harmless, really.

Before she could lose her nerve, she strode up to him and pulled the zipcord she'd used to secure his pants after the unfortunate accident. She'd prove to herself it was just a fevered imagining, brought on by a glimpse of something forbidden. And there it hung, sleeping peacefully, in a thatch of dark gold, wiry hair, nestled against his stones. Such a big deal to her imagination and such a...not-big deal up close. It was just a penis.

"A man's penis is a tool for the transmission of seed to a fertile female womb." The health video in her head began, displaying a holographic facsimile.

"This is the sceptre of the pleasure goddess, directing her will." The feminine voice overrode the canned audio of the health vid.

She shook her head. Wherever that came from, she didn't want to know. _It's just a penis. A body part. That's all. It's just...there. And limp_.

And...leaning to the left.

A touch, almost like a fingertip-brush, shivered down the skin of her back. She whirled, but there was nothing there. Shaking her head, she turned back around to pull his pants back up. _I don't care if it is eight jumps. I'm getting back to Prime, collecting my bounty, and getting the hell away from --_things _that leaned to the left_.

Reaching around put her in close contact with his legs, and she couldn't help but notice the scent of cool, fresh water that seemed to cling to him. _Maybe I'll visit a water world_ , she thought. _Swim in an ocean somewhere_. She paused as she imagined a warm sea cradling her, tiny waves lapping at her skin.

"Like what you see?"

She started so violently at the quiet words that she flew backwards, landing on her ass with a rattle of the deckplates. A guilty glance upwards and she saw his eyes, bright blue-gray and gleaming from behind the fringe of hair that hung over his forehead. "You're awake!" It came out like she was accusing him.

Her skin could have been on fire for the blush that burned her from inside out, all the way from toes to the roots of her hair. She was already warm from the cockpit-- _oh suns, don't think of that!_ --and trying to return his pants to their proper state. This just made things that much worse all around.

"I usually prefer to be conscious when a lovely woman is that close to my private parts."

She scowled. "You have no respect for the vice laws, do you?"

He met her glare with one of his own. "Why should I?"

"It's virtue that keeps people safe," she said, speaking along with the Voice that supplied the immediate answer in her head. "A prudent society is a secure society. Vice and temptation make citizens unsafe. Peace comes through restraint." How much more simple did it have to be?

"So I shouldn't be at all worried that you had something pleasurable in mind when you divested me of my pants."

She blushed even harder, and fell back on her original reason for cutting his belt. "I was checking you for weapons."

He threw his head back and laughed, exposing the long lines of his throat and jaw, and for one wild moment, she wanted very badly to kiss along the line of it, and maybe nip at the flutter where his pulse beat. He'd like that.

"I can assure you that my fiercest weapon is only that which you see before you," he said, glancing down to meet her eyes. "And it brings only pleasure." For a long moment she was caught in the loop of thinking about the taste of his skin over and over, seeing an afterimage of her own tongue flicking out and gliding over the salty scratchiness of his jaw.

"You unsheath it when you look at me like that."

She stepped back. "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Using your mindsnake tricks on me." She turned away to hide her blush. His voice was too gentle when he murmured those words. To know she had an effect on him--it didn't fit the equation! _I'm the hunter. He's the bounty. We're enemies. He shouldn't want anything more than to get far away from me. And I shouldn't want anything more than to bring him back for justice_. Pursuit and capture. The eventual triumph of the law over chaos. She activated the water dispenser and got herself a cup of cold water.

She turned back to him when she fought down her blush. Vice Hunters didn't back down. They searched the depths of galactic depravity and rooted out the corruption that put the entire Union in danger. Vice Hunters didn't flinch.

"My lady, I assure you, you're in no danger from my 'mindsnake tricks.'"

Her eyes jumped to the neuro-collar, and the little green LED that indicated that it was functioning properly. The neuro-collars were guaranteed to block psypath talents. She'd witnessed the tests herself.

His voice dropped an octave. "Or did you adorn me with a collar for another reason?"

Her fingers wrapped around the cup in a death grip.

He lowered still, to a whisper, so that she had to step closer to hear him. "Are you the type of lady who enjoys her partners helpless?" he asked. "I'm sure we could come to an...arrangement."

The collar had to be malfunctioning. There was no way the images that flashed before her could come from her. She'd never done any of those things! Never stood naked before him and shoved him down on his knees among scented pillows. Or felt a white-hot thrill when he looked up at her, his shoulders straining from the elaborate ties that bound his hands behind him and his cock straining from the pleasure they both knew was imminent.

A loud crack split the air between them. She glanced down to see the front of his pants soaked through. It took a full thirty seconds, along with his, "Your hand," for her to realize that she'd broken the plastiform cup, and launched the water in it everywhere.

In her mind's eye, she saw herself stepping towards him. Throwing the cracked cup up into the air over her shoulder and pressing herself against him. Felt the dampness from the spill soaking his pants seep into her own clothing, echoing the damp between her legs. Of plastering her thighs to his, her belly to his pelvis, her breasts to his chest. Hunger rose in her, threatening to choke her with its force.

The cup flew into the air.

Her boots made hollow thunks on the deck plates. The anticipation of skin and heat and touch roared in her ears until--contact!

INDULGENCE IS DANGER! VICE BEGETS DESTRUCTION! THE VIRTUOUS SOCIETY IS THE PROTECTED SOCIETY! THE UPRIGHT CITIZEN IS THE PROTECTED CITIZEN!

"Aaaughh!" She wrapped both arms around her head and dropped to her knees. Pain radiated from her kneecaps at the hard landing, and her lips began to move along with the principles of the Union's New Morality. Inside her skull, the Voice screamed, drowning out all other thought.

"Danger lies in indulgence. Immorality compromises the safety of the people. The upright citizen is the protected citizen," she murmured. She couldn't help it. The screaming in her head left her no other recourse.

"Treska?"

She barely heard him over the Voice shouting in her head. She repeated the Principles over and over again. "The virtuous society is the protected society. The people must be protected from Vice. Vice is danger. Vice brings destruction. The impure and unclean are unjust. The risk of the unjust must be neutralized." If she spoke with enough conviction, the Voice would shut up, shut _up, just please shut up!_ Her body began to rock back and forth with the cadence of the Principles, and the world narrowed down to only obedience to the Voice.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

"Treska! _Treska!_ " Micah shouted now, fighting against the damned repulsor cuffs. What started as a simple flirtation with his captor had taken a strange and worrisome turn. One second she stared at him with those huge eyes a man could drown in, and he watched the hunger fill them, turn them soft. Her body brushed his. Heat and the trace of musk filled what little air remained between them and his cock sprang to life for real, and then--

Then she was on the ground, curled in around herself as if he'd bashed her over the head, and muttering the Principles of that damned New Morality nonsense in a barely-conscious, singsong voice. He struggled uselessly against his confinement, and against his better judgment, tried once again to use his mental powers to break through her sudden psychosis. Closing his eyes, he formed his thoughts into a white-hot arrow and sent it towards her with an exhaled breath.

As soon as his breath left his lungs, the arrow returned to him and bounced off the inside of his skull with the mental equivalent of a thousand shrieking demons. Red crept into his vision and he felt his body jerk in response. He came back to himself with a snap and a grunt of pain, blinking back shock-tears that did little to wash away the red haze that still dotted his vision.

He shook his head to clear it. The pounding headache thumped in time with his pulse, and Treska's muttering. He ground his teeth in frustration. _I can't do this without my talents_. He could neither take advantage of the situation, nor could he help her, without the use of his talents. Never had he felt quite so adrift.

_You knew there would be a likely scenario where you were unable to use your powers_ , he told himself. _So think and remember what else you have at your disposal_.

He had his voice. "Treska." He put all he had into her name. It wasn't much. Trained psypaths could influence the minds of others--the technique had been taught at the monastery where he'd spent his youth in training. However, it was only taught to students who'd demonstrated, via rigorous testing, the most incorruptible moral fiber necessary to avoid abusing it. It was used only in the most desperate of cases, to heal a mind splintered by the deepest of traumas. But the psypath healers had been some of the first to go, voluntarily surrendering themselves to aid the reconstruction...and disappearing into the maw of the New Morality.

If he could just move his foot far enough forward to nudge her, perhaps the physical touch would jolt her out of it. He strained against the magnetic field that kept the cuffs around his ankles close together. His thigh muscles burned with the effort, and he was rewarded with a few millimeters' worth of movement. He kept repeating her name, and noticed that while her rocking had continued, one of her hands came down from her ears and fumbled at her utility belt for the small tube of tablets he'd seen her use earlier.

Some sort of drug, to be sure, but what kind, and for what purpose? Could the weakness be exploited?

Her clumsy fingers loosened the tube, but she dropped it, and it rolled towards him, coming to rest against his bare ankle. Her hand scrabbled on the floor, stretching outward and blindly seeking.

"This way," he said. "To your left. That's right." Finally her hand came to rest, halfway on the tube and halfway around the arch of his foot. Her fingers were cold, but her touch was welcome.

_I've been living among Hathori for too long_ , he thought, _if I'm speculating over The Huntress_. Hathori sensuality wasn't limited to the sexual, and as the years passed, he remembered with increasing fondness the time he'd spent in the Hathori Temple in the Capitol, not just for the sex, but for the mornings of waking up and enjoying the comfort of the bodies surrounding him. Staving off some of the loneliness of exile from the monastery and the quiet hum of other minds.

Still, her reaction to his suggestive remark was nothing less than astonishing. He nudged the bottle of pills to a more firm position in her hand and her fingers worked the cap off, spilling the tablets over the deck plating, but accomplishing her goal. She jammed one of the ovoids into her mouth and bit down on it with an audible crunch.

He watched as she winced at the taste, but swallowed with some effort. All the intelligence the Restoration had received about the Vice Hunter claimed that she was incorruptible. One hundred percent loyal to the Union's New Morality cause. That she was dogged and unstoppable. Unable to be persuaded, coerced, threatened, or cajoled. And he suspected he'd just discovered why.

"Treska?" After several minutes, her rocking slowed. She panted as if she'd just finished a sprint in heavy gravity.

"I--" she began. "Wh--" She shook her head and looked up, her eyes focusing on him. She blinked several times and her mouth worked, but the power of speech seemed to elude her.

"Give yourself time to come out of it," he said.

She stretched her legs out in front of her and shook her head, bits of reddish hair falling out of her tight headband.

