

### Easy Prey

_Precursor stories to_ Ideal Insurgent

by Stephanie Barr

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Stephanie Barr

Discover other titles by Stephanie Barr

Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing

Tarot Queen

Beast Within (First of the Bete Novels)

Nine Lives (Second of the Bete Novels)

Twice the Man (Third and final Bete Novel)

Saving Tessa

Musings of a Nascent Poet

Curse of the Jenri

Legacy

Ideal Insurgent

The Taming of Dracul Morsus

Pussycats Galore

Catalyst

The Library at Castle Herriot

Dedicated to Stephanie, Roxy and Alex, always.

Cover by Brendan Smith

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Starstruck

Easy Prey

Out of the Box

About the Author

Preview for Ideal Insurgent

Starstruck

_This is your craziest idea yet, Bryder_. Talking to himself wasn't the problem—he'd been doing that since childhood—but he was generally more complimentary.

He had hated the Empire for as long as he could remember. So, why was he here, training to be an analyst/agent for the self-same Randian Empire? He should have checked himself for a fever before signing up. Had he been drinking?

Not that he hadn't worked for them before. Everyone did at some level or faced being trapped forever on a backwater planet. Not for Bryder.

Bryder had set his heart and mind—an extraordinary mind if he said so himself—set on taking down the Empire. Not a practical ambition, he admitted, but it had already taken him further than he expected, even if the solution still eluded him.

Who would have guessed it would bring him here?

Someone clicked his heels and an imperfect silence settled over the assembled cadets. They were seated on the floor of a sparring mat like schoolchildren facing another empty mat. Behind and to the side were perhaps a dozen instructors in dull dark colors denoting rank and specialty. The cadets, like himself, wore black. "What is this, a funeral?" Bryder muttered.

A woman stepped into the room from the far side, a vision in white. Her jumpsuit was the same utilitarian one-piece as the cadets' but as brilliant and spotless a white as theirs was black. Her pale flawless skin was only a shade or two darker than her clothes and unsullied by makeup or artifice. Her white-blonde hair was cut close to her scalp. Only her brows—shaded somewhere between the black of her lashes and the pale of her hair—and her large gray eyes showed any color in her face. Her face seemed chiseled in white marble but her eyes were more like hardened steel. Who _was_ this woman?

"Attention, class." Though she didn't speak loudly, she had enough authority in her voice to eliminate the remaining murmurs among the cadets. "My name is Nayna Rand. You'll note that I used the Empire as my surname. Those of you who have retained family ties and identities will do the same. When you entered this class, your families, your homeland, your planets of origin, children, parents, friends—those ties are no more. You are part of the Empire now, and your loyalty must not be split with any others.

He hated her. Cold, proud, callous, ruthless, and selfish, she was the perfect embodiment of everything the empire was and why he was so determined to take it down. That was Nayna, the woman his mother told him about? The girl his mother had reminded him to pity for ten years, explaining why she had no family. The poor child stolen from her mother at birth? The woman her mother had pined over, wept over, fought for for more than a decade? What a waste. He should never have come.

He should never have volunteered for this class—but he was here. He'd learn all he could about his enemy and maybe throw a few wrenches into the mess before he sneaked out to join the underground in earnest.

But he needed to get the info first, something that would give him a plan and the leverage to have a chance for success. Knowledge was power and he was going to need more power if he was going to take on the horrific monster that had already sterilized fifty-nine worlds and subjugated fifty-five more.

He glanced up from his musings to find himself locked in the pale instructor's gaze. "Are you volunteering, Cadet...?"

"For what?" he said. "Name's Bryder Kass."

Several of his fellow students sniggered.

"Perhaps you think you don't need to pay attention, Bryder _Rand_? Let's test that notion, shall we? Come, Bryder, spar with me." A tiny, not pleasant smile touched her lips.

He took in her lithe body, nearly his own height. She wore the self-confidence of someone who knew her abilities and had faith they were superior. She was planning to make a lesson of him.

His own grin stretched across his face until he could feel his cheeks all but touch his ears. He bounced to his feet. This was going to be good.

Normally, Bryder wouldn't strike first—his own fighting style was more an adaptive response, instinctively finding the most effective counter move to someone else's attack, but he doubted he'd need it here. This instructor was clearly a by-the-book creature, just short of an automaton. She was not going to surprise him.

Also, he was riled—at her, at himself, at the Empire. He let his temper lash out with a leaping snap kick as soon as he was in range. Niceties be damned. The kick would have felled most, especially since she hadn't given the signal to start. Instead, she ducked and spun around him before he had landed back on his feet, tapping his kidneys as she went by. He turned as well with a backhand, but she blocked him. She kicked low and might have taken his knee if he hadn't dodged—and if she had kicked at full force. She hadn't.

Bryder stepped back and reevaluated. She didn't pursue but regarded him calmly, her lifted eyebrow mocking him.

He'd underestimated her—she was quick and adaptive. More, she was pulling her punches or he'd likely be hurting by now. She might be Rand's flunky, but she was a canny fighter with exceptional control.

Better rethink his methods.

"Well?" she asked when he didn't attack again.

"It's your turn. I blew mine," he admitted and had to dodge an elbow strike that could have easily knocked him out. He tried a standing front snap kick to her kidney, but she blocked him with her other hand, and tried to knock him down with a high roundhouse kick at his head level.

He moved to her inside, grabbing her leg and taking her down until she overbalanced. She should have fallen, but she twisted her leg in his grasp and somersaulted away, back on her feet and facing him before he could take advantage.

She might actually be better than he was, though she was sounding a touch winded. At least, he was no easy conquest.

As the fight continued, her attacks, his dodging, blocking, or counterblows were almost at the same level, a real rarity for him. Seemed like it was a rarity for her as well, given her furrowed brow, the sweat—like his—that was soaking her uniform and making her pallid hair spiky. As they danced, Bryder felt his black mood lifting and his view of her adapt. She was no slave to tradition and, as his respect for her ability increased, he began to wonder what else he might have misjudged.

He wasn't sure if he had made a mistake or if she'd just outfought him, but she managed to knock his legs out from under him and had him in a chokehold before he could escape. "Yield," she said, panting, the perspirations dripping down her face.

He thought about making her knock him unconscious but tapped out like a gentleman. "That was pretty damn impressive."

"Yes," she said and offered him a hand up. "You surprised me. Where did you train? I haven't seen that technique before."

Bryder searched for an acceptable answer. His records were devoid of much of his history—since it would hardly make him look trustworthy—and nowhere had he admitted to formal martial arts training. He couldn't just say that, after his mother died when he was twelve standards old, he had hitched along with one brother's crew after another, sparring and learning from the dregs of the their black market buddies. Or that, also one after another, each brother had made a mistake and gotten himself killed by Rand, leaving Bryder to scoot out on luck and quick talking. Probably a good thing he'd only had three brothers.

He had never been close to his brothers—since he'd been born after they'd achieved manhood—but it still bothered him that his family, from father to brothers, had all been killed by Rand. Oh, wait, she was wanting an answer. "I liked to hang out at the spaceport and spar with pilots and aliens. You see a lot of different techniques that way. I mostly just learned how to counter 'em." Which was true enough. Wonder how she'd feel if she knew her mother had signed the recommendation that had gotten him his first job in the Empire's civil service.

"Interesting," she said, and turned away. "Someone else care to spar as well? Show off your skills? Bryder almost beat me. Any of you like to try?"

Bryder found himself intrigued. On the one hand, she was clearly in the thrall of her government role, but his mother had told him Nayna had literally spent her entire life—from birth—raised by government hacks and fed government stories. He'd heard that she'd never lived anywhere but this facility, meeting only people who were dedicated to the government.

And yet.

His moves were anything but by the book, but she adapted, analyzed, and anticipated them anyway. That meant there was more to her then following rote. She was reputed to be the best analyst in the Empire despite her youth, just twenty-one standards old, with perfect recall and flawless logic. Extrapolating effectively from very little data requires a creative mind. Even her tactic here—fighting a cocky cadet—became clear in hindsight, was to demonstrate to a class that they had much to learn. That gave her students a real sense of her authority—over and above her role as teacher—and a goal to strive for. Brilliant but not the work of a rote thinker.

Who was this woman? He could have taken half a dozen placement opportunities—he was that good—but, when he saw her name as chief instructor, he had to come here. And how did his strange fascination with her play into his goals to topple the Empire? She certainly wasn't going to help him.

He wrestled with it as she took out the next cadet who came up against her with ease. She made a few more love-the-Empire type announcements and dismissed them until class would begin in earnest the next day.

Activities for the cadets were limited and he was bored senseless. Cadets were housed in a large room with the lower level analysts. Bryder had snagged himself a top bunk and was trying to figure out a way to keep from stabbing out his own eyeballs from ennui when he saw Nayna slip surreptitiously into the room and into a bunkbed in the corner. Surely a teacher would have her own stateroom. But she slept, acting like she wasn't in a room full of her own students and her students doing their damnedest to pretend she wasn't there.

Insanity. He couldn't wrap his mind around any of it.

Bryder reminded himself that, since he was there and didn't want to be tortured to death, he should be on his best behavior. So, for the next few days, he sat stolidly in his chair while Nayna taught a bunch of lies, misinformation, and slant to her class of receptive cadets. No one made the slightest move to contradict her, including himself, though he had bitten his tongue numerous times. He was convinced by the second day that she believed every frickin' word she spoke.

How could she not know that there were twelve more planets destroyed than she described? How could she possibly think Rand was the injured party when they had subjugated or destroyed literally scores of planets in the past century or so?

He couldn't ask in class, or risk becoming a statistic, but he wanted to know. He started to follow her outside of class. She was definitely a creature of routine.

After class, she would eat, always in the cafeteria, usually ordering the day's special. She ate alone, lost in her thoughts per her outward appearance. After eating, she would head to the analysts' room—even though she also had not only her own stateroom but her own office—and would work on her analyses for Rand there. She seemed to absorb data as fast as it could scroll on her screen, but, if she was writing reports there, he never caught her.

He couldn't get a bead on her. She was exactly as by-the-book as he'd first suspected and thoroughly indoctrinated with all of Rand's garbage and yet...there was a humanity to her as well. The antipathy toward her from the other cadets, even the other analysts, surprised him. He presumed being perfect and spurning of would-be sycophants had cost her allies, but she made no sign of missing them.

If she remained an enigma, his class provided a rationale that made his decision to join not nearly as stupid as he'd first thought. Amazingly, analysts apparently had access to sheaves of useful data on different planets and governments and considerable autonomy in how they directed Rand to deal with them. And cadets had access with the computer codes they received the second day. It took very little of Bryder's imagination to see how he could set things in motion that would cause Rand considerable pain—that only manifested long after he was gone. As a field agent as well, he could go anywhere, talk to anyone. He could literally hook into the rebel underground while still gathering a paycheck from Rand. Not a healthy long-term strategy, but the possibilities were appealing.

She caught him following her at least once. "Do you not have something better to do, Bryder?"

"Good Rana, no!" he said without hesitation. "Or I'd be doing it."

"And what do you expect to learn from me?"

He feigned shock. "Everything, right? You are our teacher, though you look desperately young. How old are you?"

The faintest of blushes touched her cheeks. "I have completed twenty-one standards."

"And you're teaching? Hard to believe your two standards younger than I am."

"Indeed," she said, deadpan. "I've thought so many times myself."

She looked flustered when he threw his head back and laughed and slipped away while he was still chuckling.

On the third day of class, another instructor took them from the class on a "field trip." In this case, the field trip was a facility on the other side of the planet, still underground, but this time filled with "villages" and "towns" of various conquered peoples to practice their methods for defending and ingratiating themselves with the locals. Bryder found the idea ludicrous, but it sounded more interesting than more days in a classroom.

