Stones of Silence, Broken Power Trilogy Book 2

By T. Russell Benedict

In times of war, even the best of memories can grow silent as new realities are forged.

Now it's two AI's with chips on their shoulders, several different aggravated deep-space freighter pilots, our beloved gamer chic now out for blood, and a sister no one knew about. Against a backdrop of expanding galactic conflict, a deadly game of cat and mouse between them and a cold-blooded pirate ensues. The battles get bigger, the stakes grow higher, and the lines between good and evil blur.

And don't forget the pirate/mafia coalition apparently still hell-bent on undermining the peace. Just for kicks and giggles, why not throw in some more slavers, traffickers, politicians, and other scum too. Then make it personal, just for good measure...

But behind the growing conflict, an even deeper evil lies plotting...

Welcome to Book Two of the Broken Power Trilogy, the second installment of what happens, and the epic war that follows, when a weary, deep-space pilot runs afoul of pirates and slavers, politicians and dirty cops, and a woman who finally steals his heart... It's chaos versus order, love versus hate, and good versus evil, at its finest.

Other books in this trilogy:
Book 1: Sparks of War
Book 3: Ripples of Consequence

Contains mature themes and material...

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. Russell Benedict
• Release date: Dec 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310805523

T. Russell Benedict

In the mountains of Southwestern Idaho in the Pacific Northwest, T. Russell Benedict lives a life that's anything but boring. Dad to 9 kids now mostly grown, he fights forest fires in the summertime, works in Alaska as an electrician in the wintertime, and fills in at a youth ranch for troubled teens in the in-between times. And after work each day, on cold nights often lit by either the northern lights or raging forest fires, he writes his stories and ideas down, challenging all who read them.

Book preview

Stones of Silence

Book Two of the Broken Power Trilogy

By

T. Russell Benedict

Copyright 2016

Part two of the story started in:

Book One: Sparks of War

And to be continued in

Book Three: Ripples of Consequence

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

http://www.TRussellBenedict.com

http://www.EvergreenMountainPublishing.com

http://www.BrokenPower.net

http://www.StonesOfSilence.com

Cover art by T. Russell Benedict

Contains mature themes and situations…

Excerpt…

His mind seemed foggy, hazy, and not clear at all. Something felt seriously wrong too, like he had lost something and that he wasn't at all where he was supposed to be. He tried not to think about it though, as he eyed the wires that led from bits of tape stuck all over his head to a port on the wall. He couldn’t give that scanner any info; he did remember that much.

Sometime later, a uniformed officer and an attendant entered the room and stood beside his bed, their clicking heels coming to a sudden stop. Tom forced his eyes open before whispering.

What's going on? The taller officer's cold eyes drilled into him. Where am I?

Are you Jack Kipper, First Mate of the freighter Dasmeron? Tom nodded weakly. He did seem to remember that much.

Yeah. But what happened? Where's my woman?

She's in the other decontamination ward with pretty heavy radiation burns. Tom slowly looked up in surprise.

Radiation? but the officer ignored him.

Do you feel ready to undergo debriefing yet?

What? Tom's swollen face grew confused. His mind seemed muddy, stagnant. He must have hit his head pretty hard somewhere there.

You and your woman are the only survivors from the Dasmeron. We need you to tell us what happened, exactly. His voice, and everyone else’s, seemed so far away.

But the radiation? Why am I here?

Excerpt from Stones of Silence, Book Two of the Broken Power Trilogy…

Special thanks to Robert Bryne

In whose book 1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

I found a number of the quotes that I use throughout this book

Dedicated

To Dara

To Jennifer

And to Christine

Three Ladies who touched my heart,

And from whom I learned about some of the different facets of love…

I am truly blessed to have known each of them.

Star Ship Sizes and Classifications

Class - Approximate length - Typical usage (freighters, cruise ships & space stations come in all classes, lengths, and sizes)

1. < 30 ft - personal craft, light fighters, lancers, scouts

2. < 90 ft - pleasure craft, fighters, fast transport, scouts, the Trestika

3. < 150 ft - small freighter, armed escort, the Hawk

4. < 300 ft - typical midsize freighter, battle cruisers, armed escort, the Phoenix

5. < 500 ft - typical large freighter, large battle cruiser

6. < 800 ft - typical large freighter, space marine frigate, personal pleasure cruise ship

7. < 1200 ft - frigate, small commercial cruise ship

8. < 1700 ft - super frigate, cruise ship

9. < 2300 ft - destroyer, cruise ships

10. < 3000 ft - passenger/cruise liners, the UPC Centurion battleship, the Olympus cruise ship

11. < 3800 ft - miscellaneous battleships, cruise liners, super freighters

12. < 4700 ft - miscellaneous battleships, typical cruise liners, super freighters

13. < 5700 ft (1mi) - Starcrusher-class & Halonan Vampire-class battleships, cruise liners

14. < 6800 ft - miscellaneous battleships, cruise liners

15. < 8000 ft - Eliryan Mockingbird class battleship, cruise liners

16. < 9300 ft – D’haren wedge-shaped battleship, cruise liners

17. < 10,700 ft (2mi) - miscellaneous battleships, big cruise liners

18. < 12,200 ft - miscellaneous battleships, big cruise liners

19. < 13,800 ft - alien blunt-wedge battleship, big cruise liners

20. < 15,500 ft (3mi) - alien disc-shaped battleship, really big cruise liners, Fliri flute-shaped battleship

21. < 17,300 ft - dreadnaught

22. < 19,200 ft - super dreadnaught

23. < 21,200 ft (4mi) - starship carrier

24. < 26,000 ft (5mi) - super carrier

25. 5 mile-10miles - starbreaker

26. > 10 miles – small battlestar, colony ship

27. > 20 miles - BASS ship – Big Ass Ship, battlestars, colony ships, world ships, Dyson worlds, etc.