"Does that happen often?" he asked.

She rolled her shoulders back and forth. "Only when I forget what I'm here for."

He wanted to find hope in that statement. _Do I make you forget?_

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Escape

The transport bringing in boxes of salvage was the best-smelling transport the tech had ever experienced. His training in the New Morality kept him from complaining too heavily about the stench of his new job, when before he'd served as the kitchen inventory manager for one of Tenraye's most exclusive destination restaurant resorts.

He hadn't thought about the restaurant in six years. The training kept him focused on his tasks at hand, as he processed one transport after another through Spaceport Receiving and routed it to orbital hoppers destined for the gargantuan freighters in orbit. But something about this pallet, full of the usual assortment of reclaimed junk, was different. He switched his handheld scanner to a Union-supplied one.

Predictably, the Union scanner went crazy as soon as he activated it. Threats popped up on the readout coming from all over the loading bay. Security holes sent out warning beeps of varying tones and colors and the formerly quiet dock now sounded as if it hosted a house band. The formerly relaxed tech tensed. He lifted his head and searched for the threats. His movements went from lazy to purposeful. As if programmed like a bot, his hands moved over the scanner, then moved the scanner towards threats, one by one identifying them and marking them for neutralization, quarantine, or termination.

Inside the crates packed in the center of the transport, Ahveen, the Treemian, and Xenna collected themselves. It might have been a less than stellar move to assign a Treemian to an espionage mission. _We work with what we have_. Xenna gestured to their exit points and counted off the wait time.

_Three, two, one, go!_

Calivon lifted the crate lid in one silent, smooth motion, his musculature well-equipped to deal with the heavy, insulated plastiform. At the same time, Ahveen gathered her legs beneath her and sprang straight upward. A mighty, silent flap of her wings took her up into the scaffolding, and another tone joined the cacophony. On the ground, Xenna casually swung one shapely leg over the side of the crate, then hopped lightly down off the anti-grav pallet.

She sauntered over to the tech, projecting soothing, sensual pheromones. Her gold mesh robe swirled around her body, the high slits concealing and revealing tantalizing glimpses of her skin beneath. Her lips curved up in an inviting smile.

The tech's eyes lit up at her presence. She knew when her pheromones hit him, as his eyes drooped to half-mast and his gaze was drawn to her assets. She felt herself enter familiar territory as she stepped closer. "I have been sent for you, my love." She made her voice as throaty as she could manage.

The tech licked his lips. "B-beautiful lady."

"Yes," she purred. "Beautiful lady, all for you. All you have to do is take me to your special place."

"Sp-p-pecial p-p-place." He repeated her words and sniffed deeply.

_That's right, sweetie. Breathe me in_. She leaned forward, displaying her cleavage, and whispered into his ear. "The impound station." She gestured towards the blast door leading out of the loading dock. She let her arm rest lightly on his and guided him towards the exit.

"Yes. The-the impound station."

"Our little love nest, sweet thing." She glided alongside him.

His fingers fumbled at the code pad. He keyed in a set of numbers and the access panel moved from red to amber. Xenna licked her lips. I'm coming for you, baby. He fumbled at the second set and the amber light flashed. Come on, that's it.

"Wait--" He blinked.

"What? No, sweet thing." She fought to keep her voice smooth and hypnotic. "Our place." She stroked his fumbling fingers.

His hand spasmed. He pressed the wrong button. The pad clamped closed and a klaxon rang out.

"No! Safety is paramount! Morality is security! You are not moral! You are a security risk! Violation! Violation! Violation!"

Xenna cursed. "Sonofabitch." Her fingers curled into a tight ball and her arm snapped out. She clipped him in the jaw and staggered back. "Ahveen! Plan B!" _I sure hope that Treemian sunk his tendrils deep enough into the security grid_. They wouldn't get a second chance.

The tech staggered back, but did not go down. Instead, he lowered himself into a crouch. The scanner clattered against his belt and he lashed out with a series of flat-handed strikes. Xenna executed a backflip that took her legs up and over her head, her back leg catching the tech under the chin.

But it was a glancing blow, and the man staggered back but did not fall. She landed in a crouch of her own, the gold mesh pooling around her feet. She paused for the briefest of seconds and let the robe fall from her shoulders. Gloriously naked, save for her boots, she rose again, gathered her balance, and struck out.

She drove the tech back away from the blast door, raining blows on his torso. "Time!" she called out.

Ahveen's voice echoed through the dock, bouncing around the cavernous room. "Twenty-five seconds."

The tech rallied. His face was a determined mask as he blocked her blows and parried with his own. "Make it fifteen," Xenna called back. She didn't like that look in the tech's eyes. It wasn't so much a look as an absence of one. He drove her back towards the blast door, and towards the emergency lockdown. She spun around and delivered a wheel kick that deflected the arm that had been reaching for the scanner on his belt.

Xenna heard his elbow crack. The kick should have stopped him cold. A break like that should put a man to the ground. She watched with mounting trepidation as he lurched forward. "Security lies in virtue. The unassailable is the triumphant." His eyes fixed on hers, staring right through her and she felt a chill knife right through her belly. " _You_ are _not_ virtuous."

Rage burned white behind her eyes. "Not virtuous? _Not virtuous?_ " She kicked out at his knee. "I _purify_ the _sacred waters_ of Pleasures Untold! I grant _holy benedictions_ to _kings!_ " He stumbled back, falling on his ass.

Xenna stomped harder, the alarms ringing in her ears. "I hold the secrets to ecstasies of the gods themselves! My _virtue_ is sacrosanct!" Anything to make the blank look leave the man's eyes.

She backhanded him and his eyes rolled back in his head. Ahveen dropped down from the rafters and enfolded her in mighty wings. "Xenna, stop!"

Her blood burned. Ahveen's wings moved air over her fevered flesh. Rage cooled. She stared down at the unconscious tech. " _Nobody_ questions my virtue."

Ahveen followed her gaze. "I don't think he'll be questioning much for a long time coming."

The Treemian joined them. "If your plan required your identity to remain secret, my lady, I fear you must alter your plan."

Ahveen gave the access panel a critical look. "May have to alter our plan to rescue the _Delta Rose_."

"Never!" She stepped away from the Vultron and rubbed her arms, slicking off the sweat of her fury. "I won't leave her here. I can't." She set to work prying off the cover to the power converter, and tried to compose herself. The blank look in the tech's eyes disturbed her. Infuriated her.

Scared her.

Calivon cleared his throat. "I have access, my lady. It will take us but a few moments to unlock the doors and free the fair _Delta Rose_."

Ahveen raised her head. "I don't know if we have a few moments. I hear them coming."

Xenna gave a good hard yank and the cover came off. She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed a handful of wires. Good old fashioned hardline tech. She yanked.

The panel sent a shower of sparks cascading over her skin like a thousand stinging insects. The energy field keeping the heavy door shut powered down with a low whine.

"Great. Now all you need to do is break through permasteel." Ahveen folded her arms. "I hope you have a plan for that, because I doubt those pretty breasts of yours are going to punch through."

"Perhaps I may be of service." Calivon stood and handed his padd to Xenna. He regarded the door calmly. Now Xenna could also hear the constables assembling, right down to the hum of dated power cells powering up energy rifles.

"By all means." She struggled to keep her voice even.

The Treemian sized up the blast door, balled up his fist, and smashed it at deliberate points. One, two, three, four, five hits, and it was just enough to create a gap in the seam that would let them through. Ahveen went through, then Xenna followed, but when she turned back, she realized the gap wasn't big enough for Calivon to fit through.

"Go." His eyes gleamed. "I will hold them off."

"Absolutely not!" She shook off Ahveen's hand. "You're the personal aide to--"

The stocky male showed his teeth. "You are kind to be concerned. I will prevail. There are not so many of them."

Ahveen pulled her harder. "Come on. He still has to release the impound clamps!"

She ducked away, sparing a glance back at the door.

Ahveen picked up speed. "He's a Treemian. He can take care of himself."

"We can't risk it!" The shouts of the militia came closer.

"We can't not!" Ahveen tweaked Xenna's nipple ring and the ship--her sweet _Delta Rose_ --responded to the remote embedded in the jewelry. The hatch opened and they bolted towards safety.

Moments later, the impound clamps thunked free. Ahveen let out a breathy laugh from the comm station. "We're free!" She glanced down as Xenna took the ship up and out of the hangar. "And what's more, there's a whole lot of Union data here! Calivon wasn't kidding when he said he was in--this stuff is deep! He even got some Undernet--Oh no."

"What?" Xenna's hands moved over the ship's controls. The ground fell away and she became as light as the ship as they pierced the atmospheric envelope. "Is Calivon--"

"Worse." Ahveen's gold eyes dulled to orange. "It's the Undernet. Someone's got a pirate bounty out on your psypath."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Sharpclaw hissed, forked tongue darting out to flick at the air surrounding his muzzle, made moist from the breath exhaling from his nostrils. The gesture was instinctive, left over from his people's past as predators in their native swamplands. It told him nothing about the state of his prey, the sleek and tiny ship filling the viewscreen, yet those same instincts that allowed his ancestors to conquer the small, squirming, fur-covered warmbloods of his homeworld told him there was a hunt to be engaged with this diminutive ship whose maneuvers twisted and snaked much like a tasty volrat with a limp foreleg. A hunt...and profit.

"Sir," his first mate rasped. "The ship's model is unidentified by all known databases."

"Is that so?" Sharpclaw stroked a taloned hand over his throat frill, sending a frisson of awareness through his forebrain. His other hand shot out and stabbed the viewscreen zoom controls. The lines of the ship were sleek, smooth, a delight to view. But certainly not solely cosmetic. "Strongtooth." He addressed his first mate. "What sort of craft goes unmentioned in the galactic databases?"

Strongtooth pulled leathery lips back from teeth. "Craft which do not wish to be identified, due to the nature of their cargo, their systems, or their purpose."

Sharpclaw's fingerclaws began a staccato dance across the arm of the captain's chair. "And those craft belong to one of three categories--large corporations, wealthy individuals, or pan-galactic governments."

"Odds?" Strongtooth asked.

Ironskin, at the helm, chuffed. "Does it matter? Wealthy individuals and large corporations both have plenty of money. And the government--"

"May not have money, but the value of the technology surpasses the direct cash benefit," Strongtooth finished.