He was almost surprised to see Nayna on the shuttle with them all. He didn't think she left the center, not that this was much different. Did they really think this exercise would be realistic?

Well, he could always use another good laugh.

When they landed at a little spaceport, Bryder noted the lack of ships, just empty berths. Nayna came behind him. "They don't leave the ships here in case someone tries to escape. Once, some of them overwhelmed the guard and stole a ship. Unfortunately for all involved, they didn't know how to fly that ship and ended up crashing, causing considerable damage to a nearby town and, of course, the escapees did not survive."

Bryder glanced up at the oversized shuttle they came on. "So, what keeps them from stealing that while we're here?"

Nayna raised her brows. "We do."

A couple of guards—well-armed—guarded the checkpoint going in, but Bryder wouldn't take a bet on their chances to stop an enraged group of rebellious test subjects.

"Alright," said one of the other instructors, the leader of this trip, "we're going to split into groups of five students. We'll be doing this exercise multiple times, so, if you don't get a group that works for you, you'll have other chances. Each group will have an instructor lead and an assignment. Do you each have a number?"

Bryder glanced at Nayna's clipboard and then shamelessly looked at his fellow cadets' numbers until he had one that matched. "Hey, trade with me."

"You got it. Don't know why anyone would _want_ to go in the ice queen's group, anyway."

When he queued up behind Nayna, she gave him a bland look. "Were you assigned to my group, Bryder?"

"One of the other students has a crush on, er, Meichen, so I offered to trade with him." Nayna's eyes strayed to Meichen, a tiny man, balding, who spoke in a squeak.

"Odd how that happens nearly every time," Nayna muttered. "My team, with me. We're heading to a Woden encampment. But first, everyone check to see that you haven't lost your badge."

"What's it for? Identification?" Bryder asked.

"The different groups are kept separate by way of force fields. These badges allow us to go through the fields. If the subjects get them, it will work for them as well. "

The force fields they passed were hazy but not opaque. He spotted a number of people, with varying degrees of human characteristics, watching as they walked by, but pretending they weren't. Some experiment, trying to interact with people who've been through this same routine dozens of times.

He couldn't see it, but he could feel the eyes on the back of his neck, the animosity. These people—or whatever—were on the edge. "What's our assignment?"

"The Woden, as you should know from our briefing kit, are particularly pugnacious. We need to find a way to build a rapport using diplomacy, bribery, artifice or force. Diplomacy nets you the best grade." She paused and then looked around in case anyone from another group was listening. "You are not to kill if you have another option. These are Randian citizens, however reluctantly, and they should not be killed out of hand."

"Why are we going in with blasters? A Woden's bone structure absorbs blaster energy so you're not really hurting them. Mostly you're giving him a painful flesh wound and maybe pissing him off."

Nayna stopped and, looked directly at Bryder. "Cogent question. I encourage you to bring it up when we regroup with the expedition leader." He was just close enough to hear her mutter, "Maybe he'll give _you_ an answer."

She cleared her throat. "But it's a good question. If blasters are less than effective against them..."

"But will kill _us_ no problem," Bryder pointed out.

Nayna nodded, pleased rather than offended to be interrupted. "So, cadets, what would be the weapons we would ideally take? I presume you _all_ read the briefing like Bryder did."

Bryder's fellow cadets fell silent.

"Well? And don't you answer, Bryder. I suspect you know. Let's hear from someone else."

After a pause, a woman said, "Edged weapons?"

"The Woden are not immune to edged weapons but they are larger and stronger than normal humans and have edged weapons of their own. How good are you at sword-fighting?"

The woman, Elan, shook her head. "Not really."

"For most of you, hand to hand is not the best option," Nayna said. "I wouldn't like for that to be my only option either. Any other ideas?"

"There's a chemical weapon that shoots projectiles," another cadet said. He was a tall man, though he looked like a gangly teenager. "Would that work against them?"

Nayna nodded. "Good call. They probably would. However, we don't have any. Anyone else?"

Bryder raised his hand. She rolled her eyes and asked again. "Anyone?"

Bryder started jumping up and down. "Ooh, ooh, pick me."

"Bryder?"

"They're very sensitive to sound. If you have some sort of device that makes a loud noise, you could have some defensive ability."

"Excellent," Nayna smiled at Bryder, apparently surprised. "You're the first cadet to think of that. Well, the second." With that, Nayna handed out little objects that fit neatly in the hand, meant to be squeezed with tiny speakers that were wedged between the fingers.

"Squeezing how you activate these?"

"Yes—wait, don't test them."

"How will I know it works?"

Nayna regarded him blandly. "They were tested before we came. And they are very loud. Enough to do damage to us if we use them for too long."

"Great weapon," the gangly guy said, disgusted.

Nayna wisely ignored him. "We'll be going through here. Be on your guard. Historically, they have not been friendly."

Bryder might have had a passing thought about not brutalizing their lovely planet, but he kept it to himself. If she believed her own propaganda, she didn't even know Rand had decimated Woden's gem of a planet.

They stepped through the force field to find themselves facing a circle of a half dozen Woden, wearing gray so they were not readily discerned through the force field. Bet _they_ knew about what happened to their home planet.

Nayna took it in a glance. "Step back!" she said, but it was too late. One of the Woden sliced through a cadet and the rest of the cadets went scurrying. Bryder squeezed his noise toy and was rewarded with a high pitched squeal that sent four of the Woden to their knees. He tugged on Nayna's arm. "Let's step back, regroup where it's safe."

She shoved him to the side and blocked the Woden's sword that would have cut right through him. "Some of them have ear plugs," she said. "I'm not leaving the cadets behind. The Woden are cannibals."

"You can think in safety."

"Think on your feet, cadet. Safe haven's not always an option."

She slipped behind the Woden she was fighting and clubbed him hard enough on his head that he fell to one knee, dropping his sword. Nayna ran back to the slain cadet while Bryder scooped up the sword and slammed the haft into a point just above the Woden's ear before he could regain his feet. "I think diplomacy is off the table," he said. "What in Rana's name are you doing?"

"We can't let the badges fall in the hands of any of the inhabitants. And I wanted to see if she could survive."

"No luck, eh?"

"No. She...cannot be saved. Where are the others?"

The cadets had overcome their momentary panic, in part because two, the gangly one, Ralf, and the brawny other cadet, Shel, managed to disarm and dispatch a Woden while Elan used her noisemaker. Well, they had disarmed two and dispatched one, or at least, he looked dead. What Ralf lacked in skills he made up for in enthusiasm. They were still fighting the other Woden who was struggling from his knees against the waves of sound. Despite the noise—Bryder had also kept up the pressure on the noisemaker—the last three Woden were trying to attack. Nayna snatched the sword out of Bryder's hand and stood behind one of the struggling Woden, sword against his throat. "Throw down your weapons, Woden, or I kill him."

The Woden fighting Ralf and Shel hesitated and Elan slammed her blaster into his head in the same spot Bryder had. That Woden also crumbled. The Woden Nayna threatened spat. "Better it is to die than to be treated like dogs."

"Shall we test that theory?" she asked, lifting the blade until black blood oozed along its edge. There wasn't the slightest sign of trepidation in her stance or face. Bryder didn't doubt for a second she'd do it. Damn.

"Don't be a damned fool, Kriter," one of the other Woden told him then threw down his weapon. When they all were down, Bryder released his squawker and Elan followed suit. Thank Rana, the sound was killing him.

"So, teach, what now?"

"You, Ralf, check the Woden that's down. If he's alive, render him first aid."

"Seriously?"

"Did I stutter? You, Bryder, you seemed to understand some aspects of Woden anatomy that were news to me. Can you help him?"

Bryder rolled his eyes. "If I must, but I'm taking a sword."

Nayna nodded, her sword still at Kriter's throat but no longer pressing into his skin. "Elan, you and Shel check the Woden who have been knocked out. Make sure they're alive."

"They'll be fine," Bryder said, ripping off his shirt to tie around the wounded Woden's shoulder after pocketing his badge. "It's a pressure point specific to Woden and it only knocks them out. This one will likely survive, too. Lost a lot of blood, but he seems hearty enough to make more. Ralf or Shel missed the heart so he just needs a few stitches and some bed rest, maybe an antibiotic, and he'll be fine."

Nayna turned her attention to Kriter. "Do you have someone in your encampment that can provide medical care for your fellow over there?"

"Why would you care? Shouldn't you focus on your own comrade?"

Nayna pressed her lips together. "She is dead and beyond care. Please, just answer the question."

"Yes, we can care for our own. And we have medicine."

The two downed Woden were coming round and Bryder thought it prudent to move back behind Nayna and gestured to Elan and Shel to do the same. Shel scooped up the fallen cadet's body unprompted, his face grim. When they were all behind Nayna, she lowered her sword and stepped back.

"That's it?" Ralf gasped. "You're going to just let them go and heal after they killed one of us?"

"They were defending themselves as they saw it," Nayna said. "And they are no danger now. We will not kill without reason."

Kriter snorted which was what Bryder would have done himself if he hadn't been certain she was sincere.

"Kriter, I said you were defending yourselves, but, from our view, you attacked unprovoked. Why?"

"Unprovoked? _Unprovoked?_ " He coughed and a bit of blood leaked from the line she'd left on his throat. "You and your cohorts come here time and time again, pretending to be friends and then attacking and killing us when we don't fall prey, again, to your lies. Is that not provocation enough?"

Nayna regarded him steadily. "That seems a valid point. How often have we come where the event has not ended in violence?"

Kriter regarded suspiciously. "Perhaps the first two or three times, before we realized that we were lied to."

"And the times that ended in violence, how often did you have fatal casualties?"

"Every time. When we were brought here in my father's generation—brought against our wills from our home planet—there were nearly three hundred of us. Now we are but seventy and most that remain are women and children, or the old and infirm. Only we six remain of the Woden warriors."

"Your grievance appears just. And what were you promised that we failed to honor?"

"We asked to be set free, if not on our planet, on any planet, that we could make our own way."

"Are you criminals?"

Kriter laughed. "When I arrived, I was not yet weaned off my mother's milk. What crime do you suppose I had committed?"

Nayna nodded. "Very well. I will have to correct this situation. I do not ask you to trust me nor can I promise results as I have limited power. But I will try. Whether I'm successful or I fail, I will come back to tell you how I fared unless I do not survive the attempt." She glanced at the cadets behind her, all standing close to the force field. "Let's go."

Bryder waited to step out with Nayna which might have been a mistake as they stepped out into a crowd of more than thirty angry "test subjects," most of them sporting badges and Randian blasters.

"You know, teach, this field exercise might just be a tad _too_ realistic."

Nayna moved through the cadets to take point again. "I am Nayna. I am the one in authority. These are just students." She dropped the Woden sword she still carried. Perhaps she should have wiped the black blood off of it before she came out. "What have you done with the others?"

A Simaxian, four armed and colored a dull red, intoned, "Some are dead. Most are unharmed."

Nayna nodded. "And what do you want from me?"

"We need a pilot so we can escape. Not only us but all in our groups and the Woden as well, if you haven't slaughtered them," The Simaxian spat. "Randian dogs."

"I refuse to be less than a cat," said Bryder.

"Bryder, do shut up." She shook her head at the Simaxian. "I have only a provisional license which the ship will not accept."

"You lie! You came here in a ship. Someone _must_ be a pilot."

"Chances are, you killed him already," Nayna said. "I can't help you."

The Simaxian snarled and pointed the blaster right at her temple. "Then none of you are of any use to us."

A part of Bryder shrugged. He never wanted to work for Rand anyway and he _was_ a pilot. He could shuttle them somewhere hard to find and then make tracks himself. Except for one thing.