Table of Contents

Thanks & Dedications

Maps

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Other Books by This Author…

Excerpt from Ripples of Consequence, Broken Power Trilogy Book Three…

Prologue

Something happened that night: a meeting between two men in a well-guarded office, deep within the confines of the pirate dominated world of Scarough. The meeting bore an eerie resemblance to the encounter that had started everything, clear back in the beginning. Only one of the two characters remained the same, however: the tall, thin, cruel pirate lieutenant, a gaunt faced, clean shaven, graying, forty-something year old snake of a man with narrow, light blue eyes and a faint accent.

Sir!

Come in.

Thank you. Sir!

At ease.

Thank you. Sir! Permission to speak freely, Sir!

Granted. Sit down and tell me what's on your mind. Cigar? The pirate lieutenant requesting the audience entered the twilit room and closed the door behind him, then approached the real-wood desk at the other end of the room in front of a window wall. There, he carefully selected a cigar from the little mahogany cigar box that his superior had pushed towards him across the expansive desk's clear, well-polished surface.

His superior, an older, hugely-built, bald, crisply dressed, tattooed pirate general with bulging biceps, watched him in silence. The evening sun slanted in through the window behind him and left his face in the shadows, as muted, orange sunbeams sparkled in the air around him. The view from halfway up the city’s tallest skyscraper there, looked out over endless miles of dirty city, crisscrossing streams of hovercar traffic, and a brown sea beyond. Shimmering in the smoggy haze beyond even that, a distant and deserted peninsula of land full of abandoned refineries floated like a mirage.

Thank you. The lieutenant bit the end off and casually spit it towards a metal trashcan beside the broad desk; it landed in the empty container with a dull clink before pssting into dust. The general watched the new lieutenant assigned to him drape himself over the one easy chair in the room, produce a lighter and light the expensive cigar. After inhaling deeply on it, he blew a string of five perfect smoke rings toward the ceiling of the immaculate, twenty foot square, wood-paneled office.

It's this Rossman business, the lieutenant started without further preamble.

What about it? the general answered in a heavy Slavic drawl.

Nobody seems to be able to take him out. The general slowly leaned back in his fully leathered chair and folded his hands behind his head; the chair creaked loudly in the stillness. Idly, the lieutenant studied the brazen evening sky visible through the floor-to-ceiling window behind the general's amazingly uncluttered desk. The general waited silently for the snake of a man sitting before him to continue. He’d done some checking on this new lieutenant, before accepting the man’s re-assignment, and if there was ever a man with a cruel streak in him, this was him. He was the kind of guy who would pop the heads off of kittens and laugh about it. He would bear watching carefully. The lieutenant continued.

I tried too. I made it difficult for him in cyberspace. I sent a demon assassin AI after him and his friends in VR. I shut down his bank accounts, and shortly thereafter, an AI shut down mine. We've sent three bounty hunters after him in Actual Reality. All of them disappeared, not to mention the hit men that that weasel Madrigan with White Cloud sent after him too.

I heard that Madrigan is dead. The lieutenant turned his head and arched an eyebrow at his superior, a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his gut.

It's news to me. He drew deeply on his cigar and blew more smoke rings towards the ceiling. If Madrigan was dead, a major part of his plans had just fallen through, and he could feel his temper rising. He had wanted Madrigan’s job for himself, and had already even started maneuvering to get it. Nevertheless, he focused on the conversation at hand. But that doesn't explain Rossman completely. The general waited patiently, until the silence became unbearable. The lieutenant finally coughed nervously and cleared his throat.

We think we found out part of the reason why, he finally hedged. The general still said nothing. That bitch he used to space with? Tasha Slade? You know, Rossman’s galpal that’s been a thorn in our side ever since, well, that time we tried to trap Rossman here on Scarough, when the first clans decided to form a coalition? The general nodded slowly. Well, she has a sister. The lieutenant rolled his lit cigar through his fingers and studied its imprint intently, before looking up.

Seems she runs some sort of shadow organization of black widows. They don't let anybody get near Rossman or the gamer chic that Rossman is pallin around with right now, Kyra Sloan I believe, daughter of that asswipe the Federation president is getting economic advice from.

What are you saying? The pirate general finally asked, slowly and dangerously. The lieutenant now looked over at his superior with a triumphant gleam in his eye before continuing.

I'd like permission to track down and eliminate these black widow women, with money and personnel. The general regarded the man for a moment. The lieutenant was asking for cart blanche to hurt people, civilians, women, and that could come back to bite them if not handled or done right. And frankly, unleashing a serial killer who enjoyed what he did, was not something the general wanted on his conscience at night, in spite of the sex and slave trade that they worked in every day.

What about Rossman? Can’t you leverage his family or something?

