A single dinner between Yen and Keryn turned into dinner nearly every night as the Revolution traveled toward the inevitable conflict with the Terran Fleet. Regardless of where they wound up — be it at the ship’s mess hall, one of the few restaurants on board, or even a home cooked meal within one of their two quarters — they were rarely seen together without a console between them, displaying previous battle plans and going over both traditional and non-conventional strategies. For Keryn, she seemed to gleam quite a bit more from the non-conventional warfare than she did from standard attack patterns. Much like she had been trained from a young age during her warrior training, she had been taught to always be on your opponent’s blind side, striking at his weaknesses. She saw no reason to approach space combat any differently.
Though she absorbed all she could from the training sessions, simulations, and console explanations that Yen offered, she couldn’t deny a strong desire to spend time with him. Yen was remarkable in nearly every way. He told countless war stories from his time in covert operations, which included both Infantry and some minor Fleet encounters. She also found that they thought very much alike, with Yen offering his insight on abnormal strategies which Keryn yearned to implement into real combat scenarios.
After weeks of training and tactics, Keryn’s confidence had grown exponentially, though she still had trouble shaking her memory of the abysmal loss during the Defiant training exercise. Aside from Yen and Adam, she talked to few of the Infantry soldiers assigned to the Cair Ilmun. She didn’t know what they thought of her or if they had any confidence in her abilities when they faced the Terran Fleet, but she knew that she wouldn’t let them down. Still, the nervous recognition of her own failure hovered over her like a storm cloud.
Keryn quickly realized that a lot of her brooding came from the fact that all she and Yen had done together for nearly two weeks was study and train. She knew that they both needed a break.
As they sat together in Yen’s quarters one night, Keryn set down her console and rubbed tired eyes. “Can you really read minds?” she asked.
Yen smiled and flicked the switch that would turn off his own console. “So I take it we’re done studying for the night?”
“Yes,” Keryn conceded, “we’re done studying. Now answer the question.”
“I can read minds, though it’s spotty at best. It’s not so much that I get clear words from the other person. More accurately, I get senses and feelings; sort of a kaleidoscope of emotions that paint a picture in my mind. I see what they see via their thought patterns more than their actual words.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Not really. Take right now for instance,” Yen said, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes as though in deep conversation. “I’m getting the impression that you long to have sex with me.”
Keryn laughed. “I guess that power of yours really is spotty, superhero.”
Yen shrugged. “I didn’t have to use powers to figure that one out.”
Keryn’s blushed. She grasped for a change of subject. “What else can you do, aside from embarrass innocent women?”
Yen leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He obviously wanted to find something to do that would definitively impress Keryn. Finally finding his answer, he leaned forward, placing his right hand on the table, palm skyward. “This is something that I’ve been working on for over a year now and only recently perfected. Prepare to be amazed.”
The air around Yen began to shimmer, wavering as though heat was rolling from his skin. The wavering air flickered angrily as he concentrated. In the palm of his hand, a single blue tendril began to extend toward the ceiling. It shook unsteadily for a moment before settling. The top of the tendril tipped forward like a serpent’s head, glancing side to side as though examining its new surroundings. The head of the tendril turned around and looked at Yen before tilting to the side inquisitively, awaiting its next orders.
“That’s amazing,” Keryn said, laughing at the amount of personality present in such an inanimate object. “It’s almost like it’s alive.”
Yen’s smile was weak as he strained to maintain his psychic projection. “Sometimes it feels alive,” Yen explained. “I may be the one manifesting it, but it comes with its own personality, like it’s less an extension of me and more a self-aware servant of mine.”
Keryn’s eyes narrowed. “So you don’t control it? What if it gets out of control and starts doing real damage?”
Yen shook his head, his eyes never leaving the tendril. His voice seemed to come from far away as he spoke through the shimmering air around him. “Think of it like your Voice. It’s a part of you, but clearly doesn’t control you. I can dismiss it with a thought if it gets out of control, but that’s never happened. It may seem to have its own mind, but it still shares mine as well, which means that it knows my intent and ambitions.”
“I think it’s cute, but what can you use it for?” Keryn asked, watching the tendril twist around itself in Yen’s palm like a young animal searching for something to do out of boredom.