She knew he was a pilot, too, and she hadn't given him away.

He should just let her die but...

"Wait!"

"What? Are you a pilot?"

"A pilot isn't your problem," Bryder said. "Say you had one and he could take you somewhere. If you kill her, Rand will find you wherever you hide and burn you and yours to ash."

"So, you too think we should cower like curs, to be kicked at your discretion as you bleed off our strength bit by bit and remind us of our humiliation?"

"No, you should convince this lovely lady that it would be much smarter for Rand to do away with this idiotic experiment and, instead, run this exercise with Rand operatives instead of angry prisoners that want to be anywhere else but here."

He turned to Nayna. "I mean, you heard Kriter in there. This may be the stupidest exercise ever. No diplomat is so good that he is going to win over people little better than prisoners who never get what they're promised and are killed when they balk. And you _are_ the one who told us they were citizens."

"You have a valid point. But using our own operatives, diplomacy would likely be unnaturally easy."

"Versus unnaturally impossible. And these folks suffer, for what? So a few cadets can pretend they know how to deal with new alien races? They'll be deluded, that's what." Bryder waved his hands to encompass them all. "If you use seasoned field agents in the training, rotating them so they don't get into a rut, they can bring their own experiences to bear for cadets to learn from. It can be as hard or as easy as we want to make it. And, that way, no one has to die and we don't have to leave ourselves open for ambush."

Nayna looked thoughtful but not convinced. The test subjects around them looked conflicted. Was this another trick? Well, Bryder could hardly blame them.

Bryder persisted. "This whole business makes no sense. If they fail today, they'll just try again. They have nothing to do but wait for us to return. If you make a compelling story, you can convince your higher ups to let them go. I mean, what's on this planet? Aren't the natives still here? Surely, they could just blend in with the locals, right?"

Nayna, who hadn't flinched once during the whole ordeal, asked, "Would that satisfy you? That you be let free to make your way on the planet with no assistance?"

"And how would we know you wouldn't just gun us down?" the Simaxian asked.

"I don't suppose you do, but, if Rand knew that our team here was compromised, they'd burn out this entire facility without hesitation and everyone in it so you really have very little to lose."

"How would you do it?"

"I would leave and contact my management from the shuttle, explain that the situation is untenable as is and we cannot train our cadets under the current conditions. Then I would explain that you and your people are serving no purpose and just using resources, as I recommend that I allow you to go. If I can convince them, I will have you set free at another spaceport on this planet where you might find others of your kind or other people that might be able to help you get on your feet or even passage off planet."

"And you think I'd just trust you to go into your shuttle and do as you say?"

Nayna looked him straightforwardly in the eyes. "Yes, because I'm leaving the cadets as hostages."

_I'm dead,_ Bryder thought.

The Simaxian laughed. It was a bitter sound. "As if you Randian scum give a shit about a handful of cadets."

"One of these cadets is the only other pilot. I'm as trapped here as you if I fail to convince Rand and they destroy us all."

"Which one?"

"I won't tell you. I suggest you not kill anyone else while I'm gone just in case." As if they had agreed, as if there was no more to be said, she walked through and past them. Damn if she wasn't something. And they parted for her, too.

When she'd left, an awkward silence descended on those that remained, four cadets—with a dead one still in Shel's arms—and an angry mob of oppressed people of varying species.

Shel lay down the dead girl and knelt beside her. Made sense. Might as well get comfortable. Bryder collapsed into a seated position, legs crossed, and ventured, "So, anyone play cards?"

"Have you no shame?" Shel asked.

"What good will shame do me? She's dead and won't care and these fellows here have dozens dead for every one of ours. You want to be outraged? Take your turn."

"You act like they're just like us," Ralf said, sniffing and scrubbing at the remnants of black blood on his skin.

"They _are_ just like us. They think and feel and care about their loved ones—who people from this class have been systematically killing off—and worry about their planets' fates while they're here—as they should. You think that because they haven't devoted their lives to Rand they're less worthy?"

"They're not human."

"Well, neither am I, technically, though I'm closer than most, close enough to breed if I cared to. And that cadet who became a corpse, she's not human either. Her blood is the wrong color. And you and I know there a dozens of races in the corps of the Randian military. Humanity doesn't corner the market on worth or virtue."

The aggressive people holding them hostage look bewildered with Bryder's words. "I don't understand you," the Simaxian said at last. "I understand these others—rage against those that attack their comrades makes sense—but you, you act as if we aren't enemies."

"You're not _my_ enemy," Bryder said easily. "I don't choose enemies based on home world or skin color or ideology. I don't like people who hurt other people when they don't have to. You haven't. I'm totally cool with that."

That seemed to leave both his fellow cadets and their captors at a loss.

Elon dropped down beside Bryder. "You really don't care that she's dead?"

"It's not that I don't care. It's that I can't change it, and I don't see why it's more pertinent than the deaths these folks have been dealing with. What impresses me is that Nayna seemed to understand that, too."

Ralf snorted. "Sure she does. She's probably long gone and left us to die."

"Well, we'll certainly know soon enough. In the meantime, anyone have cards, dice, or a music box?"

One of the captors, a Lyran, much like a human except for an exceptional pallor, fished in a pouch and brought out a pack of circular cards. "We could play Dragon Poker," he said.

"Perfect," Bryder said. "Fairies wild?"

The Simaxian sat cross-legged by Bryder. "I suppose though it seems like those fairies always seem to avoid me."

"It's because you're too grim," Bryder said. "Try laughing like you're happy."

The Simaxian gave him a bland look but one of his own group laughed. "I'll play a hand," she said. "Fairies like me, just fine."

The original Simaxian shook his head. "I wonder why I married you."

"A lover's rivalry. This will be good. Except we don't have stakes." He fished around in his own pockets. "I don't so much as a millicredit."

"Why," asked the second Simaxian, "are you not wearing a shirt?"

"We sliced up one of the Woden in there, but he'll live alright. I used my shirt to staunch the wound. Pity we didn't bring them out with us. They've got killer poker faces or so I've heard."

The second Simaxian laughed, a hearty laugh that sounded genuinely amused. "That they do. If you hadn't already lost your shirt to one, they would have taken it anyway."

Bryder laughed, too, and others, both cadets and captors, laughed as well. It was contagious.

All at once, the force fields came down, the whole area was unusually silent without the buzz they all had heard but hadn't consciously acknowledged. "Guess Nayna understood more than _you_ gave her credit for," Bryder said. "Now that's a lesson for us all. Perhaps, as agents, we can make friends instead of enemies if we listen and act in accordance with our words."

"Do you think we'll really be sent to a spaceport and let free?" the Lyran said.

"I know it," Bryder said, "since I'm the pilot she mentioned. And even if Rand was planning to ignore her recommendation and come gunning for you, they'd have a hell of a time singling you out in Wysely without taking out the whole place. I honestly don't think you're important enough to them to go to the trouble."

"Damn it, Bryder, why did you tell them? Now they don't need the rest of us!" Ralf hissed.

Bryder tipped his head at the second Simaxian. "Does it make a difference? You could have killed off the cadets at any time. Do you feel you need to now?"

The first Simaxian sighed. "No. And only two others were killed, only because they insisted on fighting when they had no chance. Should I release them?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Nayna, walking back into their midst. "They may still be upset with the situation. Better to move yourselves out of reach first and then I and my cadets will release them."

"I presume you were successful."

A small smile touched Nayna's lips. "Sometimes, couching things in just the right way encourages people to do what you want and think it their own idea."

"I'm rubbing off on you already," Bryder said, springing back to his feet. "You folks should gather your families and what things you have, including this deck of cards, and let's clear out before someone changes his mind."

"Giving orders now, Cadet Bryder?" Nayna asked.

"In this instant, I'm Pilot Bryder, so yes."

"You will have to use your thumb and retinal scan to get through the checkpoint and take the rest with you. I had to _persuade_ the guards there to stand down."

"Persuade?"

Nayna pulled a roll of purple duct tape from her pouch. "Duct tape has so many uses."

There were several hundred former test subjects to shuttle to Wysely, so it took Bryder nearly twelve hours and several trips. Since Bryder happened to know someone from the rebellion in the spaceport, he quietly sent him a word at a public comm station at his first landing—and gave his friend's direction to the Simalaxians he dropped off—and, after the second trip, there were people to help the former test subjects off the shuttle and into temporary habitation. Chances were, mercy for these particular people would backfire on Rand, but that suited Bryder just fine.

While he was shuttling them back and forth, Nayna went among the Randian captives and released them, explaining the situation and the differences they were going to make in this exercise in the future. Bryder missed how she persuaded them—though some sported purple duct tape when he returned so she wasn't entirely successful. Still, many recruits appeared to be convinced, including Ralf and Elan to Bryder's surprise. Shel was still too upset to be helpful, but he did nothing to hamper the efforts. By local midnight, Bryder dropped his last load in Wysely, this time, the Woden.

Kriter stopped before he left. "I thought she lied just like the rest of them."

"So did I," Bryder said, frankly. "Guess many of us are too quick to judge."

"Does this mean we were wrong about Rand?"

"Do your own research and decide for yourself," Bryder said, not quite up to telling the huge man that his planet had been destroyed, that he was one of the last of his kind. "But it does mean that everyone _in_ Rand doesn't have to be a monster."

He pressed his lips together. "I'm sorry we killed your comrade"

Bryder nodded. "So am I. But you can learn from it, just like we will."

Kriter raised the skin over his eye where there'd be a brow on a human. The Woden were entirely hairless. The effect was unsettling. "Will you?"

" _I_ will. I can't speak for us all."

Bryder felt dead tired when he docked at last at the training facility.

He stumbled out the door and met Nayna who, he would swear, looked fresh as a daisy. "You're exhausted," she told him. "Get some rest. This was the most successful field trip in our class' history. I gave you and our team full marks and you plus fifty merits for your role in it."

"Thank you," Bryder said, unsure how to feel about anything.

"And I'm also taking fifteen merits off your score."

"What? Why?"

"You said diplomacy was off the table. Your prediction was wrong."

For a moment, Bryder just stared at her. She was perfectly beautiful in the brutal landing lights, face impassive, voice not showing even a hint of humor. And then he laughed, long and loud.

He laughed so hard and so long, tears streamed down his face and his sides ached.

The joke was on him. At that moment, he knew he loved Nayna in all her insanity.

This was going to be interesting.

Easy Prey

Circling Grig 25889, a yellow sun of less than impressive size, were several planets, none of which were paid much attention. There were a few rocky planets, but they'd never supported life and had nothing by way of useful resources. There were half a dozen gas giants with even less of interest to the spacefarer.

Around the third one, though, was a spectacular ring and a multitude of small moons. Upon approach, its vast indigo expanses glowed like a pearl, so bright the space around it seemed starless. Beneath the cover it of its top layers of ammonium ice, there were fierce winds and storms the size of many of its moons combined, but the placid smoothness of its surface belied such violence. Of course, on the far side of this lovely planet there was shadow and, hidden in that shadow, far from the glimmer of the intricate ring, was another shadow, as ephemeral as the surface of the planet below it, visible only because of its rings of green around each exhaust typical with fusion hybrid engines. Unlike the standard clunky ship, with sensors and extra pods attached at will to a surface marked by handholds and sensors, it was a remarkably smooth ship for one that was strictly a spacefarer, a fluid design with even the pods and bays of weapons seemingly part of an unblemished form. Senseless, really, probably all for effect, Damon had always thought, but somehow more fearsome accordingly. That's why Damon had had to take it and make it his flagship. The _Orca_.

Not that it was aggressive at the moment. Now, it was waiting.