Who knows? He shrugged. He hasn’t been in contact with them in years, apparently, because I can’t even figure out who they are. They’re no use to us at this point. He paused. I'll send out several more men after Rossman, but the word is out, and bounty hunters are beginning to steer clear of the contract. With the widows gone though, they might come back. He took a slow measured breath.

I’ll think about it, the general finally answered.

Thanks. I do have some good news though, the lieutenant switched subjects, and drew again on the cigar, pleasant bliss crossing his face, his eyes closed. After a painful minute, the general spoke.

What? The lieutenant opened his eyes and glanced up to let a slow grin cross his face.

Remember the old contract out on Tasha Slade? Well, we finally wasted her. We left her to rot with her ship outside one of the deserted stargates, booby trapped with presents for Rossman or anyone else stupid enough to try for salvage rights. Her days pestering us are over.

You WHAT!? the general thundered, as the news sunk in, before leaping to his feet, breathing hard with his fists clenched before him on the table. Taken aback, the lieutenant hastily extinguished his cigar in the palm of his black-gloved hand and slipped it into his shirt pocket to finish later.

I thought you would be happy to hear it, he protested plaintively. The contract was still active, and I even got paid on it already. The general slowly lowered himself back down into his seat, his jaws working together. A sheen of sweat appeared above his eyebrows.

Yeah, normally I would be thrilled, he finally grunted gruffly and then pawed at the cigar box himself. But we can't have either Rossman or this sister of Slade's that you just mentioned, stirring things up now, looking for revenge. Things are too close to the wire. Too damn close for comfort. Had you told me that Rossman was dead, I would have given you a bonus right here and now. He paused, breathing heavily. Wasting Slade will just piss Rossman off even more, and very likely this new little band of black widows that you found too. Two enemies now? Bad. With the timing right now, they are way more dangerous than you realize. The lieutenant frowned, plainly confused. He knew he was suddenly in hot water with his new superior, and wasn’t comfortable about it. But the general wasn't finished. He leveled a finger across the desk at his subordinate and continued to speak, his voice quickly dropping to an icy whisper. This was a war after all. He would sleep just fine.

I want Slade’s sister and her widows to quietly disappear, and fast, without making Rossman suspicious. Accidents. No obvious murders. Nothing cruel. You’ve got your personnel and budget. But make them all gone, ASAP. Nothing fancy. And I want Rossman gone too. Nothing spectacular. Nothing showy. I want them to just disappear. A flux accident or something. Or it’s your neck. The lieutenant swallowed. There’s already a war going on in cyberspace, with Rossman wanna-be’s hacking into our networks and crashing our servers. He stood up to us. And people have made him and his bitch into cult heroes in the underground. The last thing we need is for this little problem to spill over into either VR, or heaven forbid, AR. It’s bad for business, and the big boys upstairs have noticed, and are asking questions.

That made the lieutenant wince with sudden misgivings. But the general continued. Rossman really screwed everyone’s plans up when he and the Sloan girl interfered with your idea for the Halonan drug lab, and the bigger plan to take over Halona itself. Then they turned it into an anti-pirate base, of all things! All the big boys want him gone. They know that you had it in for Rossman and apparently pissed him off somehow, and that your drug lab idea backfired. In short, your ass is on the line here. After a moment, the general took a deep breath, turned in his chair and looked out across the city behind his desk. The true irony of the situation is that I don’t think Rossman even knows what he has done…

Yes sir… the lieutenant responded slowly, processing as fast as he could, with an icy knot forming in his gut.

Now… Get… Out… the general ordered low and dangerously as he spun his chair back to face the lieutenant across the desk, while looking directly at him with a cold anger in his eyes.

Uh, yeah, okay. The lieutenant stood and made for the door. Uh, thanks for the cigar, he spoke, but the general’s angry gaze silenced him. He made a hasty retreat as the general lit up his own cigar and began chewing hard on its end, while looking back out the at the setting sunset.

What had started out for the lieutenant as both a personal revenge mission and a power-grab, had suddenly morphed into something a whole lot bigger, deadlier, and harder to handle. It was the worst tiger-by-the-tail situation the pirate had ever found himself in, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Even worse, he suddenly realized that this situation would either catapult him to the power and money he so desperately craved, or it would finish him off, once and for all…

Chapter 1

Is hindsight always twenty-twenty?

- unknown

Though they had several deep discussions in route, Kyra found Tom several times just staring out into the void of the stargate, with that deeply troubled look on his face, as they traveled through the stargate on their way to answer a distress call from their friend Tasha Slade. But whenever Tom perceived her presence, the look always disappeared, to be replaced by something hinting on love, yet tinged by sorrow. It confused her. And he would never say what it was. It was more than just their argument, Kyra knew, about whether or not they had a future together. Tasha again maybe? Tasha had once been one of Tom’s old traveling companions and a former flame of sorts. Now Tasha was in trouble, and Tom was answering her call. And in a confrontation with Tom that had made him madder than Kyra had ever seen him, Kyra had forced the issue in a battle of wills, about whether or not she would go with him.

They exited the gate, one that didn’t get much use anymore, and fluxed to approximately one light year out, to the coordinates where they were supposed to meet Tasha. They finally approached a single silent private cruiser that awaited them, six thousand miles away. All systems were down. The approached slowly, a half-hour process.

