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Epilogue

Katherine took a deep breath and immediately jolted back to get out of Alex's reach. The fighting was still going on, but it had turned hot all of a sudden.

She opened her eyes, where had Alex gone? Why hadn't he finished her? They'd been fighting. She'd seen the knife come up, she'd felt...

She put a hand under her jaw, blood was caked on, her front was covered with dried blood. It couldn't be hers, no one could survive losing that much blood.

Whose it was didn't matter, there was more pressing matters to deal with, like where was Tristan? If Alex had left, it was a good bet they were both gone. At least they still had to be on the ship, somewhere.

She got to her feet and looked around. The fighting was chaotic, as it always was, but it seemed to her that her people weren't only fighting Baran's men, but each other. Same with Baran's men. No one seemed to care who they were fighting. What was going on?

"That's enough!"

No one heard her. She found a Kataran Carbine by her feet, the power cell had more than half a charge. She fired a few times over everyone's head. It didn't have any effect. She watched them, Morrison stabbed Friday in the chest, then turned and cut one of Baran's men's throat only to then attempt to kill one of her new recruits whose name she couldn't recall.

She shot him in the shoulder. She fired in the crowd, careful to only injured her people, but Baran's men she shot to kill. It took a dozen bodies before the fighting slowed enough one of her people noticed her.

Carpenter kicked her opponent in the balls then backed away, drawing the attention of the people around her to Katherine. They separated from Baran's men and kept their hands at their sides. She could see barely controlled wildness in some of their eyes.

One of Baran's men noticed her and charged with a scream. She shot him in the heart. The others seemed busy fighting each other still. She let them.

"What's going on? Where did Tristan go? How many people did we lose?"

Loren stepped forward. His clothing was torn and bloody, but she didn't seem to have any injuries herself. She pointed to the man Katherine had just killed.

"That's what's going on." Her voice trembled.

Katherine watched as the man shuddered. The brain's last neurons firing blindly. Why was Loren, a veteran merc afraid of a dying--the man took a breath.

Katherine lowered her weapon in shock. He couldn't be breathing, she'd seen the hole she'd made in his chest. She stepped to him, keeping an eye on anyone who might want to jump her. The wound in his chest was almost entirely gone.

She took a step back and pointed the carbine at his head.

"It's happening to all of us."

Katherine jumped and aimed at Loren, who raised her hands.

"I've been killed three or four times already, but it doesn't stick."

Katherine touched under her jaw. The knife had been coming at her. She swallowed and pushed the thought away. "And that gave you an excuse to just go nuts?"

Loren looked away. "I freaked out, we all did. This--this isn't natural."

Katherine couldn't blame her, not when what she wanted to do was empty the carbine in the healing man.

"Alright, you freaked out, under the circumstance it's understandable, but that's done now." She looked at her people. "Is that understood? You are better than that." Some of them were still nervous, and not only the young ones, but they all nodded. "Arm yourselves and break this fighting up. Shoot to kill if needed and tie them up before they," she shuddered, "come back to life."

She stood out of the way, ready to provide cover as needed, but now that they had orders they were doing their job.

She felt beads of sweat roll down her face. "Carpenter!" the young woman looked her way. "What's going on with this heat?"

She shrugged. "No idea, it was like this when I woke up."

"Then go find out. You're the coercionist here, not me."

She rubbed the sweat off her face and it felt wrong. She found a reflective surface and looked at her face, her undamaged face. The skin was smooth and pink. Any evidence of the explosion she'd survived was gone. She smiled. At least one good thing had come from this.

Her people weren't gentle in breaking up the fight, a third of Baran's men were 'dead' by the time the rest got the message and stopped.

Carpenter came back. "Life support's on the fritz. Air's fine, but the cooling barely works."

"Can you fix it?"

"The problem is hardware, not computer related. But there's another problem, I can't find the computer core anywhere within the systems."

"It's dead?"

"No, we'd be in the dark if it was, but someone, I'm going to guess Alex, did an amazing job of blocking access to it."

"But you can bet he still has control."

"You know him better than I do, but yeah, it would be stupid for him to lock himself out of it. He probably has a hard line access."

"The bridge."

Carpenter shrugged. "Possibly."

"Boss?" Brad called. He was on the other side of the large engineering room, standing over a large form. For a moment Katherine's heart leaped at the thought Tristan had been killed in the middle of this mess, but then she saw it wasn't furry. The form was covered with bony plates.

She stood over the body, it had healed, but with the head missing, it hadn't come back to life.

"Oh Jurran." She knelt next to him. His body was still warm. She shuddered as she realized it was as alive as it could get. Blood pumping, heart beating. Whatever had happened to them didn't have any respect for the dead, and she didn't have the time to make sure his life was ended properly.

She placed his massive hands on his chest. "I hope you and Armiln are together in whatever afterlife you believe in." She stood.

"Should I put his head back?" Brad indicated it. "Maybe he'll come back too?"

"No. He died avenging his lover, we're not taking that away from him."

She turned to face her prisoners. They were pissed, as was expected. Most of the ones who were tied up were awake.

"Alright, you lot listen up. I'm going to make it simple. I'm in charge now. If you want--"

"I don't answer to you." The man was her height, but he had a few hundred pounds of muscle on her.

"Alright, who do you answer to?"