“It’s a physical manifestation of my power, but it’s still incorporeal. I can pass it through any armor, clothing, or skin. And, because it’s made of psychic energy, I can use it to lash out at an opponent and disrupt his nervous system. Send one of these against a Terran in a full battle suit and it will disable him without ever firing a shot.”
“Useful,” Keryn said as a statement more than a question. “I like it.”
“That’s not all it can do, you know,” Yen said cryptically as a smile crept across his face. “These little tendrils can have quite a few other uses.”
“Like what…” Keryn began before stopping in mid sentence, her breath frozen in her throat.
Beneath the table, from Yen’s other palm, a second tendril extended toward Keryn. The tendril passed insubstantially through the thin uniform pants Keryn wore. As it brushed across the skin beneath, the tendril activated nerve clusters and pleasure receptors. The pleasurable signal was carried to Keryn’s brain, instantaneously driving her hormones wild and causing her entire body to flush.
Gasping for air, she finally managed to speak. “Stop,” she said, her lips quivering.
Though obviously strained from the effort of maintaining two tendrils, Yen still managed a strong laugh as he withdrew both tendrils. The air around him stopped moving and the room settled back into its former self.
“I told you,” Yen said as he continued laughing, “it has many, many other uses.”
“Don’t…” Keryn managed, her eyes closed as she tried to settle her wayward emotions. “Don’t ever do that without warning me first!” Her breath was still ragged as she tried to control her pounding heartbeat.
They sat in silence for quite some time as Keryn regained control of herself. She fought against the obvious desire to act on her spiked lust knowing that her acting on it was exactly what Yen had intended when he sent the tendril her way. Finally, her body calmed though she still felt a stirring of desire burning in her belly. She also didn’t dare stand, knowing that her legs were probably unstable.
“You’re an ass,” Keryn said, opening her eyes slowly and staring at the still smiling Yen.
“I have my moments,” Yen joked.
“It makes me wonder how many women have been exposed to your little tendrils.” In one swift moment, she had shifted the balance of power out of Yen’s hands and into her own.
Yen was caught with his mouth open, unsure of how to reply. She had deftly turned the tables on him, leaving him wondering if he could talk his way out of the situation. Of course Keryn had not been the first woman exposed to his powers like that, though he wouldn’t have expected her sharp mind to connect those dots quite that quickly. He stammered, hoping that he could find the right thing to say, but was finally saved when the transponders they both wore crackled to life, broadcasting a message to everyone on board the Revolution.
“All hands to battle stations,” Captain Hodge’s voice called over the ship-wide intercom channel. “This is not a drill. We are approaching the Terran Fleet. I say again, all hands to their battle stations.”
Keryn and Yen looked at one another in surprise as the message began to replay, their previous encounter already forgotten. They both leapt to their feet, knocking over their respective chairs in their hurry. Reaching the door, Keryn glanced over her shoulder.
“I’ll see you at the Cair Ilmun,” she said, before disappearing into the hall.
The rush through the ship was difficult, with everyone running one way or the other as they tried to get into uniform and man their respective battle stations. Keryn shoved her way past the slower movers, intent on reaching her quarters, slipping into her flight suit, and getting to her ship before the rest of her team. The message had been unclear about how long they had until the Terran Fleet came into range, but Keryn wasn’t willing to take the chance of being late. Reaching her quarters, she inputted her code and moved quickly into the cool darkness beyond. Before the overhead lights had fully flickered to life, she was in the bedroom pulling her flight suit free from its hangar. She dropped her clothes to the ground, not worrying about putting them away as she slipped into her one-piece suit. Clipping her belt around her waist, she drew both her pistol and long knife from the cabinet and attached them to her belt. Feeling ready, she turned and hurried toward the hangar bay.
Within the bay, pilots and crews ran madly from one end to the other, conducting pre-flight checks and arming the multitude of weapons tubes hanging heavily under the wings of their respective ships. At the far end of the bay, Keryn saw a large group of pilots prepping a ship she hadn’t truly been exposed to before: the Weapons Platform. Consisting of little more than a dozen large bore plasma missile tubes surrounding a single cockpit and engine, the Weapons Platform was capable of maneuvering closer to the enemy Destroyers before launching a dozen Cruiser-grade plasma rockets toward its target. Though slow and bulky, the Weapons Platform offered yet another resource for surprising and ultimately destroying the Terran Fleet.