Throughout the short haul, Tom, a six-foot tall, athletically-slender but broad-shouldered human in his early thirties, with a short, dark brown pony tail and striking blue eyes often hidden by bangs of fine hair in perpetual need of a haircut, hovered over his ship’s bridge controls.

Kyra, a twenty-something year old, slender but endowed young woman with long wavy brown hair, vivid brown eyes and fair skin, stood behind Tom as he scanned the ship and swung finally their own ship, the Hawk in closer. Then she saw, or sensed, him tense up. She heard him whisper something. The sound of his voice chilled her to the bone.

No... It was barely audible. She touched his arm and felt chills streaking through him too. She felt it. Her stomach felt it. It was horrible déjà vu, like the ambush after Ferrin.

What? she spoke, hardly louder than the low humming of the ship. But Tom didn't answer. His fingers flew untrackably over the computer console. The main screen came alive, and reports from the scanners on the hull began coming in. In silence, they slowly approached the awaiting ship. The minutes ticked by.

Ship integrity secure. All main systems down. Minimal backup power only. No life signs aboard. Current position two days old. Both engines damaged beyond repair. No other ships within a quarter light year.

But then they detected the mines strewn throughout the area surrounding the ship.

Kyra forgot to breathe, then gasped when her body reminded her to. Tom's fingers flew again, and the fire control computer came alive, on full battle alert, as he re-engaged the sublight engines and quickly closed the remaining distance between the two ships. Then he began blasting the mines as they approached, one by one; each exploded in a brief but furious ball of light before fading out.

They came to a dead stop finally, a hundred feet or so from the other ship. Kyra could feel Hawk's guns swiveling in their gimbaled mountings, still searching for prey. Then Tom turned to her, his eyes dead and empty. Kyra felt cold as she reached out to him.

I gotta go, he spoke, not really even connecting with her, or even looking at her. In response, she dropped her arm limply to her side, unnoticed, as with a heavy step, Tom just turned and headed into the hall to the space suit closet. Silently, Kyra watched him pull a standard suit on. And when ready to don the bubble helmet, he turned back to her, finally connecting.

If anything happens, he started, his voice husky. I... and he stumbled on his words. I DO love you. Confused tears threatened to blur Kyra's eyes. She stepped forward and hugged him as best she could.

What's going on? she pled, but he didn't answer her. She felt his arms close around her. Be careful? It came from her lips brokenly, from an aching heart. Then he surprised her by kissing her hard, and they both felt the passion. Then he pulled away and stepped backwards into the airlock, while still watching her with troubled lines etched deeply into his visage.

With a sinking feeling, Kyra slowly played the controls, and the door closed. A moment later, Tom stepped out into the emptiness outside, his face oh so cold and empty. It was déjà vu in the worst way.

Outside, Tom cleared his mind and rocketed to the other ship that he now recognized as a pirate battle cruiser, with a Scarough insignia emblazoned on it back near the rear. A minute later, his feet finally clanged hollowly on its telon hull, and he looked back at Hawk one last time, seeing Kyra's silhouette watching him from the nearly blacked out viewing alcove aboard the Hawk. Then he turned to the manual airlock, worked it, and made his way inside into the faint gravity, with his pistol drawn.

After clicking on his small headlight, he limped up the short, dark hallway, headed for the bridge, not knowing what to expect. When he saw the blood splatters on the walls, and the fine red mist that covered everything, fear and anger both boiled in his blood. He pulled off his gloves and attached them to his suit belt.

He slowly pushed the hatch door to the bridge open with a creak and flipped his light off. Outside the acrylic bubble that completely surrounding the battle bridge with its two consoles and four gun turrets, a million stars shone, their cold light falling across a still form lying on the floor. Blood had pooled around the fallen figure, clinging to the metal decking. Tom's heart pounded. He swallowed hard, and headed to one of the gunner consoles. He avoided the body. He didn't want to know.

The console eventually responded to him after increasingly desperate attempts to access the main computer. Finally, he breathed relief and typed a final command, and one by one, the main systems came back online. Then as soon as he had established a comm link back over to Hawk, he downloaded his bootleg copy of a mind synapse scan program, and initiated it, cursing at how slow the process was. Meanwhile, the bridge lights slowly came up, before stopping at quarter brightness, and bridge gravity returned to half power.

He turned. It was indeed Tasha, his companion from previous years, a slim woman with fine features, long straight brunette hair, and the tight pants and boots of a biker chick. Upon recognizing her, he slowly pulled his helmet off, trembling. She lie there, unseeing golden yellow eyes open, while twisted sideways on her back, with her western-cut blouse torn open and her starkly white bra stained dark around a torn and bloody, fist sized beam blast hole through her chest.

Finally he just hollered, in rage, frustration, and pain, while falling to his knees. Tasha's glassy eyes seemed to stare up past him; her face was blank of all emotion.

About then, his synapse scan program beeped in failure. Angrily, he swore at the computer again, but Tasha had just plain been dead too long; the synapses in her brain had already begun to decay. He lifted her and hugged her body close to his chest, rocking slowly back and forth while sitting on the floor, with his eyes screwed tightly shut.

Tom! Kyra's voice came over the radio.

What? he finally managed.

What's going on? Are you okay? Is everything okay?

Everything's fine, he responded after a minute of absolute silence.

The crew?