Dexeter, the only human in the warm-aired ship, held up a hand that seemed all the more pink when compared to the grays and greens of the Riktorians. "Gimme a sec and I'll tell you all you need to know about that ship." His pink hands and infant-clawless fingers moved over the sensor controls. "I'm reading a sweet hyperdrive, burning a little hot, though." He tsked. "Bad luck for them if they overheat and end up dead in space." He paused for several minutes, then made a whooshing sound with his mouth, a pale imitation of a good chuff. "Shee-ow. The ship's silhouette indicates a Nitradix influence in the design, but that's impossible. The Nitradix have been out of business for years. In fact, they're damn near extinct as a species, thanks to the Union."

"Or so the Union would have you think," Sharpclaw murmured. "On the other hand..." He consulted his personal monitor and tapped a clawed finger gently on the screen, transferring a sum from one icon to another. "The Union have simply hidden the Nitradix, and in return, the Nitradix have been working solely for the government all these years, developing ships just like this one for Union agents."

Ironskin shifted in his seat, his throat ruffles rippling. "Boss, do we really want to tangle with the Union?"

Sharpclaw consulted the readout from his contact. A dossier featuring a pale, red-haired woman flashed on the screen, along with the most recent communication received from the ship with this particular drive configuration. The green and gold sigil next to the female's name gave him pause. Vice Hunters were not normally easy pickings as far as effortless revenue went.

The message they'd intercepted, however, and the amount of zeroes in it...

"Target that ship and give it everything we've got."

A little work never hurt anyone...and for that much money, it wouldn't feel like work at all.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

# Episode 3: Tailspin

## Jumpspace Dreams

The Galladance Jumpgate yawned before Treska, while the Jumpgate station's duty monitor answered her courtesy hail with a yawn of his own. "Unidentified vessel, you are not in queue for arrival. If you are not in immediate distress, then in accordance with Union Jumpgate ordinances, prepare to be boarded for inspection. Failure to log a Jump plan is punishable by suspension of Jump privileges for one standard month. Acknowledge."

She scowled at the comm and hit the switch, perhaps harder than necessary. "Galladance Jumpstation, this is the _Needle's Eye_ , registered under the Department of Special Affairs. Jump plan was logged at Tenraye station. Do _not_ attempt to board. Cargo is hazardous. Repeat, cargo is hazardous." She sent a glance back towards the main cabin, where her "hazardous cargo" hung helpless in the magnetic cuffs, along with-- _don't think of things that hang to the left_.

She still shook, her system barely out of the shock that the Voice had sent through her. Her training hadn't failed her in years. None of the psypaths she'd confronted had triggered the Voice, no matter how persuasive their mental suggestions. Her training taught her how to block the psypath power of Suggestion, how to protect her mind and seal it away from invasion. Now twice in as many face-to-face encounters with the last free psypath, she'd granted him _liberties_.

The first time, she could be forgiven--she was in pursuit, and he used every trick in the book to distract and misdirect her. Not something out of the ordinary with mindsnakes. They were called such because they could pull the snakes out of your mind--your deepest dreads and your deepest desires-- _or put them in_.

All of her targets, save this one, chose the dread. But when you'd already lived through your deepest dread, the fear of it couldn't stop you in your tracks. But this one, this... _Micah. His name is Micah_. This one chose to pull the snakes of desire from her mind.

_Even when my hands were at his throat, he threw sex at me_. It was an unusual choice, to counter violence with sensuality. _Maybe that's why he's the last one_. She could see why the Prime Minister wanted him neutralized. If Micah had the ability to pull desires from anyone's mind, only the stars knew what the Marauders would do to possess that skill.

She slid back into the piloting couch, pointedly ignoring any stray memories about sexy dreams, and called up the HUD as soon as the hood was over her head. Two flicks of her eyes summoned Life Support, and she triggered an atmospheric freshening for the cockpit. "Antiseptic," she bit out at the computer's request for her scent preference. "Nothing but antiseptic."

The slight hiss of forced air followed almost immediately, driving away the lingering musk-floral scent that made her think of things best left un-thought of.

With her head clear, she called up the flight plan. Galladance was a bigger hub than Eston, and she had many more choices that would take her sunward, into the Union's heart. Her Nav HUD suggested routes ranked first by safety, Jumpdrive burn, number of Jumps, and total travel time. Fingers still tingling, and her heart rate still fluttering recklessly, she re-sorted her options according to travel time, then number of Jumps. Every Jump ran the risk of repeating what had happened in the piloting couch. But the longer she waited, the more chances that mindsnake had to break down her defenses. She couldn't risk another episode of the Voice taking over.

The most direct route took her to Eridiae, and from there to the Cetares orbit, then through the central checkpoint and on to the Capitol. It wasn't perfect--Eridiae's Jumpgate and its only habitable moon were inside a thick outer ring of ice and debris encircling the gas giant that dominated its orbit. Navigating that cloud could put her right into the middle of a nest of smugglers running interdicted goods who wouldn't exactly welcome an agent of the Union with open arms, and the Jumpgate was known for shutting down when the cloud grew thick. She could be marooned there for days, waiting for the cloud to clear. If not, it was a quick shot through to Cetares and the heart of civilization.

Her other option was to do her waiting now, then take the Jumpgate to Fumaru. _If I wait now, I can run through the gate to Fumaru. If I burn the engines just right, I can Jump to Dengali-Drednan and skip Eridiae. If I rush it, I can avoid the Jumpgate to Cetares and get into the queue for Barthenia, and then the central checkpoint and finally home to the Capitol_. This route wasn't without its own risks--the Jump to Fumaru wouldn't come up for several hours. But Cetares was a traffic jam on the best of days--even her Special Affairs credentials might not push her to the front of the queue for up to a whole standard day.

She weighed the options--do the waiting at Fumaru, or at Cetares. Fumaru was a backwater orbit, with a small Jumpgate with several hours between Galladance and Dengali, and an automated Jumpgate station. If she experienced trouble out there, the chances of available help were much slimmer.

But the chances of a mindsnake loose in Civilized space so close to the Capitol were far greater. She could never forgive herself if the neuro-collar failed when so many other minds were nearby. _Fumaru, it is, and the wait be damned_.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Micah anticipated moments of terror in the course of his capture and the trip to the Capitol. He never expected the long stretches of boredom, though.

The magnetic restraints kept him imprisoned, fastened to the wall like some avant-garde piece of artwork. The Huntress's ship did not have much in the way of cargo space. He'd only had brief glimpses of the outer hull as she'd chased him over the plains of Tenraye, but the interior appeared just as exotic. The vast majority of the Civilized Worlds' spacefaring vessels were modular in nature--depending on class, modules of different sizes fitted together in custom configurations--or standardized configurations, for the budget-conscious--and made a spaceworthy ship.

This one seemed to be custom-designed from stem to stern. The cockpit was separated from the rest of the ship by a secured hatch, but the telltale seams that identified a ship module were absent. The ship's narrow, arrowlike profile made it too small to fit modular dimensions. _Hah_ , he thought, rather uncharitably, _her repair bills must be astronomical_. For a custom rig like this, he wasn't even sure there were more than a handful of starship mechanics in the whole system who qualified to work on the thing.

Yet the ship was beautiful, he would freely admit. The main bay had been kitted out with a tiny galley and a desk, whose chair space he occupied. In fact, if his legs hadn't been stuck to the wall, he could have shifted his hips and sat on the desk. The opposite wall held personal storage lockers and a thumbprint-secured weapons rack. Next to the lockers, he spotted a bank of emergency gear pods--exo-suits, atmospheric rebreathers, survival and first aid kits. These, at least, appeared to be the standard that any civilian was trained to recognize and drilled to use properly.

But everything else about the ship was different. Even the floors didn't have the same deckplate pattern. He knew this because he'd counted the hexagonal depressions in the anti-slip texture about a hundred times before the Jump klaxon echoed through the ship. He was on his fourth section of deckplate when he spotted a tiny white ovoid caught in one of the depressions. Treska's medication.

Her earlier episode returned to trouble him. No wonder she was incorruptible. She'd been conditioned so severely that she couldn't afford to question her training or her objectives. And that, he realized, would be the largest flaw in the plan.

Her incorruptible self stalked into the hold. "We're Jumping again." She double-checked the cargo lockers, the emergency gear, and the galley cabinets. From the medical cabinet, she pulled another tube of those pills she always reached for.

"I thought drug use was one of those Vices the Prime Minister always lectures against in his morning pontifications to the faithful."

Treska frowned. "It is." She secured the tube to her utility belt.

"So the law is for thee, and not for me, is that it?" He tilted his head, as far as the neuro-collar would allow. "I can't enjoy a glass of Tenrayan wine, but you can--"

She tightened her lips. "These aren't recreational," she snapped.

He knew this, from their earlier encounter. She shouldn't act so defensive, but her temper was there, just under the surface, waiting to break through the New Morality's training. Her reaction confirmed that she considered the medications a weakness. He wondered if she'd always been a hothead, or if her anger was a function of her conditioning. "Dependence is weakness, and weakness is danger." He put just enough scorn in his voice to show what he thought of the Prime Minister and his cult.

She touched the place on her belt where the tube stayed secure. "They help me fight weakness."

He tilted his head again, this time to relieve some of the tension in his arms and neck. Showing her his vulnerability. "What are they for?"

She pulled a plastiform cup from another cabinet and opened the drawer that housed the water dispenser and basin. "I was on Capitol when the attack happened. I was found in one of the hardest hit areas, nearly dead. They did what they could, but even the Union's brightest can't fix everything."

"I'm sorry." He truly meant it. The morning of the attack, before the Marauders had come, he'd begun a quest to return to Ursis Amalia, compelled back to the monastery. In spite of disgrace--he shied away from the memory. No use in dredging up old pains.

She held the cup of water up towards him. "No tricks. No funny business."

He put his lips to the edge of the cup. "I promise, I won't mistake it for human kindness." He swallowed quickly, before the water could dribble down his chin and cause another mishap like the first cup. When she drew the cup away, he took a deep breath. "Where are we Jumping?" At her skeptic's glare, he responded. "I just want to know how long I can expect to experience Jump-dreams, and if I can cite any interorbital transit laws that grant prisoners the right to put their arms down for a rest in between Jumps."