On every bridge screen—and they were all impractically large—ceiling, front and sides, the beauty of the planet, from the slim line of brilliant horizon to the left to the dark smooth surface on the ceiling to the glistening glory of the rings to the front and the side, everything was beautiful and peaceful.

After three weeks, even stunning beauty gets old.

Many say that the key to being a successful space pirate is ruthlessness, or even brute force. But the real key, Damon thought to himself, was patience. Ruthlessness makes your own people scared and scared people make mistakes and plan coups; they can't be trusted. As for brute force, well, no space pirate ever had a fleet that could outgun the whole Randian armada.

But patience, patience meant you used your cunning to pick the right moment, be in the right place, so you wouldn't be out-gunned and you could be as ruthless to your prey as you needed to be. Even if the prey was something as coveted as a Randian scout ship, a gem of a craft that Damon had lusted for a good five years. He'd wanted one ever since he'd built up his pirate fleet to five captured ships and caught sight of a scout ship in passing. That's when he'd realized he could win against the Randian armada if he was smart.

When he and sixty or so other survivors crawled out from their underground shelter and walked the charred remains of their streets, their homes, even their parents and siblings, he'd sworn he'd take them down.

Damon and the survivors were captured, of course. This wasn't the first blackened world the Randians had created, so they knew enough to let private slavers in to pick up any stragglers. Keep it tidy. The captain that had picked up Damon had chosen the wrong damn slave. That ship became Damon's first, and his fellow survivors, his first crew.

Now he had fifty-nine ships tucked into hidden spots all over the galaxy. His sixtieth would be his crown jewel, and he was certain it would be coming through this out-of-the way system, likely unaccompanied, perfect for the plundering. Easy prey.

So, when he heard the ping that meant one of the sensors he'd sprinkled around this system had sensed a ship, he let himself smile.

It was about damn time.

"Where is it?" he asked the helmsman.

"Looks like he jumped in just on the other side of this gas giant, just like you thought he would."

Damon laughed. "I knew it. That's the best trajectory from Clevelhand. I knew one of them would come through here instead of the normal trade route."

"What are we going to do?" the helmsman asked, though his hands were already programming an intercept course. He wouldn't lay it in without orders.

"Let's go get 'im."

The helmsman—grade A pilot and Damon's own teacher—grinned back and set her going. Helmsman Zhrrg West's grin meant he was on the hunt in earnest, which was a good thing, but Damon still got little weirded out to see those pointed teeth in the noseless green face. West hadn't eaten any other crewman, or a prisoner to date, so Damon reminded himself to get over it.

Damon's larger ship had the advantage, both in engine power and fire power. And, with the gas giant between them and a fairly good guess at the scout's flight plan, the _Orca_ could readily sneak up behind the smaller ship with very little time left for the scout to react when the _Orca_ became visible around the edge of the gas giant's atmosphere. If he flew close to the surface. Damon glanced at the readings and saw that was indeed West's plan. All he had to do now was wait. "Time to contact?"

"He should spot us in 20 and be within hailing range three minutes later."

"Think he'll get spooked and make a run for it when he sees us?"

"No, sir. Not many ships'll target a Randian scout ship. But, if he does make a break for it, he won't get far. He can't outrun us."

"Don't fail me, West," Damon said, which wasn't so much a threat as a reminder Damon was counting on him. West hadn't failed Damon yet.

West was true to his skill as they skimmed along just above the atmosphere of the gas giant, easy to miss unless someone was looking for them, despite their immense size.

A light flashed and the little scout showed up on his screen. Barely forty meters from stem to stern, she was capable of orbit to surface, orbital intra-system flight and, of course, jumping, all in a ship that looked like any rich magnate son's pleasure cruiser with no one the wiser unless they were paying attention. Damon had been paying attention. Even with all his connections and bribes, he'd had but the vaguest estimates on its range, speed and weaponry, and a tantalizing hint that its inertial dampening system and gravity was an order of magnitude more effective than those of any other ship, a warning that it could be maneuverable. Damon wanted to snatch it and snatch it fast before anyone inside got any cockeyed ideas.

"What'll it take to match orbits?"

"We'll accelerate as soon as you get his attention and then throttle back to match 'em eight minutes later. Odds are, he won't have time to get his AI working on routes out of there unless he lays 'em in now."

Damon keyed on his mic and waited until another light lit that they were within hailing. This was his favorite part. "What ho, me hearties! Prepare to be boarded."

There was a slight pause as if the pilot was absorbing that before, "Bwahahahahaha!" blared over the com. "Seriously, that's what a big scary pirate like you goes with? 'Prepared to be boarded?' Bwahahahaha!"

'Told you,' mouthed West.

"I am not joking," Damon said through clenched teeth, finding the pilot's laughter unbearably galling. No one faced with a Menellian war cruiser had laughed before. Was this guy drunk?

"And still hilarious," the pilot gasped out between guffaws. "Maybe you should get a hail from one of the past five centuries?"

"Perhaps you'd prefer to wait and laugh your ass off when I have you in chains?"

The scout managed to stifle his laughter. Mostly. "You know mine's an official scout ship of the Randian government. They're mighty touchy about those that steal their personal stuff."

"Nothing makes me happier than pissing off the Randian government. Those are my favorite targets. Now, prepare your airlock. We will be boarding in four minutes. The only question is, will you be alive to greet us or should I hole your vessel first?"

"Yeah, no, I don't think you will."

Damon frowned. "You don't think I will what?"

"Board me _or_ hole me."

"Do you know what this vessel is?"

"Yeah, looks like a modified Menellian War Cruiser, from, I'd say, three years before Rand kicked their asses, modified with Grebble 9000 engines, and it looks like you managed to wedge two more into with the normal six. Bet that's got a hell of a kick. You've also upgraded the weapons. I see Nibnom blasters and Xynon missiles, a Mansa ray and what I'm betting are Limnal pulse generators."

"You think you're pretty smart," Damon began.

"Don't I?" the pilot replied perkily. "By the way, your energy weapons, Mansan and Limnal will have no effect on my ship. A friendly word of advice."

Damon had been shaken by the precise—and accurate—description of his highly unusual ship, but that last was totally unexpected. Maybe the pilot was bluffing. "So you say."

"Oh, please, try," the pilot pleaded, stifling chuckles. "Laughter is my favorite thing to do except needling Nayna."

Damon's eye caught the chronometer and his body felt the slight adjustment, through the dampers, of their burn for rendezvous. The little bastard was right under him and clear as day on camera. "Time's up, funny man. Shall we board you or punch you full of holes? Prepare the blasters," he snapped to the gunner, who took his thumb of the Mansa and moved his hand to the blaster arrays.

"Hmm," the pilot said. "I'll take neither."

On Damon's camera, the ship yawed 180 degrees and blasted her main engines, so the _Orca_ flew right past her. The tail cameras caught the scout ship sinking into the opaque atmosphere.

"Shit," Damon said with feeling.

"Still have them on sensor, Cap'n. Should I fire?" the gunner, Sil, said.

"Don't fire!" West and Damon said at the same time.

Sil, ex-space navy, didn't argue but definitely looked disgruntled. Damon explained. "He's going to sink into the atmosphere until he changes course. If we disable him, we'll have no way for us to fish him out except to go down after him, and this ship isn't rated for atmospherics, especially pressures like those. Even his ship can only go so far, but we'll have to wait for him to come back."

"I've lost 'im," the gunner said with a grimace. "Stupid clouds."

"Can't see him," Damon said. "Any sensors that might be able to track that bastard?"

Comm and Track, a tidy redhead named Tela, shook her head. "No transponder signal and, this close to the atmosphere, we're getting static interference. This gas giant has a pretty powerful magnetosphere. Even our cameras are a little touchy."

"The good news," Damon said, "is he can't stay there long. In that much atmosphere he can't hold orbit and flying will be turbulent even a few clicks in. Plus, the pressure on that bastard's got to be too much for that ship if he goes very deep. So, he will come back out and probably soon. But I don't have any idea where. What do you think, West?"

West thought, then shrugged his shoulders in defeat. "He _could_ do anything. If it were me, I'd come back just under cover and swing around the world beneath us so we wouldn't know, high tail it when I got to the far side while we were still twiddling our thumbs."

"That'd be smart. I could see that, but I don't think this little smart ass is going to flit off without taunting us. That was a showy move. I think he's going to come back to play with us. We better be ready."

Eyes turned back to sensors. The gunner stroked his controls lovingly. West shook his head. "What do you want me to do?"

"Keep to this trajectory for now. If he wants to play with us, no sense not being where he can find us. But, go ahead and pre-program a few different routes, calculated burns and direction. I'll bet you a cask of Gremilian brandy he was flying by the seat of his pants. We can't do that with this ship, so we'd best have lots of options ready."

"Not sure there are enough for this guy," West muttered.

"What was that, Helm?"

"Nothing, sir."

Damon, despite himself, felt a smile tug his lips. West was old school pilot, through and through. Everything by the books, looking over the AI's shoulder. He was quick because he was prepared, and most of their quarry behaved in predictable ways. This scout bastard was already getting to him. West's chair _was_ spritzing his slimy skin more frequently.

Minutes ticked by with no sign. The silence, other than the clicking of keyboards and the shifting in chairs, was palpable. Had he done what West suggested? Had they missed the little bastard?

Damon couldn't stand sitting and unwebbed from the Captain's chair. Stupid thing didn't have any interesting controls and he needed something. He wandered down and looked over West's shoulder, but West waved him away, distracted. So, Damon wandered to the adjacent rendezvous station where the fine work of mating to another ship was done. The controls weren't active, though they could be with a switch, so Damon gripped them, loving how they felt in his hands. Made him want to play with a smaller ship again, just fly it like his quarry did. With any luck, he could be flying that scout ship in the near future.

"Incoming!" Comm said. "Fast."

"Where?" Damon asked, his eyes on the sensor data above the controls. He saw it before they answered, powered up the manual controls and was rolling the ship to the right with all his strength the next instant as the scout ship, like a shot, came up in a highly elliptical trajectory as if to punch right through them.

"Hold on!" West shouted as, even with dampeners, the ship shifted before the gravity generators could compensate, nearly taking Damon off his feet. Some of those who hadn't been webbed in went tumbling. There was some groaning as the ships systems, unused to such extreme maneuvers, complained.

But it held together and the move was successful in that the scout ship just missed them, all but scraping a line along their underside as it flew past.

"Nice reflexes, Cap'n," the scout said over the hailing frequency. "Good instincts not to turn the other way." Damon saw, after the fact, that the scout had aimed just a little lopsided and Damon had lofted the right side.

"Are you insane?" Damon shouted.

"Is that a trick question?"

"You're not going to try to tell me that little ship could survive punching a hole through mine."

"Likely not," the scout laughed, "But I had faith you'd make an effort to save yourself."

"You're playing chicken with a _war cruiser_?"

"Winning, too, though I'm just a dainty thing, ship-wise." The scout over the intercom sounded smug as hell. "Tag, you're it."

"Helm, follow that bastard," Damon growled at his helmsman already adjusting the ship for proper burns. "As for you, Scout, you really think you can outrun a war cruiser with two extra engines?"

"Name's Bryder," the scout returned. "And, sure, if we were going for the straight away, you could catch me, but you decided to play tag around a lovely gas giant with eleventy-dozen moons. Think you can keep up with me?"

That smug little bastard. Damon glanced over at West who gnashed his teeth at being taunted, but nodded. Damon hesitated. Moons weren't just obstacles but also ways of getting a boost of speed and a new direction, which could be hard for a pursuer to predict. They had more power but it took more power and time to change directions with their behemoth than it took Bryder's nimble little ship. West seemed eager to take him on and Damon trusted West, but it was good to have a backup plan. Damon fell back to his own seat and pushed the button that sent the fighter pilots on alert. Normally, they weren't necessary, but, if things got too hairy, he could always send up his own nimble forces. That little twerp was going to punch a hole in _his_ ship? Time he learned who he was dealing with.