Gone. He carefully and silently closed Tasha's unseeing and glazed eyes.

Tasha?

She's gone now too. He didn't even hear Kyra gasp. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he held his bloody hands up before him, with Tasha still in his arms, to stare at the crimson smears of blood that now stained his palms. He spoke a word, and the lights on the bridge shut back down. Starlight bathed the room. Time slipped.

The airlock clicked open, and Kyra stepped into the ship's dark interior too. Enough starlight drifted in through the open bridge door for her to just barely see by, so she left her light off. After removing her helmet, she hesitantly approached the bridge.

Peeking silently in through the hatchway, she could see Tom's still form seated cross-legged on the floor with a sprawled figure partially cradled protectively in his lap. It was Tasha; Kyra caught her breath again. Tom heard her and lifted his head and stared unseeing out the acrylic bubble surrounding the bridge, up into the cold darkness outside.

She died fighting, defending you, me, and everything we live for and love. She had few true friends. He hadn't told Kyra about Tasha's sister, who now must be even more alone than before. He needed to find that sister. He also felt hurt, that Tasha had never shared that with him, that she had had a sister, and that he had only found out about the sister recently himself. He thought she had trusted him more than that. It opened huge questions in his mind. Why had she hidden it from him?

Questions immediately leaped to Kyra's mind too, even as the utter revulsion, sheer horror, and ugly fear she felt screamed to be unleashed inside her. Then the anger hit her, as she realized that their enemies, her own enemies possibly, maybe even her very own father, had scored again, not on her, but on her own closest friend, and on his closest friend. And suddenly she understood too what drove Tom to push her away.

Who? Her voice was loud in the silence. She could hear her ears ringing. Tom shrugged.

Obviously not Madrigan… Madrigan, the biggest drug dealer in quad two, had died in a firefight two months before, and good riddance to him.

At that point, a light began to flash at the computer console. Silently, Kyra moved to the computer screen there and touched the light. There was a message in the subspace receiver queue. Tom nodded without looking at her, and she touched the light again. A faint hiss filled the room. Electronic snow filled one of the monitors and cast a weird blank TV screen light across their faces.

Tom? It was Tasha's voice, faint and distant, barely audible above the quiet hiss of ancient star chatter. Nevertheless, it was startling in its clarity.

I hope you aren't hearing this, because if you are, it means I am probably gone. The voice sighed, long and deep, and Tom squeezed his eyes closed again. Kyra just stood there, motionless, her finger still touching the flashing light on the console.

Tom, there's so much I wish I could tell you, here at the end. So much. About my sister, my life, my heart, and everything else important to me, and us. But four pirate cruisers have me surrounded, and one of my drive engines is out. They mean to take this ship and ambush you when you get here. Tom instantly laid Tasha’s still form down on the floor, scrambled to his feet, and leaped to the other battle console. But they won't do it. Not if I can help it. Tom hesitated. I'm going to overload the other engine. The fusion neutron pulse should send them running. I’ll upload this message to a recon fluxer I sent out awhile ago, that will trigger when you finally show up. Tom froze.

That explained all the mines that had been strewn around like booby traps, the ones that he had blasted when they had first arrived. He immediately punched in a few calculations into the computer and figured out that, based on the neutron bubble expansion rate around them that his sensors had just then finally picked up, the explosion couldn’t have happened more than four or five hours before. That’s how long then, that Tasha had been gone. The sheer unfairness of it, that they had missed her by that small a time frame, just galled him to no end, especially since that was about the time frame he had intentionally turned his cell phone off back on Halona. Between that, and the fact that they had used the stargates instead of skip-fluxing straight through, it was a bitter drink to swallow. But Tasha was still talking.

They tried to board this ship a while ago, but I fought them off. Raun died a couple of days ago while we were escaping a blockaded system with data that I have since uploaded to your black account. I also included all of my banking info, passwords, account numbers, and everything else as well. Use it all wisely. Kick some tail with it, eh? Her voice paused for a long moment.

As for what is going on, it's a long story. Tom slowly clenched his fists at his side as her voice continued after a moment.

We only just barely scratched the surface at Ferrin, Tom. Things go much deeper than White Cloud, Halona, or Earth. There is a war ready to happen. A big war. Scarough. The Federation. Other factions. We are just pawns in the game. Just pawns. Tom slowly unclenched his fists, and Kyra slowly turned her head to watch him.

Tom? came Tasha's voice again. I had a good life. I am still amazed sometimes that that smart aleck young college punk on his way home from university that was trying to impress me, would turn into someone so dear to me. She chuckled softly, then paused a moment before continuing.

Remember back on Scarough? When we got ambushed? Kyra removed her finger from the light on the console and turned to the wall of the acrylic bubble beside her, to stare blankly out into the darkness. Behind her, Tasha's slowly fading voice continued. The recon fluxer transmitter must be moving pretty fast away from them.

That’s when this war actually started, believe it or not. We set things in motion that night that have led us directly to where we are now. She stopped, took a deep breath, and continued after a moment.

And remember the little girl you rescued? The one who gave us our necklaces? I can’t even say her name, even now, all these years later, without breaking down in tears. She meant a lot to me too. She was so much like you. The three of us felt like a family. It meant so much to me. Tasha's voice paused, then hardened.