The man looked around and his gaze fell on a body lying on the ground. One of the very few who hadn't woken up. The knife planted under his jaw probably had something to do with it. She felt under hers again.

"I don't hear him contradicting me."

"Yeah? Well I am. I don't take orders from a bi--"

She struck him with all the strength her cybernetic arm could generate in the face. It caved in, he staggered back and then fell.

"Tie him up." She rubbed her shoulder, it ached in a way her arm had never caused before.

"Now, I can kill you. Your leader over there even shows us how to make it permanent, but I'd rather not have to do that. My job is simple, kill Tristan. Once I've done that we leave, and you get your ship back. You can either help me or stay locked in here. I don't care, but the more of us are on this, the quicker it's going to get done."

"Are you nuts? I'm not staying on this ship, there's something wrong with this place. As soon as the door's open I'm jumping in an escape pod."

"No you're not. Tie this one up too. No one is going anywhere until I'm done. Are any of you good at repairing stuff? I need someone to look at life support, this heat is annoying."

They looked at each other, but it was clear none of them knew anything about repairs. Unfortunately She'd lost her mechanic back on Bramalian Six and hadn't been able to replace him.

"I guess we'll have to live with the heat then. Anyone else wants to stay here until I'm ready to leave?" Shakes of the head all around. "Good. You behave and help me and things will go much faster. Carlie, see about getting those doors open. Carpenter, see if you can find out the status of the escape pods."

If Tristan had left, she was going to be pissed. She wasn't worried about her ship, no one could take control of it, she'd seen to it.

When everyone who'd been a problem was tied up, the man who'd said he wanted out looked at her. "I'm going to help."

"Why should I believe you? What's to say you aren't going to run off the moment the door opens?"

"I swear I won't. Please, don't leave me in here alone with those things." He indicated the still dead bodies. "What if they wake up?"

She nodded. That was a valid point, and hopefully incentive enough to ensure his good behavior. She cut his restraints and he hurried to go help with the door.

She made sure to be the first one out of the room, the corridor was just as hot. There was no one. The ship was eerily quiet. Even some of the sounds of it functioning were missing.

As she expected, someone ran, no, two someones. She shot them in the back and only when the bodies were brought to her was she surprised to note neither was the man she'd released. He'd actually kept his word. The two were tied up and dumped back in the room before the doors were forced closed again.

She couldn't see everyone in the corridor, she should have done this in engineering, but she'd wanted to get out of that creepy place too.

"Alright, we're going to split up and check the entire ship. Tris--"

"Boss?" it was one of the new recruits. Johanson, she thought his name was. "Shouldn't we get out of here?"

"Not until we've dealt with Tristan. I'm not letting him slip away, especially not if he's here."

"But boss, why would he still be here?"

"Because he's Tristan and we're still alive. You don't know him. There's no way he'll accept that we're not dead. He will find a way to kill us, so we need to find him first and end him. Is that clear?"

It was reluctant, but he agreed, as did the others.

"Good. It's going to be one of mine with a few of the rest of you. Only mine are going to be armed. And if you try anything, they will kill you, and make sure you stay dead. Loren divide everyone up. I want two teams to go around and check the escape pods. Their life support is independent so Tristan might be using one of them as a base of operation. The rest is going to check the ship room by room, look everywhere, because you have no idea where Tristan might be hiding. My team is heading to the bridge so Carpenter can get control of the ship."

It took a few minutes, but then she, Carpenter, Friday and Loren, along with twelve of Baran's men were on their way.

They had to take the ladders to go up the ship, the lifts weren't working. But they didn't encounter any resistance. It looked like Tristan had locked everyone up in engineering, leaving the ship for him and Alex.

Baran was missing, but considering he'd pissed off Tristan, there was probably nothing left of him. The biochemist was also gone, and that concerned her. Could she be responsible for what was happening to them? Katherine couldn't believe there was some sort of medication that could cause this, but medicine wasn't something she knew anything about. Maybe Tristan was having her come up with a way to reverse it.

They had to use force to open the doors, and the heat was intense when they entered, but the room was dark. No illumination, not lights on the boards. Even the outside view was blocked.

Carpenter was able to get power back, but only to a few of the boards. Sensors were offline.

"Get me an outside view. I want an idea of where we are."

The others moved about, staying out of her way. Carpenter had trouble making it happen, but eventually the shields retracted and light filled the bridge.

So much light that before Katherine could turn away her sight had been burned away. It couldn't be what she thought it had been, she thought as she blinked and tried to see again.

To her relief, her sight did return, but the bridge was darker. She worried that her vision had been permanently damaged, but then realized the screen had polarized itself to keep them safe.

"Katherine?" Carpenter said. "You know when you said that Tristan wouldn't leave the ship until he'd made sure we were all dead?"

Katherine didn't reply. What she was looking at was just too overwhelming. They were so close to it the screen was filled and she could see the current of plasma on its surface.

Carpenter's voice was far too calm for the situation they were in. The others were already screaming and running out, as if there was anywhere on the ship that would be safe. No wonder it was so hot in here.

"Do you think that's enough of a guaranty? Do you think there's any chance we can survive?"

Katherine looked at the young coercionist and she was looking back at her pleading for hope. Katherine looked back at the screen and the small section of the sun that filled it.

No, there was no way they could survive that.