Damon's smile split his dark face and he saw answering smiles, the kind that go with taking on a challenge, in the others around the room. Someone was overdue for a humility lesson. Damon let his laughter, deep and rich like fine wine, laughter that had thrilled many a woman and struck terror in many an enemy, ring out and over the frequency. "Bring it, _dainty_ scout. Let's see if your skills are half as impressive as your arrogance."

West was already gaining ground on the smaller ship despite its head start.

"You took my line, Buddy," Bryder said with a chuckle. "And nice laugh. I bet it scares some people." There was a brief pause and he added, "So, what's you're beef with the Empire such that you go after us instead of something more lucrative. People targeting government ships have a short life expectancy."

"This is war, _Buddy_ , and I won't stop until I've brought Rand to its knees."

They were approaching a small moon and West throttled back, perhaps to get a bead where the ship was going next and head it off instead of trying to adjust in the midst of a gravity assist.

"So, bloodthirsty," Bryder said. "Will you hang me from the highest yardarm?"

"You see if you can live through the next few minutes, and we'll talk about your fate."

Sure enough, Bryder's dainty ship skimmed very close to the airless orb but barely changed direction, using the slight umph to make for another larger seismically active moon in the opposite direction from where West was thinking he was going. Or so Damon surmised from the furious keyboard action.

"Gunner, you have him sighted?"

"Aye, sir."

"Hit him with the blasters. I think he's gone too long without a little bit of scare."

Sil didn't hold back and eight banks of blasters shot small but very dense projectiles at exceedingly high speed, too fast to be seen with the naked eye, but they could see the ship's response on the screen, shaking and rolling, wobbling in its course. West was already gaining on him again, but they weren't close enough to see the ship in detail on the big screen.

"How many hits, Gunner?"

The gunner swallowed. "None." He was watching the replay on his monitor under magnification. "He dodged them all. He's got an odd shield that seems to bleed them of their speed, then he just moves the ship away enough to be missed."

"Son of a bitch. Hit him with the Limnal pulses. If we can disable him for even a few minutes, he can't adjust and we can pick him up easily. He's not in a crash course for anything and he's been playing us for fools." Sil began to charge them up.

Damon was tired of being laughed at. West caught his eye, the question clear. "Yeah, I know what he said about the Limnals but I'll bet a weekend of bar fees that little shit bluffs like a son of a bitch at poker. And his ship has got to have weaknesses. But, just in case, tell the fighters to ready for launch. Get 'em in their ships. If the Limnal doesn't stop him, let's not play with him anymore. He's too slippery."

West sighed, and his chair spritzed him. "I'd feel better if we knew what those weaknesses were. Seems like he knows too much about us."

"Agreed on all counts. Gunner, is he within range of the pulses?"

"In three...two...one, pulse!"

A cloud of luminous purple blue plasma soared forward like a mini-nebula. When it impacted the shield of the small ship it paused, and crackled, the color edging down toward green before, without warning, it bounced back toward their ship.

"Evasive maneuvers," Damon shouted, knowing it was already too late.

"It's keyed to a frequency that won't affect our ship," the gunner offered, stunned as the plasma slammed into them.

The ship lurched violently as the plasma shorted out gravity generators and inertial dampers, sent arcs through several consoles on the bridge and who knew how many elsewhere in the ship. The lights flickered out but the screens, both on consoles and around the room, stayed lit, eerily bright in the muted emergency lighting.

"I don't understand," the gunner said. "That shouldn't happen."

"Changed frequency, you see the color?" Damon said, holding the back of his chair to keep from floating off. Should have webbed back in before. "Hopefully, it didn't take out every system. If your system is still up or when it reboots, give me a status: what's up, what's coming back up, and what's down for the duration."

"Gravity and inertial dampers won't come back up without a rework, probably tripped 'em."

"Fighters were surged. They are restarting systems now and will tell us when they're checked out."

"Main engines are offline since their controller rebooted, but should come up afterwards. We'll run a diagnostic before lighting them."

"Shields are completely down, both battle shields and debris shields. May require repair."

"Still have attitude controls. RCS system wasn't affected."

"I did warn you," Bryder said on the intercom. "I so love a light show."

"Comm—" Comm and Track offered

"Yes, I got it. Comm works," Damon said, irritated. "Look here, Bryder, you're really pissing me off."

"Oh, and I thought we would be friends," Bryder mourned. "I was being so helpful."

The ship disappeared behind the moon and Damon shook his head. "Well, that's that. He can go any damn place and we can't track 'im and, by the time we get up and running, he'll be nothing but an ion trail. How long on the fighters?"

"Minimum four minutes, could be as long as ten."

"Damn it!"

The mood had altered notably for the worse, but they were professionals and worked diligently to return the ship to working order. Most of the repairs, if any, would be simple.

"Scout ship at twelve o'clock!"

Bryder had slung around the moon, picked up even more speed, and was now heading directly for them. Wait, slightly off center. "Pitch and roll it 180 degrees starboard and don't dawdle, Helm."

West didn't but did almost fling Damon across the room. At least everyone else was strapped in. This time would be closer. As the ship slid past, it fired a single laser bolt at a spot on the _Orca's_ exposed belly.

"Lost all contact with aft," announced Electrical.

"Y'see, the Menellian ships had a fatal flaw," Bryder told them. "Because they were built in a modular fashion, they ran all their lines through one spot to facilitate connection. Pneumatics in one place, hydraulics in another and this one is electrical. Gonna take a few hours to repair but I suspect y'all can live through that. The hulls should be sound, but you'll need to go EVA to fix it. Now you know how Rand defeated 'em."

Damon thought about his fighters, revving up right now. They were every bit as nimble as the scout ship though not as fast. With eight, their numbers might...

"Now, if you're thinking of sending some of your internal armada out to fetch me, let me tell you that would be a bad idea. So far, I've just been playing with you, but I could not guarantee their safety if I thought mine was actually at risk. Right now, you'll break even, if you don't count your pride. No sense throwing good ships away when you know they won't come back."

No mistaking the threat there. Damon cursed, long and hard and loud.

"Those are some nice ones," Bryder said via comm, apparently uncowed. "Got a name, Pirate? In case I stumble across you at a bar. You could buy me a drink."

"I don't drink with Randian scum."

"Technically, I'm Pendan."

Pendar, one of the planets browbeaten into submission by the Empire. Damon would have spit, but it would likely backfire in zero g. "I don't drink with Randian scum _or_ their spineless allies like Pendans that bowed their heads to those monsters," Damon said through clenched teeth. "You should destroy us while you have the chance because I'll chase you to my dying day."

"'Cause I'm 'Randian scum'? Or from a planet that didn't want to be destroyed like its twin, Rellimar? And you'll let your crew die with you in your thirst for revenge?"

"They knew what they signed up to. Some of them crawled through the ashes of Cesil with me. Destroy the empire or die trying."

"Pity about the drink. I am sending the schematics for my ship and its systems over your packet line."

"What?"

"That way, next time you feel like picking off a scout ship, you might fare better." Bryder paused. "Knowledge _is_ power."

_"What?"_ He glanced at his command crew, but everyone looked just as befuddled as he felt.

"I think you can repair everything yourself. But, if you can't, you can quietly make repairs at a station on orbit about Rellimar. Ask for Venir. He'll get you in and work on your ship without asking questions."

"Rellimar? Why the hell would you tell me that? Or send me schematics— _did_ he send me schematics?"

"Yes, sir!" Several of his crew were already looking over Comm's shoulder, oohing and aahing.

"You want to capture a scout ship, right? I don't blame you. Damn fine vessel. I just don't want you to have _my_ scout ship. You do understand."

"And why would you do that? Why wouldn't you destroy us or bring us in to the nearest station or at least call for them to haul us away? Why would you betray the Empire?" Damon said, his head spinning. Or maybe that was the zero g. That always made him feel loopy.

Bryder chuckled. "You clearly hate the Randian Empire and want to do it harm. You think the only way to do it is from the outside? Really, man, you're not thinking big enough."

"You're a subversive?" he choked out.

"I grew up on Rellimar. Father was part of the resistance but he sent his family to Pendar for their safety," Bryder said, his voice dryly matter-of-fact. "When they carpet bomb your planet, not much use in resisting."

Shit! He should have known. "You're a subversive! All the scouts in the universe, I got to tangle with a subversive!" Damon laughed. He couldn't help it. It was too funny, too perfect. He lost his grip on the chair and floated up near the ceiling, laughing, tears escaping his eyes and floating in small spheres around him as he laughed his ass off. When he'd calmed, he said, "You know subversives like you have a short life expectancy. They'll take you out if they even sniff you're not their loyal dog. Best get out while you can. You could join us!"

"Yeah, but I can't leave without my girl. Not that she knows she's my girl yet, but she will be. Well, gotta fly. Remember, you owe me a drink for saving your ship."

"The name's Damon, you sorry reprobate," he said to the Comm pick up as Bryder headed out of range. "And _you're_ buying."

### Out of the Box

Nayna scrolled through the data: accessible resources, environment, and nearest neighbors of a dainty little rocky planet called Gallus 7. The planet wasn't particularly valuable but did have sizeable portions of several heavy metals. It also had the advantage of no near neighbors to claim it and no sentient—or other life—on it since it had a runaway greenhouse effect going and a hot and caustic atmosphere.

Every time she evaluated a planet where there was no one to subvert, overthrow, or destroy, she breathed a sigh of relief. And she hated what that meant about the work she did and what it said about the government she'd worked for all her life.

"Hey, beautiful."

Nayna was irked that she jerked in surprise. She was frustrated that the only one who _could_ sneak up on her was Bryder. Coincidentally, he was the only one who _would_ sneak up on her while she was working in the analysts' room. She schooled her face to neutrality and froze her scrolling screen.

When she turned to face him, he was much closer than he needed to be. Again. "Hello, Bryder."

Bryder grinned at the irritation she hadn't managed to keep out of her tone. "Only you could look like a goddess in these god-forsaken lights. Or scroll your data that fast. Most people couldn't even read it and I bet you absorbed every word."

Unbidden, she blushed and hoped it wasn't visible in the green light from the screens. "Did you need something?"

"Y'busy?"

She'd put up a hand to give herself some distance and indicated her locked screen with the other. "I'm in the middle of—"

"Good," he said, capturing the hand held to keep him at bay and giving it a little tug. "I need a few minutes of your time."

She barely had time to close the file with a keystroke before she was pulled from her seat, her hand tucked in his arm. "Where are we going?"

"Your office."

"My office? _My_ office? Why not go to your office? You're a lead and have one of your own. Or did you forget where it was?"

"Certainly not, but I only use it for liaisons. I should probably air it out before bringing a delicate flower like yourself."

"Which arm would you like broken?" she asked through clenched teeth.

The shameless bastard's grin never even wavered as he ushered her into her own office, closed the door behind him and locked it. Then, to her surprise, he walked the periphery, his watch held high and then low, glowing blue.

"What are you doing?"

"Measuring for curtains," he said, without missing a beat, though there were no windows in this or any of the Center's offices. "You need some color in here."

"Will you be serious? Why did you bring me here?"

His face, when he turned back to her, was as serious as she'd ever seen it. "It's Elan. She's cracked."