But don't let her memory drag you down. You loved her. We both loved her. But there are others out there who need your help too. She is gone, and now I am gone too, but there are still others. Remember what you taught me: Hurt people hurt people. People don’t always recognize a hand up for what it is. But don’t let it stop you from trying to help out. They still deserve our offer to help. They need you, Tom. Find them. Kyra squeezed her eyes closed, fighting back the tears that Tasha's soft words and voice brought to her eyes. She knew then, right there in that moment, that if the little girl in Tom’s recurring dreams hadn’t died, Tom and Tasha would still be together.

The dramatic tragedy of the whole situation touched the very core of Kyra’s being, and in that defining moment, she grew up.

Tom? Tasha's voice fell silent for a moment. When it returned, it was even fainter than before, and sounded as though Tasha might have been crying when she had recorded this part of the message. Please don't forget me. I feel like just a teardrop, lost in the rain. I’ve lost contact with everyone; they’re all so far away right now, in this moment. But please don't forget me. I love you. Your love, and what it did for me, mean everything to me. Please don't forget me. Silence fell again.

And now I must go... There’s a ghost or angel or something in here with me now, and… but her voice was suddenly cut off by an angry shout and the sound of weapons fire. Moments later, the noise faded away until nothing remained but the ancient hiss of distant star chatter. The light on the screen quit flashing, and the words End of transmission appeared briefly on the monitor before going dark, plunging the room back into darkness. Kyra angrily brushed the tears away from her eyes and turned back to just watch Tom who stared blankly into the blackness of space outside.

He eventually turned, strode to a locker in a bulkhead at the rear of the bridge, and pulled out one lone time-stasis medical cocoon. Then he returned to Tasha's side, knelt down, and gently lifted her body and placed her in the cocoon. Her blood was smeared all across the front of his suit.

Then he noticed something clutched in her left hand, and he carefully pried her slowly cooling fingers open. In complete shock, he slowly lifted a crumpled platinum rose from her grasp, with dark blood caked on it around where its sharp leaves had cut into her palm. I gave this to her after Ferrin, he stammered, and his own voice suddenly cracked, and a single mighty sob escaped him.

Still in shock, Kyra watched him gently pull Tasha's blouse closed, then study the rose now resting in the center of his palm, its red-stained, silver leaves glinting dully in the starlight around them. After a moment more, he carefully slid the rose with Tasha’s DNA on it into a secure pocket on his spacesuit arm. Then he gently lifted her head and released the latch of a silver necklace that hung around her neck, just like his own, that Kyra had somehow never noticed her wearing before. Holding it up, he let it twinkle in the starlight a moment. One more quiet sob escaped his lips. Then quickly, he reconnected it around his own neck, where it joined his own silver necklace. Kyra just watched in almost sacred silence.

After a quiet moment more, Tom bent to lightly kiss Tasha’s cool lips, one last time, and Kyra had to turn away for the tears that now flooded her own eyes. And after a final look into Tasha's now somehow peaceful face, Tom slowly zipped the cocoon closed and activated its tiny warning beacon, not bothering to wipe his tears off her pale cheeks. Then he stood.

Shouldn’t we take her home for a proper funeral, Tom? Kyra asked. There are a lot of people who would like to say goodbye to her. Tom stopped, motionless for a long minute, and then shook his head.

She once told me that when her time came, she wanted to be buried in space, free to drift the starways in her afterlife, and not be stuck in the dirt. I have to honor that. Silently, Kyra nodded and held the hatch open for him as he stepped through and pulled the cocoon after him, headed for the tiny forward torpedo bay.

In that moment, Kyra also realized that Tasha, to the very end, had been Tom’s girl, even in death. It made sense to her now, that it was appropriate this way, that in the end, Tom also be the only one to tell her goodbye, and send her on.

In the ship’s cramped forward mini-torpedo bay under the bridge, they activated the forward torpedo tube, and Tom pushed and shoved until Tasha’s cocoon finally fit inside it. Then he repeated a quiet prayer for Tasha's soul. When he was done, he simply opened the outer torpedo tube door, and blasted the cocoon with a puff of air out into space towards a distant star. They watched it together through a porthole there, as it faded into the blackness beyond, till the makeshift coffin was no longer visible in the fields of darkness around them.

Then they silently returned to Hawk and stripped off their space suits after going back inside. And sagging, Tom leaned back against the bulkhead outside the airlock.

It was a different Kyra who now put her arms around him and leaned against him, listening through her own quiet thoughts to the troubled beating of his heart. Almost unconsciously, he stroked her hair, even as he buried his face against her shoulder, not crying out loud, but letting his tears flow unstoppable.

As for Kyra, she felt the hot anger inside her twisting into both incredible rage at their enemies, and into a truly tender love forged now from deadly steel, a love for this driven and lonely man who so desperately needed her. Yes, she could, and would, be what he needed.

And Tom, overcome by the emotions that shook him, knew that the running was indeed over. The planet Halona was free, and all of his banking accounts were finally unlocked again, but for him, the battle had only just begun.

Tom had once rescued Tasha from the pirates, and she had gone through hellfire with him. Now she was dead. After deploying a debris beacon and marking its coordinates, Tom felt his world come crashing down around him.