She stepped back. The unexpected kindness of water seemed to be her limit with him and she regarded him with the usual suspicion. "We're Jumping to Fumaru so I can bypass Cetares. I'm not taking you anywhere Civilized."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska left the main hold with his smirk burned into her brain. She really didn't understand how the psypath mind could find humor in incarceration, or how he could affect her so profoundly that she'd told him as much as she did about her inhibs.

She assembled yet another amended flight plan and sent it to the station--at this rate, everybody in the whole star system would know who she was, what she'd captured, and the last time she'd sneezed.

Before she entered the piloting couch, she crunched down on an inhib. Thank the stars she'd left before promising him some relief for his arms. It had been on the tip of her tongue to promise. And the thoughts begging to know what harm would come to them in the middle of nowhere if she did relax his restraints. It wasn't like he could pilot the ship.

She glanced back towards the main hold, aware that those thoughts could not possibly be her own. The neuro-collar might be active, but somehow, some way, some small trickle of his power was getting through and teasing her mind into feeling compassion for him. She tipped the bottle back on another inhib and Wenn DiVrati's face came to mind. He'd claimed to only want to leave Union space forever. But he'd broken out of a secure facility, and the nightmares he threw at her mind were some terrible things, indeed, cementing her conviction that he was dangerous. Only a mind truly warped and broken could engage in such creative horror. Her minor uncertainty had burned away in the assurance that putting him down had been giving him peace.

As she slid into the molded cushions of the couch, the hide warmed to her body temperature almost instantly and her skin registered the smooth sensuality. Before the hood snapped closed, she popped a third.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Maneuvers & Machinations

The duty officer on Galladance station turned when the comm chimed. "Amended Jump plan from the _Needle's Eye_ , sir." She logged the plan and set it for upload. She was about to activate the transmission when a clawed hand descended over hers.

She gasped. Hot breath tickled her neck, the stink of freshly-killed animal meat burned her nostrils with a coppery stench. The urge to hunch, to flinch, to protect her soft, mammalian underbelly was too strong for even military training to overcome and she curled in on herself.

Only after several motionless seconds did she dare turn her head--slowly--to confirm the fear that watered her insides.

Sharpclaw peeled his lips back from his snout, exposing the daggerlike teeth used to tear creatures like the soft mammal in front of him into easily digestible chunks. Although the fear-stink was intoxicating, the descent of his clawed hand to her vulnerable torso only delivered a datapadd instead of a killing blow. "Transmit that information to this datapadd, then destroy it, tender morsel, and you may yet live to be hunted another day."

Her eyes flicked to her commanding officer. The man knelt, hands up on his head, flanked by a pair of Riktorians. "You'll never get away with this." His voice trembled, betraying the falsehood in his words. "The Union is powerful. The Union is as One." His eyes slid towards hers. "Don't make that transfer, Comm. Security will be here any moment."

One of his captors emitted a gravelly laugh and motioned to the viewport. "Right about that."

The duty officer turned her head again, until she caught sight of the viewport and the bloated, gray-suited bodies floating into view. She jerked her head back towards the commander. The horror on his face told her all she needed to know. She keyed in the 'Transmit' command before her training kicked in and made her refuse. Sometimes the right choice was the thing you did before thinking. "N-no need for f-further v-violence."

The Commander's jaw tightened and he sent her a glare. She avoided his gaze. It wasn't like the Riktorians would be unable to hit the "Transmit" command themselves if the rest of the station were dead. "Y-you g-gentlebeings can g-go about your business, now, right?"

"Comm, it is a direct violation--" He was cut off by a small chuff and a bright flash from the zapgun in his captor's clawed hand. He slumped forward, a new hole in his skull, as the stench of burning flesh overrode the stench of Riktorian.

Her insides quavered as the zapgun raised, barrel now pointed directly at her. For the life of her, all the New Morality training, all the assurances of unity and peace and harmony and oneness felt like meaningless noise. Yet her lips formed around the familiar words, the mottoes of the training and oaths she'd taken creeping in to command her attention in spite of the very real, very imminent threat facing her right now.

A commotion came from the open doorway and a curly-haired human stuck his head around the corner. The open grin on his face froze when he took in the Commander's slumped body. "Can't you idiots control yourselves even a little! It was bad enough spacing Security, and now you've gone and blown the Station Commander into the Void! Do you want the whole Union after us? 'Cause I signed on to make bank, not to make trouble." His words stopped sounding like meaningless bravado when he stepped fully into the doorway, a large laser rifle gripped in his hands.

His eyes lit on hers. He grinned. "Did our new friend here give us what we need?"

The Riktorian hovering over her snarled. "The Huntress's amended Jump plan." Air sacs beneath his jaw inflated and rumbled with his anger. "Perhaps this time, Ironskin will not be the lazy slug that waits for prey to fall into its maw." To emphasize, he snapped his jaws shut, the audible clicks of his teeth echoing in her ears along with her too-fast pulse.

The human took the padd, glanced at it, and looked back to her again. "Fumaru. That's no place for such a small and helpless craft to be all alone."

She looked away. She remembered the craft well. Everyone in the tower had had something to say about the unusual-looking craft, and something to speculate about its unknown capabilities.

"Then we're done here. Let's clean up."

The lizard-man breathing down her neck hissed. "I give the orders to this crew!"

The human pirate's charming voice was oddly comforting. "Do you want to make money, or fight about whose sperm-delivery system is more efficient?"

"Finish this." A bead of spittle landed on the lapel of her uniform, discoloring the fabric. Eventually, it would eat through the uniform, as well as her skin. She would have preferred a death by the human's rifle. Quicker, and less...digestive. She closed her eyes again, sure that this time would be the last time.

Not so. He prodded her with the barrel of the rifle. "Hey." He whispered.

She cracked one eye open. He still wore the smile, as if they were sharing a secret. He motioned with the rifle for her to get up out of the duty seat. "I--I can't." She licked dry lips, terror making her voice hoarse. "Th-the command station senses--if no one is in th-the chair, the Jumpgate will shut down."

He offered her a smile. "Good girl. You'll get out of this alive." To the Riktorians, he said, "See? You lot wouldn't make it out of this orbit without me. Back to the ship." To the two behind him, he growled. "Leave the body. Be civilized, for stars' sake." He smiled again. Turned back to her. "Thanks for the honesty, sweetheart. You're going to take a little nap now." He glanced around, eyes bright. "Sorry about the mess, but--you know. Cost of doing business."

Her terror sent her out long seconds before the stun bolt did.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

The Jump klaxon sounded its final warning and he closed his eyes. Everyone experienced Jumpspace differently, and psypaths even moreso. He usually enjoyed it. For him, Jumpspace connected him back to the universe and everything else in it. He lost his sense of self and became one with the cosmos. He could test the limits of his mental powers with other psypaths. The faint candles that were other psypaths became shining suns, and they were able to share thoughts and impressions and experiences.

This time, Jumpspace held that same expanding sensation, the connection to the Cosmos, but it was a cosmos of one. Instead of joy, he found a yawning loneliness, and the memories in which he traded were only his own.

"Your order is all but extinct. Why volunteer to take down the Huntress now?" Instead of a vision or a dream, he found himself inside a memory. The lord of House Samedi faced him in the back room of a waystation automat.

The room wasn't really made for more than one person to catch a short nap and a sonic shower--it rented by the hour and the access hatch for the cleaning bot was broken, so Micah would not have taken chances on the shower. "I don't want to take her down. I'm the best means you have to get into the government plaza." He regarded Bran with as much suspicion as the Noble gave him. "It's hard enough getting to the Capitol through all the security, the scanners, and the patrols that measure your molecules against a list of interdicted elements on the bloody Periodic Table. The only way someone gets into government plaza is if they want them in there. And they want me in there very, very badly."

"What's in it for you? Why risk yourself, the remnant of your order, your very life, to aid the Restoration's efforts? You don't even work for us. When you're not digging through old graveyards for thousand-year old legends, you work for the Hathori high priestess." Bran confronted him with the misinformation Micah had been careful to cultivate.

That they came from the same class worked both for and against Micah. The other man's assumption that he was controlled by the Hathori was supposed to be an insult...but Lord Bran did not understand the nature of his relationship with the Hathori, or the fact that, in spite of his birth, his class restrictions had precious little hold on his pride. But the assumption that he was a controlled element of the Hathori made him appear much less threatening than the wildcard of a psypath with no strong loyalties in play. Like it or not, he needed the Restoration as much as they needed him, whether they knew it yet, or not.

Micah lifted his head and regarded Bran with a frank stare. "Secrets. We all want secrets. You want to understand why the New Morality has such a stranglehold on the inner orbits." He folded his arms and circled around the other side of the surface of the dank room that could act as a table or a cot, if one wished to risk going prone or consuming food on it.

"And what is it that you want? What hides in that labyrinth that you're willing to risk your life by becoming their willing prisoner? What secrets do you seek?"

"Lost Hathori. There are records of the early days in the re-education camps."

Bran's face, behind the bio-mimetic mask, shifted into disbelief. "You'll throw your freedom and your life away for old data for that high priestess? I don't think so."

Micah's expression shuttered. "I have my own reasons."

"And they are?"

"Reasons that don't concern the Restoration." Micah met the other man's eyes. "Psypath reasons." He exerted just the slightest amount of pressure, forming the kata for Suggestion with his hand.

Bran buckled. Micah didn't bother to hide the kata and the other man's gaze, fixed on his hand, turned nervous. "Keep your reasons. But know this. If your capture puts the Restoration at risk, we revert to the original plan. Strikes against the Vice Hunters. Raids on the frontier orbit garrisons--"

"And a lot of dead Restorationists. I get it." Micah flipped the hood of his cloak up. "You know an infiltration is the best chance you've got. You know that if this were just politics, the Restoration movement would have built support years ago. You know the Hathori would not have voluntarily quarantined themselves." His chest heaved. "As I know the psypaths would have never offered ourselves up for slaughter."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Prime Minister Vakess sat in a plain chair in his windowless office and stared at the reports flashing across the surface of the unadorned desk. The simple lines and the bare functionality of the furniture soothed him when the information did not. The blank walls provided an unobtrusive backdrop to the flares and waves of data in his mind. With a swipe of his hand, he sent the information from the desk surface to the wall in front of him and rose.