"Again? Will they send her to the..." Nayna didn't even want to name the desensitizing protocol that used drugs, brainwashing techniques, and, reputedly, torture to "retune" analysts to the "proper" mindset. As Nayna had been conditioned since birth, she'd only gone through half the regime and was still traumatized. Elan had already been put through the full "treatment" three times. No one had survived a fourth. Nayna shuddered, throttled by her own terror, her heart aching at Elan's torment.

Elan was a quiet girl, but she came traumatized and was highly sympathetic to worlds they examined—hardly surprising since she'd been taken from one of those herself and had her daughter forcibly removed. Nayna hated that they'd told her her daughter had died and felt that doing so did more damage to her psyche, rather than made Elan less emotional.

"'They don't know. And I don't want them to. That's why I need your help." Bryder licked his lips before he added, "She's taken control of Emergency Core Seven."

"EMC7?" she gasped. "But that's..." Of course, she didn't need to explain. All top-level analysts knew there were multiple locations, in case of invasion, where control of the entire Center could be isolated and used. All had backup methods to disable—in case they fell to unfriendly hands—except EMC7. "How did she know? Only top-level analysts with Clearance level Q know about EMC7."

"I don't know that she knew, before. Belger took her there for some rough nonconsensual sex, y'know rape. Now, he's dead."

Belger was the oldest analyst, from the generation where they were almost all male and indulged as geniuses. When that was reined in, Belger had started targeting the most emotionally vulnerable to keep feeding his own ego. And libido. The need for power could make people monsters. "Damn predator," she muttered.

"Normally, I'd say ticker or aneurysm. Maybe his brain tried to eat itself for the good of all mankind. Or maybe Elan killed him in self-defense." Bryder, who seemed to take everything as a joke, was grim.

"He should have been retired long ago. Someone's had to double-check every analysis for years and he was a menace to the other analysts. And the judgment for this! What was that bastard thinking?"

Bryder's jaw clenched. "From what I heard over the intercom at the door, he was brutal."

"How did he even convince her to go? She's too smart to fall for just any line. Did he wrestle her there? Yank her out of the analyst room? Did no one try to stop him?"

"He promised her she could talk with her daughter if she came with him."

"He _what?_ "

Bryder nodded. "Talk about mind games. She's totally hysterical, being mentally and physically fucked and trapped in a tiny room with the dead body of the man who did it. She can't get out without his voice key and we can't get in because he secured it in 'threatened' mode."

"And in a room where she could control everything if she figures out she can. And she will if she's desperate." Nayna's mind raced. 4,793 analysts and support personnel at the Center. All were in danger. They could be flooded with poison gas or suffocated, broiled alive or frozen out. Communications could be cut off, batteries reverse charged and blown... "We can't keep this quiet. You know we can't." She sat at her chair and pulled up the computer, but was shocked when Bryder pulled her chair away.

"We can't report it." Bryder hissed.

"We have to!" Nayna couldn't even imagine how this could be kept quiet. She tried to escape the chair but Bryder countered her. He had a slight weight advantage and his position had more leverage.

"You know we can't. You know _why._ If we report it, assuming communications are still good, what will they send?"

"Troops..."

"And what damn good will troops do? EMC7 and all the rest were devised specifically to deal with invasion. And, even if they could get in, they'll destroy it, destroy her, and the rest of the analysts will be sent for 'treatment' if we're not otherwise compromised. And that's best case. Worst case...well, you know what happens in the worst case."

Her brain gave her the answer she didn't want to acknowledge. "They blow the Center to hell and start over somewhere else." He was right, of course. Bryder was often right even if he claimed he didn't know how. They needed to neutralize the situation or everyone was at risk, whether Elan would hurt them or not. But there was no provision to shut down EMC7 from the outside. The problem went in circles without any obvious solution. "You got any ideas?"

"Yeah, find our top analyst and see what she can come up with."

Nayna rolled her eyes. "How did you even hear about it? Who else knows about this?"

" _So far_ , no one knows, I think, but that might not hold much longer. I know because you assigned me to look over Belger's crappy-ass report and find what was wrong with it. I discovered it makes substandard toilet paper, which is as close to any use you could find for it. I was going to find him to tell him that and to start over so _I_ didn't have to write it. When I asked his whereabouts, the system told me EMC7. When I went to demand he not get cozy in such a sensitive location, I found a distraught young analyst on the other side of the intercom, her mind in pieces and her body hyperventilating. I left her with a calming exercise but I don't think that's going to hold in the long run."

Nayna's mind was concocting and rejecting options, but that distracted her. "Calming exercise?"

"Told her to calculate the next twelve conjunctions between the Comet Aurolio and Planet Kenlen that happen while Kenlen is in the same quadrant as Lenlen. She used to be a pilot. It seemed to help her focus. But, if she is focused, I'm not sure that's making this any less dangerous."

Nayna lifted a finger. "It might. There is a command sequence that can change the door lock from 'threatened' to all clear so that we could enter even if she can't leave on her own. If we can talk her into it, we might defuse this whole situation with none the wiser."

"I didn't know about that."

Nayna frowned. "It was part of the standard briefing, I thought." Not for the first time, Nayna wondered if Bryder were suspected of anything. Not that he was short of freedom, but he was such a wildcard, treating the rules as disposable at his discretion. Just like this situation. "Well, let's go see if we can convince her. If not, Comm2 is right there and there might be other things we can do to keep this from escalating."

He'd already tucked her hand in his arm and was escorting her out. "I knew you were the right one to ask."

Nayna glanced around but there was no one in the hall with them. "Anyone else would have reported it. _As should I_. We'll both be compromised if this isn't successful."

"I have absolute faith that you will find an answer that does the least harm."

Nayna shook her head. "Why did it have to be EMC7?"

Bryder countered. "Why do they even have a control spot that can't be disabled? Bad planning."

"That's what I told them, but they're so suspicious. They wanted one that couldn't be subverted in case the information has been compromised. 'What are the odds an infiltrator will use that particular one?' they asked when I complained."

"That doesn't make a lick of sense. If someone is knowledgeable enough to use any of them, why wouldn't they use the one we can't disable?" Bryder counted.

"That's what _I_ said. They said they'd take it under advisement."

They slipped into an emergency lift that could only be accessed with the retina of a top-level analyst. "Why did Belger even rate access? He hasn't been a top-level analyst for decades," Bryder asked.

"My guess is his original clearance was still in a database."

"Clumsy. We'll need to do a review. Through here?"

Tucked between the two intergalactic comm stations, was an unmarked door with both retinal scanner, hand print and voice interfaces.

Bryder gestured Nayna back and approached the voice-activated intercom. "How you holding up there, Elan darlin'?"

"This is one of the stations where you can control everything in the Center, isn't it? I heard rumors but I wasn't sure." Even digitized, her voice sounded lifeless, as if she was in deep shock.

Bryder closed his eyes. "Yeah, but it's not as much fun as you make it sound. And you don't have to stay there with a dead body. We can help you get out."

"They'll kill me. You think I don't know that? They'll kill me or send me through that protocol again. I won't go. I'd die first."

"We won't let them kill you," Bryder said at once, perhaps too quickly.

"You know you can't stop them, even if you wanted to." Elan's voice had fallen to a dull whisper. "No one can save me. Just like no one could save her."

"Elan!"

"So why should the rest of you live?" Nayna knew— _knew_ —Elan couldn't be talked down, or not easily and not without risking everyone. What could she do? Minimize the impact, stall for time, and find new angles.

Nayna strode up to the intercom. "She's not dead!"

Elan's voice suddenly came to life with outrage. "You called the _ice queen_? You might as well shoot me yourself!"

"Elan, she hasn't told anyone."

"And I'm supposed to just believe that."

Nayna used the hand signals developed for pilots to communicate while in EVA in case of radio silence. 'Let me handle this.'

Nayna wasn't an expert in facial expressions, but she'd guess Bryder's was a few steps beyond skeptical. So she tried his favorite line. 'Trust me.'

Well, at least she had surprised him. When he nodded assent, reluctantly, she stunned him again by hitting the evacuation alarm. Claxons sounded and the overhead lights flashed red.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bryder demanded. Elan echoed him half a beat later.

"Now, only the three of us will be in danger. Even EMC7 can't override an evacuation code."

"I knew it! She's going to have me killed." The emotion drained away. "At least, I will have peace finally."

"Elan," Nayna said, after silencing the audible, "she's not dead. Your daughter, she's not dead."

"You're _lying!_ What do you know about my daughter?"

Nayna held her voice calm. "I am not lying. You've never told me about your daughter, but I know."

"She was a baby, just eight years old. A baby! They wouldn't even let me keep her!"

Nayna couldn't say anything in sympathy. She'd never had a child. She'd never known a mother. Her mother had given her up as a baby to be raised in a crèche. This passion, the devastation, this agony she heard in Elan's voice, she had no idea how to respond, so she focused on reason. "I read your personnel file when you came on. Your daughter was sent for language training on Absug. She's not dead."

"She _is_. They told me. There was an accident."

'Fucking bastards. That must have been part of her conditioning,' Bryder hand signed to her.

Nayna nodded. Why did extravehicular astronauts even need the word "fucking"?

"Elan, if I can get proof to you that she's alive, will you come out? Bryder and I will think of a story that will placate the higher-ups. Something that will spare you any more conditioning."

Elan said nothing.

"Elan, I don't want to lose you. You're a good analyst. Good instincts, thorough. If I could set your heart at rest, wouldn't you feel better? Maybe even become resigned to your fate here?"

"Are they taking care of her?" Nayna had to strain to catch the soft voice.

"I don't know. But I can find out. Will you give me some time?"

"How much?"

Nayna calculated. Tight beam could be established in twenty minutes but they'd need more time to find the daughter and put her on. "Give me an hour. I'll also give the evacuees an explanation so no one comes back in."

"And you expect me to believe you?"

"It's up to me to provide proof. If I fail you can kill us both along with yourself."

There was a pause. Bryder looked at her with a single brow raised.

"One hour. Not a minute more."

"Thank you, Elan."

This time it was Nayna grabbing Bryder's arm and dragging him into the intergalactic comm room, Comm2, after eyes and hands were scanned. "Bryder, I need your help."

"What can I do?"

"You're an agent and you get around. Do you know anyone on Absug? Yes I could call and request a transmission from Enna Peitt, but I'd have a hard time explaining why I wanted it. But, if you know someone..."

"Do you think I know someone at every facility in the Empire?" Bryder asked sternly.

Nayna raised her brows. "Yes?"

"Well, I don't. But I do know someone at the training facility on Absug. What do you need?"

"Live call would be great but a taped message to her mother and a recent photo would probably do just fine."

"Okay. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to contact our evacuees and give them an excuse to buy us some time. And then I'm going to figure out how to disable EMC7 in case we can't talk Elan out of there."

Bryder, already adjusting the knobs on the transmitter, stopped at that and turned back. "I thought EMC7 couldn't be disabled."

"Well, if they'd asked my input when they'd designed it, it could be disabled. But since they didn't, chances are they didn't think it all the way through. So I just have to find what they missed."

"And that is why I came to you," he said, chucking her under her chin.

"Yes, yes. Will you have a story to explain why there's a dead analyst in EMC7 and why no one has to be killed or put through conditioning over it?"

"Absolutely!"

Nayna sighed, feeling surprisingly relieved. "What is it?"

"I didn't say I had a story now. Stop distracting me." And Bryder turned his attention back to the transmitter.

Nayna used the shortwave to contact the Center Director outside the Center and explained that there was a spill of radioactive material. It wasn't as large as she'd first feared so she could get it cleaned up with some remote-controlled maintenance units, but she wanted to find out how it had leaked to ensure there wasn't another issue before she let others in.

The Center Director agreed at once as finding it quickly—and quietly—and safing it might keep her from having to report it further up the line. And the fewer that knew about it the better.