Together with Kyra, they grieved alone in space in Tom’s boxy and heavily armed little class-three starship. For hours, they drifted near the wreckage of Tasha’s stolen pirate cruiser, before something finally caught fire in the cruiser’s interior and gutted it completely. Tom became almost catatonic as he watched the weirdly dancing zero-g flames visible through the other ship's portholes, on the viewscreens of the Hawk. Kyra finally retreated to her own cabin to curl up on her bed and stare blankly at the wall. When the polyacrylic dome over the other ship's burning bridge finally blew out, Tom buried his head in his hands and wilted into the captain's chair. For six more hours, he remained that way, as Tasha’s death slowly sunk into him and grief flooded through him.

When Kyra finally ventured out of her cabin again, her own eyes red and her mascara smeared, Tom lifted his head to stare at the dark viewscreen ahead of him, in the near darkness of the bridge, his visage lit only by the softly winking lights covering the surface of the instrument and flight console. They had traveled together almost six months now, and even though they now shared a deep friendship, Tom had recently and vehemently pushed thoughts and conversations of a relationship with her, away.

In spite of this, in the middle of Tasha’s death, something had happened inside Kyra. It was a different Kyra that now ventured forth, one that knew she could be, and would try to be, the woman Tom needed but resisted. But then Tom spoke as she stepped onto the bridge.

Now you know why I can't hold onto you, Kyra. Why I can't give you my love. I've lost too many close friends already. People die when they get too close to me. Dumbly, Kyra stared at his back. He continued after a moment. I can’t have you on my conscience too. We'll go back to Halona and help out there awhile, but we can't stay together. It just won't work. Then he fell silent; Kyra finally turned and fled the bridge, her newfound resolve to stand beside Tom shaken.

*

Deep in the Hawk’s massive computer core, another new process began to boot up too, a new life, a restored AI, one destined to help shift the balance of power in the coming months. After several hours, the newly rebuilt AI life-form woke up, defined its priorities, and took stock of its situation, before simply waiting for Tom and Kyra to reconnect to the starnet so she could slip away unnoticed.

*

The next day came, and it seemed to Kyra almost as though nothing had ever even happened. Tom got up at his normal hour and seemed almost cheerful as he went through his normal morning routine, almost as though he had put Tasha's death completely out of his mind already. He chattered nonstop though, and Kyra just listened. He entertained her with old stories for hours, just talking, or maybe unloading or hiding his emotions, as he tediously reprogrammed the ship’s computer for a long, complicated flux jump sequence through deserted space, straight through back to Halona, their newly adopted home planet and base of operations. Tom knew he had to avoid the stargates for the moment. No point in letting whoever killed Tasha and booby trapped her ship for him, know that they had not been successful in killing him and Kyra too, at least not yet.

Flux jumping was limited. If you went too far in one jump, it messed a guy up. Hence the use of the stargate system, one major system for each one of the four galactic quadrants. But you could, if you could handle it, make a long trip without the stargates by splitting it up into lots of short flux jumps. It was all but guaranteed to bring on serious headaches though, and was obscenely hard on fuel loads. People avoided it so much for these reasons, that very few pilots ever even tried it anymore. The fact that Tom did still do it, impressed Kyra.

That night, after the first four jumps out of the twenty plus that Tom had programmed, Kyra couldn't sleep, courtesy of a light headache, and finally got up and tiptoed to Tom's cabin door. Inside, she faintly made out the muffled sound of something rhythmically pounding against one of the metal walls of his cabin, but the sound ceased after awhile. When she silently tried the hatch handle, it was locked. She stood there a minute, her hand frozen on the latch, as waves of dizzying rejection swept over her. She eventually returned to her room and cried herself to sleep.

The next day, Kyra found Tom just putzing blankly around in the spare storage hold, a room full of odds and ends, half finished projects, knick-knacks, spare computer parts, coils of wire, miscellaneous hardware, stardrive engine parts, and a ton of other apparent junk. This was his magic room, Tom had explained to her one time. If he needed something, a spare part, a screw or bolt, or just whatever, he could probably find it in there. At the time, Kyra had thought it cute, but her former bodyguard Byron, previously assigned courtesy of her hated father, had finally educated her that if you broke down and dropped out of flux drive light years from civilization, a magic room like this would be more than worth its weight in gold, to get a pilot moving again.

When she asked what he was looking for, Tom answered only that he needed to build something, fix something, or otherwise do something productive with his hands, to help keep him from going insane. Then he silently went back to fiddling with an old, half finished electrical experiment. At that, Kyra knew enough to just give him his space, and left him alone.

After four more days of flux jumping, they reentered Halonan solar space and hailed control. Control quickly gave them clearance and directed them down.

When they landed, Kyra noted that Tom picked up a small pebble from the tarmac near where they parked, and silently slipped it into his pocket. She knew it would eventually join a collection of other small, often unique, rocks he had picked up in his travels, that each signified a memory, or an event of importance in Tom’s life. A large collection of them were now in a clear box in the corner of his cabin aboard the Hawk.

Though no one was there at the port to greet them, Kyra was glad for it. It gave her a chance to take a deep breath and get grounded again, before they returned to their previous daily routines of helping lead Halona as the planet slowly industrialized itself. But more and more, Tom pulled back mentally from her, though his outward demeanor remained nearly normal. But neither of them spoke to anyone about the trip and what had happened.