No surprise to Keryn, by the time she arrived at the Cair Ilmun Yen was already examining the outer hull. He offered her only the briefest of acknowledgements before going back to his examination. Adam placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as he passed, carrying a large arsenal of weapons before dropping them in the crew compartment. Keryn felt nervous; not only because they were going to war but because this time, as she recalled from Yen telling her repeatedly, there would be no room for mistakes. If she screwed up this time as she had before, she would not only lose her own life but that of Yen and Adam as well. While she would mourn her own death, she refused to be responsible for the deaths of those she cared so much about.
The rest of her insertion team rushed over to the ship, decked in full battle armor and carrying their own collection of weapons. Each carried a pistol and rifle and had a knife and a series of grenades strapped to their hip. To her surprise, as they passed, they all offered words of encouragement and confident smiles. Keryn smiled in return, feeling bolstered by their confidence in her.
Before she was even able to slip into the Cair Ilmun, she saw some of the Duun fighters rolling forward, pre-positioning for launch. Though the message had been cryptic, Keryn quickly realized that someone knew the timeline and, judging from everyone else’s actions, they would soon be launching against the Terrans. She hurried inside the Cair Ilmun, letting the door slide closed and seal behind her. In the cool darkness of the crew compartment, she met the stern stares of the Infantry soldiers, already strapped into their seats. Though no one said as much, she knew something needed to be said.
“I’m not the best at motivational speeches,” Keryn admitted. “I’ve never had a lot of opportunities to try to motivate someone else. But I don’t think I need to tell you what’s about to happen. I know a lot is riding on me. Hell, all of our lives are riding on my ability to fly us to one of the Terran Destroyers. I may not have given you a lot of reasons to trust me before, but I promise you that I will not let you down. You will get to one of the Destroyers, even if it kills me.”
The silence that ensued was finally broken by a gruff Pilgrim voice. “We trust you, Keryn,” Adam said. “Make us proud.”
A chorus of support broke from the rest of the team. Smiling, Keryn walked up to the cockpit. Sitting in the copilot’s chair, Yen nodded to her as she entered. “They believe in you,” he said. “We all do.”
“I need you to do me a favor, Yen,” Keryn said a little sheepishly, hoping not to offend him.
“Name it.”
“I need you to go back to the back and join the rest of the team. If I’m going to do this, then it’s something I need to do alone. You won’t always be there to support me and give me advice, so I need to learn to succeed entirely on my own.”
To her surprise, Yen smiled as he unbuckled his restraints. Standing, he placed his hand on her shoulder. “Good luck, Keryn,” he whispered. He walked into the crew compartment and Keryn slid the door separating the two sections of the ship closed. Alone in the cockpit, she took a deep breath before taking her seat. She turned the series of switches that would start up the engine and complete the pre-flight checks. As the engine warmed up, a familiar Voice spoke in her mind.
I know you said you want to do this alone, the Voice said, but I want you to know that I’m here to support you. No matter the differences we’ve had in the past, you and I are eternally one mind. Without you, I can’t exist. Whether you want me here or not, I will do everything I can to help. I won’t let us die today.
Surprising even herself, Keryn smiled. “For once, I’m glad to have you here.”
Pushing forward on the controls, the Cair Ilmun rolled out of its alcove and took its place amongst the other ships preparing for launch.
As the Revolution entered the galaxy, the dozen ships in its Fleet spread out in a two ship tall line and advanced on the central planets of the system. Having already detected the Cruisers on radar, the Terran Destroyers were similarly aligned in anticipation of the grueling battle to come.
“All Cruisers, this is Captain Hodge,” the message proclaimed from the Revolution’s bridge. “The enemy has decided to stand and fight, which will lessen the work that we will have to do in pursuing them. Hold your line until my order. Arm all plasma warheads, load all rail guns, and await my orders. On my mark, prepare to deploy the Squadrons. And, for everyone, Gods’ speed.”