The only adornments in the private office of the most powerful man in the Civilized Worlds were a large holographic portrait of himself that the security team insisted on placing behind his desk--as if people needed reminding about whose office they visited--and the holographic realtime map of the star system, with the Jewel burning in the center, and each of the orbits circumscribing it in shifting, vibrant colors. Icons for the inhabited worlds glowed softly. A brush of his finger would reveal more data about each planet--local season and time, Union forces garrisoned on the planet, a selection of the active nano-spy networks.

Icons for each orbit's Jumpgates glowed as well. There was a setting that would light up the Jumpgate every time a ship entered it, but Vakess turned it off when they made his headaches worse with their near-constant flickering. Corresponding maps existed in System Sec, Special Affairs, and the Department of Inter-Orbital Transportation. Entire teams were devoted to keeping track of the Jumpgate activities outside of the actual personnel manning the stations themselves. _We will not be taken by surprise again_.

Vakess had been a junior member of the old Star Empire's Parliament when the attacks had come. His life, overnight, had had its comfortable indolence burned away, leaving only harsh truth and darkness. He saw, with blinding clarity in the weeks that followed, that the loss of his eyesight opened him to a far greater vision.

As his burned eyes healed themselves, in darkness he had seen the pattern in the Marauders' attacks. The Hathori Temple. The Amalian Consulate. The Cabochons, the dome-topped arcologies that were home to the Noble families' main estates, including his own family home. He had seen the beacons coming from the most iconic symbols of his society's decadence, and the way the Marauders had zeroed in on them. _They came for us because we lured them_.

His eyesight had healed, thanks to cybernetic implants and many surgeries, but his ability to see the patterns--a minor gift he had attributed to an analytical mind, had remained enhanced. That ability led him to where he was today.

He rose from the desk and moved to the center of the room. The pattern he saw now told him there was a weakness. A divergence point in the pattern of order spreading out from the Capitol to the outer orbits of the star system. The data streaming past him on the wall--news, security briefings, reports from economic markets, his own pre-recorded Morning Address to the adherents of what they called the "New Morality" but what he simply referred to as common sense--nothing specific jumped out at him, but he would not dismiss the nagging feeling that the pattern was about to shift.

Administrative duties momentarily distracted him, as his android concierge chimed. "Prime Minister, the Parliamentary committee session has concluded. Inter-Orbital Transportation has voted two hundred forty-seven to thirty-two in favor of Jumpgate interdiction for the Amalian orbit, and has authorized funding for the evacuation of the lunar settlements that exist on the second moon of Ursis Amalia."

Vakess felt a tremor go through him. Ursis Amalia was the psypath "homeworld." Although its residents had come from all the Civilized Worlds at one time, the monastic order's ancestral home was on the lush and humid main continent banding the world's equatorial region. When the Marauders had come, they'd firebombed the Capitol. Their dreadnaughts had emerged like ghosts through the Jumpgates of a dozen different Civilized Worlds and attacked. But at Ursis Amalia, the Marauder dreadnaught did nothing. The behavior was puzzling and soon enough, suspicious. It wasn't too great a leap to believe that the psypaths were somehow communicating with the Marauders, and from there, the rumors grew more persistent.

"Excellent. Have we heard word back from Riktor regarding our efforts to get them to police their own damn criminal element?"

"No, Prime Minister. The Riktorian ambassador has repeated her assurances that steps are being taken."

"Right." Steps were being taken in a dance that circled them around each other. The Riktor orbit possessed a hub Jumpgate, capable of reaching many points in the solar system, and stubbornly refused additional security measures for transits to Union space. "Cut back exports of Guerran power crystals to Riktor. Replace them with chemical engines. If our talks stall, let their starships stall as well."

"Yes, sir."

Even blinded, Vakess wielded influence from the early days of rebuilding. As one of the surviving members of Parliament, he'd been sought out for procedural purposes, but it was his ability to make those critical decisions quickly that enabled people to begin rebuilding.

In those chaotic days after the attack, when reports of attacks on orbits further out had begun trickling in, the people clamored for someone to be in charge. Vakess didn't need to see to make decisions, and in the midst of shell-shock and bewildered grief, his voice had emerged, clear and strong. He knew there was a connection between Marauders and psypaths, and the targets of the Marauders hadn't been random. He also knew that the Civilized Worlds did not have the might or the technology to strike back at the Marauders, so he set out to make his system safe from them.

Sometimes, he doubted his own direction. Late at night, in the quiet of his own mind, the words of his mother before he banished her haunted him. _This security you seek is unattainable, my son. It asks too much_.

In his waking hours, he dismissed the doubts. The clear focus of the unordered mind, untainted by corruptive influences of vice and selfish pursuit, was a surprisingly popular philosophy before the smoke cleared, and with the help of new organizations like Special Affairs, and the New Morality, gained a foothold after the smoke had cleared, too.

The concierge chimed again. "Sir, Vox Unificus is here to see you."

Vakess rose. "Send him in."

A seam in the wall opened into a doorway, through which Vox Unificus, also known as the Director of Special Affairs, entered. "Good morning, Prime Minister. Today's address inspired many."

Vakess inhaled deeply. It was always something of a shock to see the Director at first. Vakess had met him in the hospitals right after the attack. His ID said he'd been a bio-engineer visiting from one of the frontier orbits in a minor political capacity. But like so many wounded in the attacks, his injuries had been extensive. So extensive that he was almost three-quarters cyborg. Half his skull had needed replacing, along with part of his spine and two limbs. But the man refused to have synthaskin grafted over the cybernetics, and the result sometimes terrified people not expecting it. Vakess expected it, but it still gave him the occasional shock.

And the electronic reverberation in Vox's voice made his back teeth itch, though he would never admit it. "Good morning, Director. I trust your department's forces are performing at peak efficiency?"

The Director nodded. "Just so. I have welcome news. You have seen the morning intelligence briefings?"

"Yes, they were in the porridge." The Director's single biological eye met his with more blankness than the cybernetic one. "Nevermind." Vakess' occasional attempts at levity were something he needed to work on, he knew. Obstacles to true enlightenment the same way the flashes of anger, desire, or sadness were.

"I've recalled the remaining Vice Hunters. All four should be in the Capitol in three system standard days."

He knew it was a mistake to ask, but did so anyway. "Treska?"

This time, even the Director's 'borg eye was expressive. "The Huntress is en route with her quarry secured. The _Needle's Eye_ transmitted paperwork a few hours ago."

"Where did she finally run him down?"

"Tenraye, Prime Minister. It will take her a few Jumps to get back."

Something ticked at the back of his mind. "Tenraye? Isn't that--"

"An insignificant agricultural world in the mid orbits, not far from the frontier, with a declining population and a dying economy, thanks to their refusal to alter their export goods to suit the New Union's needs. The orbit is a security risk. You authorized a garrison there several standard months back."

Vakess frowned. "Tenraye grew grapes. For wine." He shook his head. "No wonder. Their entire economy is based around a vice that weakens people's minds."

The Director nodded. "Making them susceptible to abuse from psypaths."

"Then it's a good thing we've detained the last one. Maybe the Tenrayans can start up their wine production again with the threat gone."

Tiny hydraulic servos whirred as the Director turned his head sharply to catch Vakess in his laser-eyed gaze. "I do not think that would be wise, Prime Minister. Mind-altering substances interfere with the unified sense of purpose the people need to defend ourselves against another Marauder attack."

The empathy for the people on the struggling world subsided. "Of course," he said. "Sacrifices must be made. We must adapt to our new environments, or risk annihilation once more." A twinge twisted his gut in anticipation--or trepidation. "Is she protected? Is Treska safe from her prisoner?" The sense of shift in patterns refused to be quelled, even with the assurance that the plan to neutralize the psypaths was coming to fruition. After all, there were a lot of Jumps between Tenraye and the Capitol.

"The Huntress is well-trained. Her devotion is unquestionable." The Director's voice, in spite of the electronic burr, turned soothing. "Remember. She is our greatest triumph."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Subconscious Entanglements

Treska didn't remember leaving the piloting couch, but she stood in the main hold. The lights were dimmed for Jumpspace, yet she could see Micah perfectly. He hung motionless in his repulsor cuffs, looking innocent and as oblivious as any other bit of cargo in the hold. Yet she knew he was anything but. Her eyes wanted to slide to his pants, to see if--she jerked her gaze away and looked at his hands instead. The repulsor cuffs held them suspended above his head in a most uncomfortable position for a reason.

The sleeves of his tunic had fallen back, exposing his bare arms. His forearms were dusted with golden-brown hair, and the muscles on his upper arms stood out in contrast thanks to the awkward position.

There's a certain beauty in a man's body, she thought. His clothes were loose--native pants and a wide-sleeved tunic cut for movement rather than form-fitting. She'd taken his weatherall cloak off when she first hauled him aboard. Altogether, his clothing had hidden his form well--when tracking him, she would have had little idea as to how built he was underneath all those layers. She could easily have underestimated him or passed over him entirely if her hunting senses hadn't gone off.

He wasn't bulky. Not thick, like high-gravity Treemians naturally were, or built through bio-enhancements and training. He was more like the Mauw, the felinoids who called faraway Xanadu their home. It wasn't, really, any more than Treemia was the home of the Treemians, or any of the inner orbits were home to the humans or the human-variant races like the Hathori. Everyone's legends held similar threads--they'd all come to the orbits of the Jewel from faraway worlds whose names no one could remember. Primitive legends like the Vultrons' ancestors in the skies and the Hathori goddess, who exiled herself with her people, threaded the lore of the worlds in the star system. Along with more logical ones, like the Union's accepted origin of humans--their ancestors came from the skies as well, and must have been primitive versions of the modern colonists spreading out into the frontier orbits. Like the Mauw, whose stories spoke of a bright star that swallowed the world, but spat out the Mauw for being indigestible. Much like the Mauw coughed up the indigestibles in their native diet.

Mauw didn't favor the inner orbits, though. She'd only ever encountered half a dozen in her journeys, but they were all tall and sinewy and sleek, and their fur looked so very touchable that she risked a visit from the Voice every time she'd been in the presence of one. Now she risked another visit from the Voice, looking at Micah's body.

He ought not to have a tunic on at all, she thought. There should be nothing to hide the way those muscles would stretch taut under the stress of the cuffs. If she closed her eyes, she could see so clearly--right down to the shadows between his shoulder blades.

_When the body is under exertion, even the lightest touches are experienced with great sensitivity_. A tenet from her interrogation training. _But...I don't remember a female instructor for that..._

She opened her eyes in surprise at the familiar weight of a laserblade in her hand. The small utility tool hummed quietly and she stared down in astonishment.