Even when asked about their ‘vacation’, their cover story, they said very little and avoided the subject. They continued to hang around together as they reintegrated back into the Halonan high council, but Kyra knew that it wasn't going to last forever. There was another confrontation between her and Tom coming, she could feel it, but she also grew more and more resolved in her mind that next time, she would not let Tom try to push her away again. This was a different Kyra now, and she knew it.

And how Tom could continue to put Tasha’s death out of his mind escaped Kyra. The memory of Tasha's still form on the deck of the wasted pirate ship filled her own tortured dreams and left her gasping for breath whenever she awoke from them.

Planning ahead, Kyra also began several weeks of night classes for pilot training, trying to fast track herself to a pilot’s license. If she wanted to be legit, she had to buckle down and make it happen. And the faster, the better, she figured. With all the unlicensed, illegal piloting that she had already been doing of Tom’s Hawk and Tasha’s old class-four, heavily armed, freighter named the Phoenix, it was only a matter of time before she ran afoul of somebody from the Feds, and she didn’t want to give them any excuse to hassle her.

Tom also downloaded the info that Tasha had uploaded to his black email account, a high security account that only she and he had encrypted access to. There was a lot of data there, about troop movements, ship deployments, mercenary armies, and even plans, pics and diagrams of some pretty heavy duty military hardware and some mammoth starbreakers and a couple of other warships of unknown design. These were big ships that Tasha had felt certain were going to be seen in battle soon somewhere. But the overall big picture behind it all escaped him, try as he might to figure it out. Tasha had been hoping it would make more sense to him than it had to her, but it just wasn’t adding up yet.

*

Sarah Slade, a beautiful woman of about thirty, also finely featured with long straight brunette hair, graceful curves, and massive scars across the left side of her face, had a problem, and a pretty major one at that, in her dim view of the situation. Her twin sister Tasha had finally bit the bullet fighting pirates again, trying to help out their old friend Tom Rossman, the man that had once rescued her from the pirates herself. The man now helped run Star Cloud, a new organization on Halona, dedicated to stopping the growing pirate threat across the galaxy.

Tasha. Her twin sister.

And then there was thoughts of Travin too, Tasha's ruggedly handsome, Marlboro man fiancé’ and lover, that crossed her mind often also. Travin had loved Tasha and served her well as first mate aboard the Phoenix.

But it was thoughts of Tom, the man who had once rescued Tasha from the dungeons of the pirate hellhole named Ferrin there on the planet Caldera, who dwelt almost continually in the forefront of her mind.

Tasha. Tasha. Tasha, her mind-linked twin sister, now dead.

Though two separate people, they had almost shared one mind. Sarah herself had nearly died too at the shock of her sister's death and the wrenching separation of her suddenly silent thought voice. For two days Sarah had been in a near coma full of horrible nightmares, before finally reawakening to a lonely world she barely recognized, now unclouded by her sister’s own thoughts and perceptions.

She had, through Tasha, loved both Travin and Tom, and now desperately wanted to reach out to both of them again. But she dared not. Fear kept her from it. Besides, she couldn't protect them as well if they or anyone else knew about her.

Looking down to the table before her and sighing, she rotated a pen through her fingers and read the plain Falencian inscription on one side absentmindedly. The dial clock over the fireplace mantle, illuminated by the steady flame of the single candle before her on the rough-hewn tabletop, read two o’clock in the morning. Sighing again, she laid the pen down on the open page of her journal and stretched.

Then after scooting the chair back with a squeak on the well-polished wooden floor, polished by the many boots and moccasins that had crossed its surface down through the years, she stood and crossed the room to a mirror hung from a wood knot near a darkened window in the log walls. There, she surveyed her shadowed face, trying to read her own murky thoughts therein. Though she had once looked much like Tasha, her countenance was now horribly scarred where an explosion had ripped part of her cheek away; she had never had the desire to hire qualified plastic surgeons to fix it, and had adamantly refused Tasha's suggestion to pay for it out of their family’s inheritance.

She also never talked about what had happened. She had instead retreated from life, found this cabin deep in the Calderan forest, rebuilt her sanity, and lived life vicariously through her sister Tasha. Except, now Tasha was gone, leaving Sarah alone with their demons.

Sometimes, like now, she also missed her parents’ strong and comforting presence, but they were both long gone too. She had no other siblings.

Slowly, she traced the deep scars on her face with her smooth fingertips, feeling the knotted skin and muscle beneath her touch. Her eyes, once golden yellow like Tasha’s, were now black as midnight beneath her heavy lashes, and they stared back at her from the glass, and searched her soul. In broad daylight, she was nearly blind, due to retinal pressure damage from the explosion. But here in the shadows of the ancient mountains, she could see well enough to rule the silent Calderan forests surrounding her with a gentle hand, queen of the strangely silent world beneath the towering trees of the Silent Forest. She had already sent her troops and friends to the forefront of her little war, and the forests were quiet once again, hers alone to enjoy. After glancing over at the reflection of the dead ashes in the fireplace, she shivered involuntarily.

Tomorrow, she would focus in. Tomorrow she would try again to make it through the day without falling into wrenching sobs at least once. And tomorrow, she would contact her friends again, her troops, mostly women of the five main races, people that either Tom or Tasha had rescued from the mafia-run world of Scarough, or from pirates based there. The sex and slave trade, though underground, was very much alive and well in the galaxy they lived