Fortunately, Nayna had happened on a spill some several months previously in an underused part of the Center, when she'd looked for some outdated records. She'd taken care of it in much the same way she'd described to the Center Director without reporting it and put the waste in restricted storage, so she had all the evidence she needed already.

With any luck, she'd pin the cause on the dead analyst in EMC7.

At a secure workstation, Nayna checked the emergency command system. Nominally, the whole Center schematics were not something she could delve into; however, the EMC system was intended to provide top personnel—and that included her—recourse in case of emergency, so the schematics for that system were available.

Enabling and disabling methods were as advertised for the other command modules, with no overt disabling mechanism in place for EMC7. Systems, other than the disabling ones, were intended to be invulnerable: redundant, fail-safe, isolated from access for tampering, isolated software with no commonality or communication. Control came from command signals, not software interactions.

However...

Bryder had finished with his message. "You've got something," he said as he turned back to her.

"Maybe. How did you know?"

"There's that look in your eyes. Watcha got? It's going to take a bit before I can get an answer, _if_ I can get an answer. They're looking for my friend now."

She pointed to the schematic on the screen, but he was focused on her face. She hoped she wasn't blushing. "One of the reasons EMC7 is considered invulnerable is that it's tied directly to the main power bus with no way to interrupt it. The main power bus also powers everything else in the Center with a large generator. There are secondary power buses capable of handling the load in case of emergency with their own power supplies, but it's pretty stable."

"That's not sounding like much of a plan."

"The other emergency control points all have a single point where they can be isolated from power, but EMC7 doesn't."

Bryder gave her his half-smile and motioned her to move along. "I'm still not hearing a plan and we don't have much time.

"Right, well, we can't disconnect EMC7 but what happens if a high-power system has a sudden drop in loading—a huge drop in loading?"

"Honey, I'm a spy, a pilot and a political analyst. I didn't learn everything about electrical systems except what I need to run my ship. Why don't you just give me the punchline?"

"There is usually a voltage spike, a big one when that happens. Now, some systems are designed to handle that if they'll see if often, but the EMCs were installed after the fact in the Center, when there was already a huge loading in place. I doubt they were equipped for it."

"Wait wait, don't most high-power systems adjust for that?"

Nayna raised a brow. "I thought you weren't an engineer."

Bryder shrugged. "That's important in ship systems where we run off batteries and can be exposed to cosmic storms."

"These systems do compensate, but not necessarily right away. Low impedance solid state power supplies respond very quickly. But this is an old generator, bet it will take half a second, maybe longer to react and you could see spikes upwards of 400 volts."

"Enough to trash the controls in EMC7," Bryder said.

"Or trip a circuit breaker and shut it down harmlessly, which is what I'm hoping for." She dug around in a maintenance cabinet for a tool kit. Ooh, and here was wire!

"But, wait, if you can't isolate EMC7, how can you isolate the rest of the loading?"

"The connection for EMC7's power is not accessible. The connection of the rest of the Center's systems to the power bus is down the hall." With a coil of wire over her shoulder and a tool kit in her hand, she left the comm room, only to have him pounding down the hall after her.

"You're going to shut down the whole center?" he said, grabbing her arm so she swung around to face him. "Are you nuts? That's data systems, that's life support, that's the comm system I'm listening to for a follow-up message. You can't do that."

"I didn't say I was going to. I'm going to move all those systems to the secondary buses at the same time. You won't even see a blip on your screen if I do it right, but there should be a damn fine power surge in EMC7. After it's disabled, I can switch it back. Now, go wait for your message. And trust _me_ for once."

He let her go sheepishly. "Don't you need the schematics?"

Nayna raised both brows.

"Oh, right, photographic memory. Good luck, then."

The power room was dusty but well organized. Given the power surging through that she would be interacting with, she activated the air shower to clear it out.

There were individual switches where they could remotely isolate this or that system, but what she needed was to isolate all systems, at once, or at least the big power draws, so she started installing bypasses for the systems to tie to a single switch, ensuring that she had the systems distributed to different secondary systems so no one system was suddenly carrying the whole load.

"Yo, Nayna," Bryder said from the door.

"What is it?" Nayna asked without ever slowing. Only three more systems left to wire and she could undo her handiwork in fifteen minutes with no one the wiser.

"I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that Elan's daughter is alive as you said and I can get a real communication going with her and a recent photo. Unfortunately, can't get it for another forty-five minutes."

"And my deadline ends in twelve. Okay, I want you to try to talk her down without it, Bryder. I'm going to turn up the gain on the outside intercom here so I can hear you talking to her. If she looks like she's going to snap and do something horrible, I'll throw my switch. If it disables her console, it should reset the door and you can get in with your credentials."

"And if it doesn't?"

Nayna smiled. "It's been nice working with you."

Bryder looked at her grimly, as she sat there, wires in her hands, high-powered systems humming centimeters below them, her face probably streaked with grime. And then he smiled. "Oh, no, beautiful. No way we're done any time soon. I've got an awful lot to tell you and do to you and it's going to take more than twelve minutes."

He blew her a kiss, a gesture she'd read about but had never seen anyone actually use. "You got this," he said with conviction, and left.

Nayna shook her head, trying to focus on the rest of her task. Only Bryder could shake her concentration. When—if—Elan decided to act, she had to be ready.

After the last wire was installed, Nayna manually turned up the outside speaker.

"No, I don't believe you!" Elan was screaming now. Clearly the time alone had not helped her mental state.

"You have to believe me," Bryder said with that sincerity that had worked its magic on Nayna herself quite a few times. "You can talk to your daughter, not a recording, in another thirty minutes. If you die now, if you kill us, you can't, and she'll be even more alone than she is now."

"You're lying! If you were working for me, you would never have brought that soulless stooge, Nayna, with you. You're just buying time so the Empire can send their attack squad to take me out!"

"How will they do that, Elan, without taking us out, too?"

But Nayna could hear it in Elan's voice; Elan was beyond reason. Nayna's fingers were moving even before Elan said in a much quieter voice. "Better I do it myself."

"Nayna!" he yelled, but she had already thrown the switch.

There was no fanfare, no squeals or claxons, no hisses or explosions. The lights didn't even dim. Nayna started counting backwards from thirty. If she heard nothing, her ploy had failed and they were all, at least the three of them, dead. When she reached eleven, she heard Bryder, distorted by two intercom systems. "I'm in, Nayna. Elan's out cold. I think she got shocked."

"I'll reset the system here and clean up so no one knows," Nayna said, hoping he could hear her. "You take care of her until the message comes through."

Nayna was inwardly surprised at her sympathy for Elan. Yes, Elan had endangered them all, but she had been put through torment first, had been goaded and mistreated, shorn from the person she treasured. Nayna didn't know what that was like, had never felt that way about anyone, and couldn't pretend she could imagine Elan's pain. But, when she had the thought that she might not see Bryder again, the thought disturbed her. His faith in her warmed her. Elan was a good analyst and had done nothing to deserve her many punishments. And _that_ , Nayna understood.

When Nayna left, having returned the power room to its former state, minus the dust, she heard Elan in the comm room as she stepped free. Bryder had left the door open and Elan was weeping openly as she talked to a youthful voice over tight beam. "Baby! Baby! You're alive!"

"I'm alright, Mother. They want to make an agent of me since I pick up languages so quickly. If I am, won't I be able to work with you?"

"Yes, but I'm just glad you're alive. You take care of yourself. Don't worry about me!"

"No, no, you have to take care of yourself. Remember someone loves you, Mother. Remember someone needs you to survive. Can you remember that, Mother?"

Elan sniffed, took a deep breath. "Yes, baby."

"Bryder, the man who contacted us, says he can relay messages to you from me. Will that make things easier?"

"Yes, baby."

"I love you, Mother. I have to go, but remember that. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I'm here and I love you."

Nayna stood frozen outside the door, her whole body wracked with longing for a sensation she'd never known. To be loved. To love someone so much that you could live for them even at a distance. What did that feel like?

Bryder surprised her when he wiped her cheeks, but she was not as surprised as when she saw his fingers left wet. She hadn't even noticed she was crying. "Do you know what that's like?" she breathed to him, not wanting to break the spell.

"Yeah."

"I wish..." Nayna shook her head. "Do you think Elan will be alright now?"

"Yes, I think this helped her a great deal. I'll go let everyone in and blame the whole thing on Belger. You get the evidence of the spill, which I have no doubt you have handy, in line so we don't get any more suspicion than necessary.

"Yes," she said, shaking her head, wiping the last of her tears off her face. "Will you...?"

"Will I what, beautiful?"

"Will you, can you tell me what it's like to love like that? To be loved?"

Bryder surprised her again by kissing her gently on the forehead. "I can. Sooner than you think."

About the Author

"We're all mad here." - Lewis Caroll

My name is Stephanie Barr and I write books, fantasy and science fiction and combinations thereof. A lot of them. My website (with my list of books available) can be found at stephanieebarr.us. I'm also a rocket scientist, raising my two autistic children as a single mother, and herding a bunch of cats. I have three blogs, which are sporadically updated: Rocket Scientist, Rockets and Dragons, and The Unlikely Otaku. Anything else even vaguely interesting about me can be found in my writing since I put a little bit of myself in everything I write—just not the same piece. Those pieces are all parts of my characters such as:

**A four hundred year old shut-in who reads fortunes and a care-for-nobody demon with a scruffy cat** [Tarot Queen]

A **mercenary swordsman cum sorcerer and a rule-abiding self-assured sorceress/warrior who never asks for help, and, of course, six snarky telepathic kittens**. [Curse of the Jenri] or

**A clever thoughtful young man who thinks he's weak who can turn into a dragon and a sweet generous young healer who knows her own worth and wields a dangerous wooden spoon** [Beast Within \- Bete Book 1] or

**A pugnacious firebrand who can think well in a crisis but feels in the shadow of his foster brother and a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued engineer with a lightning temper and even quicker mind with even more snarky telepathic kittens**. [Nine Lives \- Bete Book 2] or

**A clever teen pursuing an older woman finds himself and all his friends captured by unfriendly natives who rip his powers away with their potions so he'll have to use his brain to escape as a self-righteous snake finds his notions challenged first by a tiny psychic kitten, then by a native of indeterminant gender.** [Twice the Man – Bete Book 3] or

**A teenage technological genius, short on social skills but long on dedication to those he loves and a scrappy girl who punches first and asks question later** [Saving Tessa] or

**A by-the-book analyst finds herself on the wrong side of the government she's always worked for and, with her crazy companion, takes it down. **[Ideal Insurgent **]** or

**A dragon-raised hermity mage who's given up on the world and a former slave who doesn't know the meaning of the word impossible** [Taming of Dracul Morsus] or

**A rocket scientist who finds a moment of anger turns into changing the world and she needs to do more or it will fall to darkness and she has a number of crazy men to help her** [Catalyst] or

**A repressed scholar finds the ultimate treasure, a library where the books can literally take you into other words. Coming back, however, is something else.** [The Library at Castle Herriot] or

L **iterally dozens of other characters in my anthologies** [Legacy and Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing] **and my book of poetry** [Musings of a Nascent Poet]. **And many more feline friends to find in** Pussycats Galore **, another anthology.**

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Preview of Ideal Insurgent

### 1One - Random Variable

There are few feelings quite as heady as eliciting a reaction from someone who is generally unflappable.

-Guide to Life _by Bryder_

He couldn't help smiling when he watched her. As always, she was brilliant, even when the issue in question was hand-to-hand combat. No move was wasted, the angle of the hand, the placement of the foot, each precise and exactly calculated for maximum leverage with minimal effort. Not that she was short on strength. He knew she kept up with weight training and could probably lift him handily though he had a good fifteen kilos on her.