"Mindsnake!" she hissed aloud, and powered down the tool, clipping it back on her belt where it belonged. But the steady green of the LED on the neuro-collar belied her accusation. She had no memory of taking the laserblade, or of even coming into the main hold. _That's it. I'm having a vision_.

She thought she'd return to the place with the pretty fabrics and the plush pillows and the breeze that tickled her skin. She glanced down to find herself dressed in her usual uniform of comfortably form-fitting reinforced trousers, therma-skin shirt, and her hide jacket that was as much of an indulgence as she allowed herself, besides her boots, which were the most valuable equipment she owned--since technically, the _Needle's Eye_ belonged to Special Affairs. Good boots didn't come through every Jumpgate.

At least in this hallucination, she still had her clothes.

His shoulders tightened with a deep breath and she tensed, thinking he'd woken up. And caught her looking. But his head simply lolled to one side and his eyes stayed closed, fluttering behind his eyelids.

Tentatively, she reached up and brushed her fingertip against the hollow where his bicep flexed. Warm, and hard, yet flexible. Alive. _He jumped in my hand when I touched him_. She shook her head. Fevered imaginings. Space-sickness. Inhib-resistance. All viable explanations for her crazy behavior. The sooner she cashed in his bounty at the Capitol, the better.

He drew in another unconscious breath when her finger stroked the line of his muscle. Fascinating, the response.

The laserblade was in her hand again before she knew it. _Don't think_. Thinking would bring the Voice. She touched the blade to the fabric of his tunic. One long swipe from his throat and down. The laser split his tunic with a quiet hiss.

Under the arms next. The cutter's light beam sizzled through the folds of fabric with a bit more difficulty on the first arm. It was on his right arm where she made her mistake. The tunic slid, having lost purchase by virtue of its seams, and at the last inch or so of his sleeve, the blade grazed his flesh, just underneath his armpit.

His body went as taut as a spacedock tether. A low cry escaped his lips and his head went from resting on his shoulder to flung straight back. Shock and horror at her misstep warred with odd, detached fascination for the line of his body under duress.

His eyes opened and a pale blue glow sparked in them-- _psypath!_ --before his body jerked again, this time from the high-pitched whine of the neuro-collar.

The cutter dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers as he groaned in pain. "I'm sorry," she whispered, pressing her fingers to her lips as if she could suck back the careless slip.

"I'd heard--" he gasped between heavy breaths, "--that Vice Hunters did not-- _ahh!_ " He sucked in a hard breath through his teeth. "--torture--their bounties."

What had she done? This was a dream, wasn't it? A Jumpspace hallucination, and she was safely in the piloting couch. "No! I wasn't torturing you, I swear it!" Not even a mindsnake would deserve that kind of brutality. She made herself look at the way his body shook with fine tremors. "It was an accident. I--" But sympathy for the prey was a weakness. A lesson she'd learned well and thoroughly. "You tried to use your mindsnake powers on me! You would have attacked me with your mind!" The refuge she found in anger felt a bit too thin.

"I would have defended myself against someone I believed was attempting to eviscerate me." He drew himself up as best as he could within the confines of the manacles. "There's a slight but significant difference of perspective, wouldn't you say?"

"I was just--" _Cutting your clothes off to see what you look like underneath them_. "I thought this was a Jump-dream." She was interrupted from further conversation--argument--by a loud growl coming from his midsection.

A slight flush stained his cheeks. He raised an eyebrow at her scrutiny. "Even a mindsnake has to eat," he said, with as much of a shrug as the cuffs would allow. "You insist you don't torture. Do you starve?"

"No," she said curtly, crossing to the galley cabinets. As a multi-purpose area, the cargo hold also functioned as a galley, complete with a small cryo-unit, reconstitutor, and heating unit, all hidden within access panels along the short wall which folded out to create a worktable. "At least, not technically."

She pulled nutrient cubes from the cryo and popped them into the reconstitutor. For all the good that did. They emerged looking much as they did before, only slightly larger. Heating didn't help, either. Now they simply sat in the heater slot, steaming slightly. "It's food."

"The very fact that you have to identify it as such doesn't bespeak much to its value." His tone was as flat as the cubes were sure to taste, even reconstituted and hot.

"They have all the nutrients required for a human or near-human body to survive a full diurnal cycle."

"So does the swamp sludge on Ligelis Six, but they're not exporting it on purpose."

It was a little unsettling to think of him as having a sense of humor. It made it a lot more difficult to reconcile the cuffed man before her--whose slender build, she realized, likely came just as much from malnourishment as it did genetics--with the nightmare bogeymen his kind were known to be.

Psypaths made slaves of ordinary folk. Their telepathic traits allowed them unfettered access to your mind. They could steal your innermost thoughts, your will, and even the control over your body if they so desired. Unless you had a neuro-collar and heavy-duty tranks.

"These won't gum up your ship's hydraulics." She peered down at the quivering cubes. "At least, I don't think so. And they smell better than Ligellian swamp sludge." She looked up, reminding herself that he _was_ her prisoner, but she didn't _have_ to feed him. All she _had_ to do was deliver him, alive, to the government center on Capitol. They never specified what condition he had to be in. "They have all that's required to keep you alive," she said. "Which is all I care about."

"They may have all that's required...unless one requires taste and texture," he said. "Did you know that the planet we just left used to be known for its dining?"

She hadn't, and she didn't care. "A planet of chefs. Big whoop."

"Vintners, actually. Tenrayan wines were known throughout the galaxy as the finest and most flavorful. There are thousand year-old grapevines on some of the older estates."

"Liquor's illegal," she said automatically. "It's in the list of prohibited vices. Vices compromise the safety of the Union." She stopped herself before she listed the New Morality's whole litany. Sometimes that was hard to do. When the Voice took over, uttering the lessons she'd learned in the past decade, she wanted to let the words wash over her and wash away all her doubts. But it made for lousy conversation, and sometimes people looked at her funny.

"Yes," he said. "I know. That's why Tenraye is a ghost planet. The wine production stopped, leaving the estates unable to support themselves. Most are abandoned now, and the workers have become vagrants or junk dealers."

"The Union offers re-education to anyone displaced by moral reforms."

"Is that what they're calling it? Re-education?" His lips twisted in grim parody of a smile. "Is that what they told you? You were being 're-educated'?"

She blinked, and shook her head. "I--was only there because I was wounded. I was found." Her voice went a little shaky at the memory.

"Found?" he asked quietly. Not unsympathetically. "On the Capitol after the attack?"

"Under a pile of rubble somewhere in the midlevels near the equatorial zones." Her words became clipped. "When our excesses provoked the Marauders to attack."

"So instead of searching for your family or loved ones, the Union simply shipped you off to a camp?"

"I took a long time to heal." She dropped an unconscious hand to the tube on her belt that held her inhibs. "All of the Capitol was in chaos." It was for her own protection, they told her. Due to her--condition. Besides, she didn't remember any family, and no one had come looking. _The Union's given me a good life. I do my job, collect my pay, and live safe_. "Anyway, it's an opportunity those people on Tenraye could have, too. Everybody could have it."

"Everybody except psypaths."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

"I won't feel pity for you," she snapped. "It's you people who brought the Marauders so far into Union space."

"Why do people continue to believe that stupid rumor that psypaths are in league with the Marauders?" Micah jerked on the repulsor-cuffs, his own frustration nearly getting the better of him. The field keeping his arms and legs immobilized emitted a low whine at being strained. "Don't you think if that were the case, we'd all be living as kings among them? We don't even know who or what they are--not any more than anyone else in the Union." _Listen to me_ , he thought, _speaking as if psypaths were ever a community_ --a people united in any way, shape, or form.

_We used to be. We had laws, and watchfolk to uphold those laws. We had monasteries where young with our gifts could be trained properly, instead of left to deal with their talents unsupervised or used by whomever could control them_. He shoved the old resentments back down where they couldn't tease forth the anger that made him want to lash out with his mind.

Because that hurt. When he first awoke to the collar, he immediately attempted to free himself and was rewarded with a feedback loop of enough intense mental energy that he might as well have been physically hit with a brick right between the eyes. He hadn't tried that again. Even the smaller, more passive uses of his talents had netted him nausea and a blinding, constant headache. That was when he turned to counting the dimples in the deckplates.

She was shaking her head. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. You must think we're little more than herd animals."

Feedback loop notwithstanding, his scowl deepened to the point of making his face ache. "Herd animals? Treska, I'm sorry, but what in the nine hells of dark space are you talking about? Not even the propaganda stories paint psypaths in light that bad!"

She didn't meet his eyes, instead focusing on the protein cubes in the little cup. "You can invade another's mind with no more effort than a blink of your eyelids." She closed her own eyes as if to emulate. "You can pull a person's deepest secrets out of them, and they can't do a damn thing to stop you." Her eyes flashed as she opened her lids again. "You can crawl into their heads and make them do things against their will. We're not even herd animals to you, are we? We're puppets. With strings you can pull for your own amusement."

He struggled for words. No one--except maybe the Prime Minister--had half as much loathing for psypaths. "Treska, I can assure you that psypaths are far from--"

"Shut up, mindsnake," she said. "I've already talked too much. Here." She shoved the cup of protein cubes at his chest. "Eat it so you don't die before I get you to Prime. I can't afford another dead mindsnake on my hands."

"I suppose I should be grateful that in this case your greed encourages compassion."

He abandoned the futile search behind her eyes and stared down at the cup of food product in her hand, then glanced back up, one eyebrow lifted. "My apologies. I'd take them from you, but I haven't got a free hand."

She scowled.

"You could, of course, free my hands."

"Fat chance, mindsnake." She sniffed.

"Then your only other option is to feed me yourself."

She looked down at the cup, up to his face, and down at the cup again. "Feed you?"

He grinned, a flash of teeth that held no mirth. "I have no means to feed myself. Are you going to starve me?"

"I should," she hissed, using two fingers to pull a jiggling cube from the cup. "But I get a higher bounty for a live one, so here."

She shoved the cube past his lips and forced him to swallow or choke. The tasteless blob of protein slid down his throat with little physical resistance, but his imagination made up for it, and he wished he hadn't compared the rations to Ligellian swamp sludge. He swallowed again, this time to keep the wretched thing down.