But using her strength was clumsy...inelegant, not for someone as discriminating and precise as Nayna. Her opponent, on the other hand, was an old school brute, rippling with muscle, but slow and unsophisticated in movement. He was clearly a brawler, with the short temper and heavy-handed movements that goes with someone used to winning through sheer force. And frequently. It was a battle between the stiletto and the hammer.

The hammer didn't stand a chance. His ponderous swipes were dodged with so little effort, it was as if he had aimed elsewhere. She danced around him, peppering punches and kicks to all his vital areas, but pulled so he wasn't taken down with each blow. But there was no mistaking she could have taken him down at any time.

They sparred in Training Room P, where most field agent classes began. Students, chosen from the smartest and strongest of soldier and civil servant, sat cross-legged like school-children dressed in novice black on one side of the fighting square while Nayna, the Instructor-in-Charge, demonstrated how very far they had to go. The room, like most of the Center, was gray: dark gray approaching charcoal on the walls of firm foam, lighter gray like storm clouds for the padding of the square where Nayna teased her recruit. The irony was, of course, that Nayna had never actually seen a storm cloud, except, perhaps in pictures.

Along the wall on the other side of the square was a line of chairs for the instructors, dressed in the colors of their field rank but in sober muted shades in keeping with their dignity. There was also the chair Bryder had snagged for himself. He never missed the first day of class if he could avoid it. He knew she hadn't missed him since he alone wore vibrant cobalt blue.

Bryder wasn't much for dignity.

Without a word, Nayna was teaching, teaching her opponent that his previous methods weren't going to be enough here, not against people like her, and showing another newbie class how important technique was over brute strength. She taught them that appearances had next to nothing to do with ability. Slim and pale as a wraith with her white-blonde hair cut close to the scalp and skin almost as pale as her white jumpsuit, she looked perfectly harmless next to the heavily muscled frame of her opponent, nearly a quarter meter taller than she was, though she was not short. Or rather, she would have looked harmless if no one noticed the steel gray of her eyes. One glance into those and the perceptive would know exactly why she was dangerous. She could have lectured for three weeks and not brought home that lesson as effectively as she did in that three minutes of dancing around the enraged recruit.

Winded, undoubtedly aching in a number of places, well aware that he was being made fun of, Nayna's assailant had a face purple with fury. Bryder wasn't close enough to hear what the boy muttered under his breath, but he didn't doubt it was unpleasant, probably something dismissive to Nayna's gender, her slender frame, and her methods. He had all the earmarks of a bully, and Bryder had no doubt Nayna had realized this, had chosen him for this reason. The brute was apparently bright enough to catch on, too, that his bullying potential would be ruined if he lost to this slim slip of a girl.

Too bad.

If what he'd said disturbed her, Nayna let nothing show on her face. Nor did she change her tactics. As his attempted blows became sloppier, slower, clumsier, she used as much force as necessary to let him know she had the upper hand, but no more. His steps faltered as he nearly lost his balance after every attempted blow, but she chose not to take advantage of it. Then, when he charged her, the class was shocked to see her stand her ground.

As Bryder expected, she moved with the charge and allowed the recruit's own momentum slam him to the ground. Before he could move, he was pinned, the edge of her hand against his jugular. "Yield," she said implacably, loud enough for all to hear. "You will not lose less by losing consciousness, but you will prove you're too stupid to be in my class. Tap out." The brute waited until Bryder suspected his world was going a different kind of gray before tapping twice on the mat. He was released immediately.

As her opponent lay, gasping, she stood gracefully and addressed the class. "Most of you have some level of skills and smarts or you wouldn't be here. Here, we train elite agents for the Empire, those that will negotiate on the Empire's behalf with other civilizations, those that will interact with our allies, and those that will infiltrate to look for insight into our enemies. The skills you have now, the smarts you have now, they will not be enough. Only the very best become a field agent through this office. Be prepared and watch for..." she spared the recovering student a glance, "overconfidence."

"How long have you been a field agent, Instructor Nayna?" one student asked.

Not by a flicker of an eyelash did she betray her pain. "That's classified. Please hold all questions until after the class and provide them electronically. That will allow me to address them in the next session and allow for anonymity. A tool you will all find useful. You will be in competition with each other, but we will not provide you easy metrics with which to compare. Best to look to improving yourself rather than measuring yourselves against your classmates, especially since much of what you will learn will be cooperative. I want each of you to be able to spar with or work in conjunction with any other member of this class on command. If that becomes an issue, you may find yourself disqualified. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Instructor Nayna."

"Good. Now, is there any other volunteer who wishes to test their skills in hand-to-hand against mine? Once in a while, we do find a skillful practitioner that allows us to expand our own knowledge. Having seen me in action, anyone else think you're up for it?"

The class became motionless, almost as if they were afraid to breathe.

Nayna smiled but urged. "Surely, some of you are skillful. I'd love to put you through your paces."

The sentiment did not appear to be mutual.

Bryder couldn't help himself. "Ooh, ooh, pick me," he shouted out, standing up.

Irritation rippled across her features for the first time that day, quickly schooled, but she couldn't keep the frustration out of her sighed, "Bryder."

He grinned. "Instructor Nayna, over here! Pick me!" He began to jump up and down, waving his arms. "Let me do it!"

He could hear the chuckles from the other instructors, even some of the class. For himself, he could have crowed with triumph when Nayna rolled her eyes. To the best of his knowledge, Bryder believed he was the only person capable of eliciting an emotional response from her.

"Bryder, why are you even here? You're not an instructor for this class." Her eyes flicked over his form and then back to his face. He knew she was despairing over his flamboyance though she said nothing.

Bryder stopped bouncing and assumed an innocent guise as he approached. "But, Instructor Nayna, one should never stop learning. I always find your classes in hand-to-hand so edifying."

He could have sworn she bit back a curse word. Instead, she calmed her features and said sweetly, "Analyst Agent Bryder, I think your skills have been well established. You've been a field agent for how many years?"

"That's classified." He smiled and took delight in her realization that she had walked right into that one. He must have really rattled her. Perfect. "C'mon. Chicken? You know, I haven't beaten you. Yet."

Her eyes narrowed as they did when she was deeply analyzing something. He knew she suspected that he had let her win more than once, but she couldn't be sure. Hell, he wasn't sure himself. She sighed a tiny sigh. "Very well."

She went back to the fighting square and he was pleased to see her class was visibly excited to see a match at a different level than before. "Let's not disappoint them," he murmured.

When she turned to face him, her face was resigned. She went into a very relaxed and reactive stance. Bryder, as usual, basically stood there, completely loose and receptive. Only a few seconds into their "match" she sighed again, softly enough only he heard it, and changed to a more aggressive posture. In general, she preferred to move defensively, reacting to whatever style her opponent had and using their aggression against them. Bryder wasn't going to let her, so they could either stand expectantly forever or she'd have to do the moving. He knew she hated being manipulated.

She went with speed and going to his inside, nominally the opposite of what she should do given her kicking skills and his greater bulk. She was slippery, though, and hard to catch so he had to adjust. Response was his own gift with hand-to-hand, reading the other's methodology and automatically countering it. As she slid inside, intending some painful blows to his midsection, or perhaps his throat, he stepped behind her and tapped her kidney. He could have struck harder but she had already been rolling away from him, so it would have been glancing at best. But she'd know he hadn't hit his hardest.

Damn, he loved messing with her. She was good, always had been, cold and calculating, precise and perfect placement. Easily, she was his most difficult opponent, while his own chaotic system, often moving before conscious thought, confounded her, flustered her, even frustrated her. But it put on a hell of a show for the recruits. She moved, he countered in ways she didn't expect. She adjusted but he was already attacking in a different way. She always just defended, just missed, or they landed glancing blows past each others' spinning, blocking, gyrating forms. It was like dancing but with less enjoyable body contact.

Somehow, and even he didn't know if she outsmarted him or he allowed it, she tripped him up and pinned him to the mat, a position he always relished. "Yield," she said, a little winded, small beads of sweat running from her hair, spiky from perspiration.

"Nah," he said, "I've always wanted to fall asleep in your arms."

"Liar," she breathed with an edge that almost sounded hurt.

He tapped out immediately. "Nayna? What is it?" he whispered.

"Analyst Agent Bryder, please wait until after class. I have a few items to discuss with you," she added softly, but not so softly a few students didn't hear. She lifted her head and spoke up to the class. "If you succeed in this class and achieve field agent status, you, too, may be able to hold your own against me, or one of the other instructors. But, you won't do it without hard training and attentive learning to the skills we'll share with you."

"Like Analyst Agent Bryder's?" one of the students asked, clearly enthralled.

"I'm afraid, no one else has managed to duplicate that particular technique," Nayna said with some asperity. "But, as you can see, even his technique can be overcome...probably."

She had to hate adding that "probably," but she was too exact a person to not include the qualifier. That was why he loved her, among other reasons.

The class was herded out by the other instructors who were doing their best to hide their own smiles. Everyone had certainly been given food for thought. The lout she'd fought earlier, stopped and bowed to Nayna. "Thank you for the lesson, Instructor Nayna."

"Your willingness to learn serves you well," she nodded in return, using a set phrase common to training. Even so, he walked a little taller as he left.

As the door closed, Bryder stepped up close to her. "Man, some of the recruits they send."

"Intimidation, if the temper can be controlled, is not without uses, but it's a limited technique even then. If he can expand past that, he could have the skill as an asset without being bound by it."

"Ever the optimist."

"I read your report on the proposed setup of Gorler. I found it inadequate."

Bryder smiled unapologetically but said, "How could that be? Did I not provide names for each key position in the provisional government?"

"Yes, and effectively nothing else. You can't set up an entire planet's governance in four pages. There was no explanation for your picks, only the briefest explanation of structure and emphasis to take best advantages of the resources available."

"The explanation isn't going to do them any good. They won't question my choices and you don't either or you would have said so from the beginning."

"I can discern a rationale that supports those choices, though they aren't necessarily my own top choices, as usual. I can't even evaluate your analysis because you didn't include it. Why did you choose Hunter for instance? He's had trouble keeping staff because he tends to be overbearing and self-absorbed. He's a noted misogynist and theirs is a matriarchal society."

"He gets results. There's nothing he's been in charge of that hasn't had improved production."

"Because he's ruthless."

"You say that like it's a bad thing. These are a conquered people. Gentle persuasion is not going to be effective."

She folded her lips. "I just wish there were another way. And I've had complaints about the increasing vagueness of your reports. Show your work, Bryder. It's our job."

He shrugged. "We can't all elucidate every decision we make. Some of us use instinct."

"I'm not sure instinct is good enough rationale for all of your decisions. I'm not the only one who wants you to expand a bit."

"I'll see what I can do." He waited and she, uncharacteristically, didn't meet his eyes. "Nayna, is there something else? Something wrong?"

When she turned those shimmering gray eyes on him, he was stunned by their intensity, touched by the trouble he saw in them. "Did you let me win?"

"I don't know," he told her honestly.

"How can _you_ not know?" she asked, clearly exasperated.

"Same way I know how to set up a governing body. Some things I just know." He sighed. "I don't know if I'm letting you win because I'm not thinking about it consciously at the time. I like being pinned by you. I like being beaten by you, though not by anyone else. And, because I don't know if I even really want to win, I don't know if the part of me that makes my decisions arranges things so you come out ahead or if it's just that I'm not quite good enough to beat you."

Her skepticism did not appear to have been diminished. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm a very difficult man."

She didn't argue with that, couldn't probably, so he chucked her on the chin so he wouldn't be tempted to do more. She was so adorable when she was confused.

Nayna was certainly worth hanging around a little longer for. Now, if he could just convince her...