She noticed his reaction and a glint entered her eyes. "Here." Her voice sweetened to simpering insincerity. "Have another."

The protein cubes, too viscous to be resisted with pressed lips, filled his mouth and slid down his throat in rapid succession. "Aaugh!" he mumbled, turning his head from her questing, protein-filled fingers. "Stop! Enough!"

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. "I wouldn't want to be accused of starving my prisoner."

It was hard to swallow past the lump of protein-residue in his throat, and he badly wished for a dental sonic-wand. "One or two of those is enough to feed a person for an entire day. You've just given me five!"

"Six," she said, shoving the last cube into his mouth. "To be sure."

Micah discovered something enlightening in that moment--the monks at the monastery often preached that information came from both within and without, and at the most unusual of circumstances. She wasn't what he thought she'd be, and he didn't have to play by the rules he'd set for himself.

He bit her fingers.

Not hard, but just enough pressure with his teeth to make it uncomfortable for her, should she decide to pull them free.

She didn't, and he pressed his advantage. Closing his lips around her digits, he sucked lightly, tasting the salt from her fingertips, all the while keeping an eye on her startled expression.

Something flickered in her eyes before she jerked her finger out of his mouth. "What do you think you're doing?"

Excellent question.

His eyes were flat when he replied. "An old Tenrayan custom. Kissing one's fingers is a compliment to the chef. And as my own fingers were out of reach..." He silently dared her to challenge the half-truth.

She accepted that challenge. "Those were ration cubes," she said. "You'd have to be insane to--" A chime sounded from the ship's comm system. She sighed and blew her hair out of her eyes. "You're lucky this is Fumaru and I have to pilot the ship."

She turned on her boot heel and stomped out of the cargo hold. Pausing, she folded her arms and half-turned. "By the way," she said, "On Agata, kissing your fingers is a polite way to tell a chef to fuck off."

"Then you'll have to decide whether or not I'm engaging in Tenrayan or Agatan custom."

She threw the cup at him.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

T _he sooner I get to Capitol, the happier I'll be_. She shook her hand lightly, trying to shake off the sensory memory of his teeth scraping against her fingers.

In spite of her intent to annoy, there was something so intimate about having your fingers in another person's mouth, a fact driven home as soon as his lips closed her fingers between them. Suddenly the pads of her fingers were caught in dark moistness, with the supple muscle of his tongue curling around them. The shock of pure sensual delight flashed through her so fast, the Voice didn't even have time to chastise.

In the quiet of the cockpit, she checked the ship's position. Fumaru was a backwater. The unassuming mudball magnified on her viewscreen showed little in the way of features on the dwarf planet's surface. Only patches of brown, broken up by patches of browner brown. The readout said it had water and a breathable atmosphere that was a little thin, but that was about it. The planetoid didn't have much. She wondered why there was a Jumpgate even in the orbit at all. But the Jumpgates were millions of standard years old, and the architects who'd built them were long erased from anywhere in the system.

What Fumaru _did_ have, was moonlets. She dodged them now. Little asteroids that orbited the tiny planetoid in crazy ellipses that sometimes carried them in the path of the starships waiting for the Jumpgate. She wondered if one of the asteroids had ever fallen into a Jumpgate. _Naah_. Someone would have heard about it if an asteroid suddenly appeared in one of the Jumpgate queues. She giggled, reminded of the reaction of the Galladance station when she showed up, threatening to detain her for paperwork.

The automated station simply sent out a ping every few standard minutes. Any ships requesting Jump simply had to send a ping with a request, and the computer would log it and open the Jumpgate. Just to ensure no surprises, she logged her own request. The packet bounced back immediately and registered as waiting for confirmation. She left it there and avoided the piloting couch. The chair wasn't as comfortable or as sensual. The chair didn't force her to remember ghostly hands on her body in places she wouldn't allow them to touch.

But the chair didn't stop her from replaying Micah's lips closing over her fingers. She would never look at a protein cube the same way again. She dozed off in the chair, as uncomfortable as it was, and dreamed.

The place of silks and perfumed breezes usually came to her in visions, but this time something heavy rode the air, an impending storm charged the atmosphere. Wherever she was, silks billowed above her and the air was heavy and hothouse-humid on her skin.

_He licked her fingertips, cleaning them of corona-rose nectar one by one, and raising her pulse to a fever-pitch with every subsequent movement of his tongue. "What shall we try next?"_

_Even breathing felt languid, liquid. "I had no idea we could find such pleasures with simple sugars and plant proteins!" Her own voice sounded high and breathless._

_"Everything is pleasure when tasted on your skin." The warmth of his cheek pressing against hers should have been uncomfortably hot, but the closer she was to him, the more delight she felt, heat be damned._

_A sudden jolt of fear pierced the haze like the lightning that flickered outside. "I don't want to do this anymore."_

_He lifted his head and she read confusion in his eyes. "Shall I stop?"_

_"No. Yes. No. Only you." She hugged her knees to her chest as the storm grew louder, and someone began calling her name. "I don't want to do this for anyone else." She lifted her eyes to his. "Don't force me."_

_"I would never --" She heard her name again and the voice turned into a thing to pursue, because the woman called her name, first with a question, then with a reprimand, and finally in rage, shrieking her name over and over in the rainy wind that whipped through the halls._

_But Treska couldn't understand her. She knew the woman called her name, but when she tried to hear the syllables, the intonations, the sounds that made up her name, all she heard was rain_.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Necessary Agility

She was called Huntress. Feared throughout the inner orbits, all the way to the frontier. Doors opened when she flashed her wrist tattoo, and any that stayed shut against the tattoo, opened with a little prodding from the other wrist, with the tiny rocket launcher attached to it. She was respected. She was feared. She was a Vice Hunter. She carried the full power of the Union's authority and might, directly from the Prime Minister himself, and could walk, unmolested, through the halls of power on a dozen different worlds.

But she couldn't seem to walk through the cockpit door on her own ship.

She'd faced planetary governors with scores of sycophants, personal armies, and corruption blocking her every step of the way, and blasted through them as if they were glittersilk. But she couldn't confront one lone prisoner, helpless in cuffs and rendered unconscious, because every time she did, he shook every belief she had right to her core.

Yet confront him, she must, because he was the only thing that stood between her and the ship's tiny refresher cubicle, and she really needed to _go_.

Urgency of the most basic kind prompted her to open the panel between the cockpit and the main cabin.

His head hung low on his chest, his breathing, even. She darted from the door to the other end of the cabin. Her fingers were on the latch to the necessary when his voice smoothed over her skin like a fine coating of body oil. "I wondered when you'd emerge from your shell again."

She covered her jump with a turn. "I wouldn't be so eager to see me if I were you."

"I've counted the dimples on the floor tiles eighty-four times. I'd much rather count your dimples. You've got two, you know. But they only come out when you smile, so I don't imagine very many beings in the system have seen them."

She pressed her lips together. "I could make some marks on you, if you're looking for things to count."

His eyes glimmered. She couldn't decide whether they were blue or gray or even green. They seemed to shift with his mood. Like sneak-lizards, blending in with their environment. "Could I count them before I passed out from blood loss?"

"Probably not. Anyway, I promised to deliver you unmarked. I think the Director wants to use you as a rug in his study."

"Is that what this Director does with psypaths? Uses us as upholstery?"

"Of course not," she snapped. "You'll be humanely treated until--"

"Until what?"

"Until you can be neutralized," she finished.

"And how does your precious Union 'neutralize' a psypath?" His tone was even and light, but she heard an edge to it. The first time she'd heard anything but amusement or flirtation from him. _I can use that. I must use that. I need to keep the upper hand_.

"You'll be remanded to a secure facility for further processing."

"Into protein cubes? Because if that's the case, then my last request is for you to eat me."

She gaped. "Did you just--"

He blinked, his face the very picture of innocence. "I only want the chance for my flesh to touch your lips, and if I have to do it as a protein cube--"

"Ugh! Just stop!" She swallowed past the sudden curdling in her stomach. "Protein cubes are not people! I don't care what the rumors all say."

"Neither are psypaths, according to your Union."

"Well, they wouldn't make you into a protein cube, anyway." She forced herself to breathe past the nauseating idea of eating something that used to be a someone. "You're far too stringy-looking to be good eating."

His tawny eyebrows went up. "You could let me down. Give me some real food. You know, for fattening-up purposes."

"That's disgusting. You're disgusting." She slid back the panel to the necessary. "I'm going in here, now. Goodbye."

Several minutes later, still in the necessary, she heard him shift. "Treska? The Union isn't so cruel that you'd forbid me to go in there next, is it?"

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

It was damn difficult to maneuver in the tiny cubicle at the best of times, but with bulky magnetic restraints, it was even harder. It didn't help that she stood behind him, one foot keeping the door from sliding shut and affording him privacy of any kind. "Get a move on," she snapped.

His shoulder blades itched. "This isn't something I usually do on command, or in front of an audience." He sent a glance over his shoulder. "Are you critiquing my technique?"

She rolled her eyes. "Just hurry up. We're already in queue for the Jumpgate. I won't lose our spot because you can't--can't--" she faltered, then continued at a louder volume over the sudden...background noise. "Double suns, man, how much have you got saved up?"

"That isn't me." Micah shook, and the whole ship shook with him. _Wow. Either I'm more impressive than Xenna lets me believe, or --_

The ship rocked again, this time righting itself with a loud prox-alarm. He turned, tucking by reflex as he met her eyes, his own realization reflected in her gaze.

"By the Jewel--we're under attack!" She backed away as he came out of the cubicle. She held her arm up and aimed her wrist darts at him. "If you try anything, we're both spaced. Back to the wall."

He dragged his feet because the magna cuffs were heavy, because he didn't want to go back to the wall, and because the floor suddenly turned into an upward ramp. "You said yourself--we're both spaced. I think I'm the lesser of two threats right now, don't you?"

"Tell that to all the people who died in the Marauder attacks."

His teeth ground together. He was saved from a tired argument by the emergency comm channel echoing through the ship. "Special Affairs vessel, surrender and prepare to be boarded."

"On whose authority?" Treska's chin went up and she sent a glare to the disembodied voice. He had to admire her pluck.

Emergency comm transmitted without manual prompting when opened, so when Micah spoke, he did so in a whisper. "Treska, that's a Riktorian voice. Can't you hear the secondary vocal intonations?"

Sure enough, the reply that came back was definitely non-standard. "On the authority of the twelve laser cannons ready to rip your hull in half!"

Her eyes met his. "You said yourself, if I try anything, we're both spaced. I'd rather take my chances at being turned into a protein cube than be certain of becoming a Riktorian's next meal."

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

Treska figured that as much of a threat as Micah may be, the Riktorians were, at least for the time being, much more of an imminent threat. That didn't stop her from activating the restraint magnets again. The look of pained betrayal on his face sent an unexpected slice of guilt through her. "It's for your own good. I can't have you bouncing around in here like space-junk."

"Wouldn't want to damage the goods."

"At least your hands aren't over your head this time." She sent him one last glare, then bolted into the cockpit and threw herself into the piloting couch. The HUD flickered to life, and her body connected to the ship's systems. She felt the laser blasts as insect bites along her flank and knew they hadn't yet penetrated her shielding. But that wouldn't last.

She re-routed power with a flick of her eyes. A twitch of her legs sent power to the main ion engines and she shot forward. She could "see" the other vessel now--an ugly, inelegant thing compared to the _Needle's Eye_. She skated away from it on light limbs. It pursued her with lumbering inevitability, but she kicked a leg up and became a bird, spinning up along a different plane while her pursuer scrambled to adjust.

The piloting couch grew warm and she caught a hint of acrid sweat. The HUD warned her of rising engine temps and she placed an open palm over her stomach, her motion sending a burst of reserve coolant into the engine cores.

A gossamer net expanded in her field of view, filling it with golden light. She plunged forward, and it molded and tightened around her. She felt the energy net as a tight band around her breasts, keeping her from breathing deeply. She crossed her arms and shook it off with a directed electro-pulse, but the maneuver cost her juice to the defensive lasers.

And it cost her awareness. The net had done its real work by temporarily blinding her to the sudden broadside of a plasma torpedo. The shields dispersed the force through the right side of the ship, but that only meant she felt a dozen smaller hammers pounding into her right side, instead of one big one. The ship lurched sideways and she heard Micah's voice calling out.

"Treska! You have to run! You can't fight this!" His words were interrupted by a fit of coughing and she saw that a small fire had broken out in the main hold where a panel blew its circuits. She sent fire suppression to it with a flick of her finger. At the last second, she sensed another blow incoming and turned just in time for the torpedo to glance off the bottom edge of her ship.

"Treska, you _have_ to _run!_ You've got fires breaking out back here again!"

"What do you suggest I do?" Her dance became a stumble, and only the clumsiness of her movements kept the volley of laser bursts from stitching a deadly line across her bow. "I won't surrender to Riktorian pirate scum!"

"Then go through the Jumpgate!"

Was he insane? "I can't do that! I don't even know where it's going! We could end up in the outer orbits!"

"We're going to end up space-dust if we don't!"

Making an unscheduled Jump was out of the question! _Who_ does _that?_ Without the queue, without knowing the gate's destination schedule, you could end up in a Jump too long for your craft to handle and fly apart. Or you could emerge on top of someone else who was in the queue. Or end up stars knew where, emerging from an unmanned Jumpgate into a strange orbit and no clue where the Jumpgate would take you next-- Another line of laser bursts splashed off her shields, becoming less like insect stings and more like needles being jammed into her flesh.

The Jumpgate hung, black and massive in space, the huge floodlights providing her with a reference as she moved in a dizzying spin to avoid the pirate vessel. Alarms blared in time with the Jumpgate lights, warning her that the shields wouldn't last another hit, that fire suppression was about to overload, and that the engines were running hot and out of coolant range.

"Treska! I don't want to die back here!"

Terror of the unknown warred with inevitability. The Riktorian demand for surrender echoed through the cockpit again. _Am I the Huntress, or am I some Riktorian's rat-prey?_

She gunned the engines and shot forward into the Jumpgate's maw.

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

On the run from Riktorian pirates, Treska seeks shelter on a hostile planet and she'll be damned if she'll let them take what's hers. But the Union's iron grip has little influence out in the frontier orbits and she's forced to rely on Micah's knowledge to keep them both from becoming lizard food.

The unexpected detour reveals some of the Huntress's mysteries, and a handful of Micah's underworld allies with plans of their own. But the planet's very terrain is affecting Micah's mind. If he's not careful, he'll not only lose his grip on reality, but the fragile truce he's built with the Huntress. The adventure continues with The Snare right now!

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Preview of Part Two: The Snare

**Episode 4: Hard Landing**

**Dead Memory**

In the midst of a black pit, a pinpoint of light appeared, focusing into a glowing oil candle. As he drifted closer to it, the circle of light widened to reveal a shadowy bower. Silken pillows in dark, rich hues tumbled in piles up to the elaborately carved head and foot boards of a huge four-poster bed. He recognized the bed as one in his family's old estate that he'd liked to jump on as a child. The repulsors beneath the frame had a peculiar instability that caused the bed--and the jumper on top of it--to bounce high enough to brush the barrel-vaulted ceilings.

This time, though, he wasn't thinking of jumping on it. She waited for him, her lithe blue-skinned form enrobed in starsilk so translucent, it may as well have been vapor. Indigo nipples peeked enticingly between the whispering folds of fabric as he joined her on the bed. "Zara."

Her eyes fluttered open, aqua jewels gleaming out from sapphire-shaded lashes. "I'm going in blind," she said. Her fingers trailed down his cheek, her touch liquid-cool. Her other hand pushed him down to the bed with more force than her slender frame appeared to have.

He was content to submit to her direction, but turned his head to catch her fingers lightly with his teeth. "I keep thinking about you. I know Hathori don't fall in love."

"It defies every rule, I know!"

He rained light kisses across her fingertips against her protest. "I know that, too! The Order forbade us affairs with non-psypaths." Her gaze saddened. He wanted to smooth the distress from her features, but found his hands oddly heavy against the bed. "My House placed me up for auction in an alliance match."

"We're locked into our fate." She leaned down and pressed her lips against his. The taste of her arrowed a path straight to his groin, and he wanted to surge up, to deepen the kiss and feel her body against his.

She held him down and read his mind without psypath gifts, covering him with her warm weight. The scent of her pheromones surrounded him, driving out concerns about the future, of the dissolution of the Order and his own unfinished education, or the expectations of his House which saw not a lost son returned, but a new tool acquired in the pursuit of power. Her hands bunched in his robes, shoving them aside as she trailed wet, burning kisses down the side of his face to his neck where she bit playfully, and maybe a bit too hard. His body strained upward. Her enticing presence left him breathless. "I don't know how--don't know what--to do next."

She rose off him, her movement stupefyingly fast as he suddenly found it unusually hard to breathe. Her pheromones were searing his throat, but he couldn't help sucking in deep lungfuls of her. "We have to jump now!"

"Jump now?" Her diaphanous robe billowed around him like smoke as she leapt upward and came down, her bare azure feet landing on either side of his body. The bed shook--that broken repulsor.

She did it again and this time her landing crashed the furniture to the ground with a great boom. "Jump now!" She jumped up and down, each landing making the whole room shake. Perhaps the whole building. The world. Her laugh became a scream and his breath suddenly turned to fire in his lungs.

_"Juuuummmmppp nnnnnooooowww!"_

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Special Preview of Scandal: Scions of the Star Empire #1

When a princess who's no stranger to scandal runs afoul of the secrets of the most powerful cabal on Landfall, even her crown can't protect her from the consequences.

They can have anything they want...except a future.

Nothing infuriates Princess Ione Ra more than having someone else take control of her reputation from her, and her old nemesis--gossip journalist Jaris Pulne--is poised to do just that with pilfered pics of her caught in a compromising position with her power-couple partner. As someone who's no stranger to manipulating the markets on her own social life, Ione knows the wrong scandal means social suicide.

Privilege is a prison...

For the other half of the power couple, Den Hades, his survival has depended on staying in his powerful father's shadow in order to protect his secrets. But on the very night of his one chance to earn a shot at becoming a Scion--and freedom from his father's ambitions, scandal threatens to tear him from Ione, or worse--force them together before their time.

**Episode 1 - Celebrity**

**Gilded Cage**

Ione Ra stared out the immense, domed window at the night city before her. The glow from the crowded strato-scrapers surrounding her provided a steady background illumination against the congested atmosphere, broken only by the pinpoints of vehicle lights moving in horizontal and vertical traffic patterns.

Landfall, legendary city at the center of the universe, at least for everyone who lived there. Scene of a thousand different children's stories. Once upon a time, when we first fell to earth... As if only princesses and heroes came from the stars. "Back when Landfall was a village" was the ancient headmaster's response when any of the students at the Academy asked his birth year. Also, probably the last time the old man had any fun, especially at these events.

"What'cha lookin' at?" A masculine voice purred in her ear.

Ione closed her eyes and took a strengthening breath. Mistake. Denaat Hades surrounded her and worked his way into her lungs, warm, male, and sometimes insufferable. She opened her eyes and turned, doubly grateful for the cosmetic nanites that tinted her normally brown skin to an iridescent peridot for the evening, to cover the blush that spread through her at his presence. Honestly, like you haven't known him for years, including the parts that infuriate you.

Auburn hair tamed for the evening and formal wear fitted like a second skin, Denaat Hades moved with the easy carelessness of having several thousand credits always at hand and the power to go along with them, whether it was earned or not. He leaned on the railing next to her, his amber eyes taking in the glittering crystals set into mesh that made up her micro-mini dress. The flicker of appreciation she read in his expression put her on firmer footing.

She turned away from the observation glass. "Nothing," she murmured.

"The party's in here," Den said.

"You call that a party?" She slanted a glance at him. "You're the spectacle. Aren't you supposed to be doing something spectacular?"

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―

## Thank You

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed your stay in the Star Empire, and are ready for further adventures with Treska, Micah, and their friends and rivals. Don't forget to join the Private Readers' Group at readers.athenagrayson.com/StarEmpire to stay updated.

I thrive on reader feedback--I'd love to hear from you at huntress@athenagrayson.com or at athenagrayson.com. Connect with me via my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/athenagrayson or send me a Tweet at @Athena_Grayson. And if you're so inclined, I would love an honest review at your favorite retailer. Reviews aren't easy to come by, and I treasure every one.

Thank you so much for reading Season One and for allowing me to entertain you for a few hours.

Warmest regards,

_Athena_

―›»●♦◊♦●«‹―
