Cosmosis

(Starspeak)

In the brief couple days I’d known Agent Avi I wound up having a lot in common with them. I learned a lot once we both recognized that the other was essentially a form of bounty hunter. They might have been a government supervisory agent, overseeing subordinates, filing injunctions, or conducting office politics. But at the end of the day, they were boots on the ground too, hunting their quarry.

Our quarry, really. I’d have to help with Shuma Norshun sooner or later.

Hopefully later.

It was a shame Avi couldn’t come along on our boat hunt. I would have liked to see more of their reaction. Because while they saw me in a new light, I was entertained to watch Avi go through a nearly identical realization about me.

Nominally, I was just a diplomat, but I got in way too many fights to pretend I wasn’t more than that. It was fun watching Agent Avi hear about our stint at the mall. Even second hand, our work there did a lot to reassure the rak I was worth the trouble. More than thirty dangerous Vorak criminals apprehended without any fatalities? All in under an hour?

Yeah, we’d become experienced hunters too. Funny thing was, half of my skills in that field came from being quarry for so long…but even Sid was visibly impressing our Vorak guests. Without Adeptry, he’d spent much of his energy on peaceful contributions like den mothering the munchkins, but just as much had gone toward being ready just in case we were attacked again.

The Jack kept six different kinds of guns stocked in our armory, and Sid could disassemble and reassemble any of them in less than thirty seconds. More than a few of the munchkins were even faster. Psionics made you a better learner, but still, they were impressive.

Sid and Tasser were comparably skilled combatants at this point, if still very different ones.

“Well half the difference is in patching,” Tasser said. “It’s a braindead easy skill for most Adepts, and it lets you just walk off wounds that bleed out ordinary people.”

“On Earth, they say the winner of a knife fight is the one who bleeds out in the ambulance instead of on the ground,” Sid chuckled.

“On Nakrumum they call knife wounds a coinflips. The word for coin and blade are almost identical in some languages. Thin pieces of metal?”

“You Casti and your stupid regeneration,” Sid complained.

“Eh, not bleeding out is more of a clotting thing.”

“Same difference.”

“…I guess it is a little bit like being an Adept,” Tasser conceded. “Different aliens have slightly different physical capabilities. Casti can regrow limbs, but humans are both heavier and faster.”

“Kind of an odd choice of two there,” Sid noted. “Not stronger?”

“Well in bursts, I can exert just as much force as you,” Tasser pointed out. “You know how hard I punch.”

“True. You and your entire species is just lucky none of the [Kung Fu Panda] movies made it out here with the abductees,” Sid joked. “I think you’d die of embarrassment.”

“We’ve got short stupid legs but we’re unexpectedly flexible,” Tasser preened.

“Yeah, now if only you could run for twelve hours straight.”

“We can!”

“You can walk, march, even, for that long. But run?”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Tasser conceded.

“…Is it?” Sid said, voice growing quiet. “Fair?”

Tasser took his time to respond. I recognized the look on his face: a deliberate adoption of a certain mindset. He and I both had taken turns patiently and silently formulating answers to each other’s questions.

How odd to see it happen with someone else.

“Yes,” Tasser decided. “At least, it is not unfair. Though, I’ll admit that might not be the same thing.”

“…I still get mad that I’m not Adept,” Sid admitted. “Coalescence almost makes it worse. I get to know what it’s like, but I still don’t get to do it myself.”

“Every Casti alive knows that feeling,” Tasser nodded. “Though for most of us, it’s less envy and more fear. You wouldn’t believe some of the megafauna we’ve got back on Nakrumum. The power of Adeptry is more than enough to reshape every alien civilization that touches it. It almost feels wasteful, watching how some Adepts use the power.”

“Yeah,” Sid nodded.

Tasser’s point had struck Sid profoundly; it was written across our friend’s face.

“[Those stupid fucking ‘Ronin’…]” he said, shaking his head. “I have to laugh about them even now, or I’m going to cry in outrage. You should count yourself lucky you didn’t have to meet them until after they pulled their heads out of their [asses].”

“At least our Puppies have come a long way since then,” Tasser smiled. “Though, sometimes, I feel like that might make it worse.”

“What’s more frustrating than watching someone else get to correct mistakes you’ll never even get the chance to make?”

“I can think of a few things…but not many,” Tasser said.

“What do you think, Caleb? Think we non-Adepts are just whining?”

I blinked. Had Sid known I was listening?

“I am Adept, and I’ve got plenty to whine about myself,” I said. “Seems only right for you to feel free to [bitch and moan].”

“Aw, I was just curious if you were eavesdropping.”

“Just waiting on our boat,” I said. “Didn’t think you wanted me to chime in.”

“You thought right,” Sid said. “But, thanks anyway—I appreciate the favor.”

“Then do me a favor back after we’re gone?” I asked Sid.

“You’re the captain,” he said. “Isn’t that just giving me an assignment?”

“Okay fine, I have an assignment for you: sit down with the munchkins and invent some interview questions to ask Cadrune, in person if possible.”

“You think they’ll take our call?”

“I think Ingrid isn’t,” I replied. “And I know we’re not just giving up, so that means contacting anyone who knows her, and I think Cadrune knows that too.”

“Anything in particular you want us to ask?”

“No. Get creative, try to read into their answers as much as possible. It could be they’re being watched and can’t communicate freely. It could be a lot things. Just, find out whatever you can without exposing yourselves to any real risk.”

“Because only you’re allowed to do that?” Sid asked wryly.

My handbook buzzed: a message from Agent Mashoj. We had a green light.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Well, good luck boating, I guess.”

I examined his expression, trying to find any hint of animosity.

“Are you wanting to go with us?”

“You’re going to be assaulting the pirates on the boat, right?”

“Likely, yeah.”

“Then I’m good,” Sid said.

“Oh. Okay. I guess I wasn’t expecting you to be averse to violence.”

“Because I’m such a ‘good old southern boy’?” Sid asked, exaggerating his accent—in Starspeak no less. “Come on. I was inside your head yesterday. We both know you hate killing anyone, even people who deserve it.”

“Yeah, but…you don’t,” I recalled, feeling out what I remembered being inside his head too. “You don’t love it, but you don’t have reservations like I do.”

“But I do have other priorities,” he said. “Deg has been on his own den-mothering the munchkins. He and I are a team.”

“You’re a saint,” I said honestly. “You slouched into that role by default and we don’t thank you enough for it.”

“No, you don’t,” he nodded. “Now get the hell out of here and [kick some ass] for the rest of us.”

I gave him a thumb’s up.

·····

Johnny wanted to come along, but I turned him down. We didn’t need all our Adept firepower in one place, and unfortunately for him? I was always going to pick working with Nai over him.

Halax was coordinating us closely with Agent Mashoj, Nai was sticking close to them too. It was a propriety thing. Mashoj had been exaggerating when he’d expressed just how willing he was for help. It was one thing to say you were fine with someone like the Warlock helping you, it was another thing to have the woman herself chat you up about tactical options.

We hadn’t outright told Mashoj our Nai was the Nai. There were enough Farnata alive that it was feasible they might just share a name. But the Vorak was not an idiot, and Nai’s Adeptry spoke for itself; so they were maintaining plausible deniability and not asking.

It wasn’t truly a secret since Peudra, the Void Fleets, and the planetary government knew, but it was the kind of thing we all anticipated making trouble if the average Vorak Tom Dick and Charlie caught wind of.

Out here? That wasn’t so much of a problem, but gossip might still make it ashore.

We stood on opposite sides of what I could only assume was some kind of police or coast guard boat, plowing through increasingly awful waters. It wasn’t crewed with the normal complement of armed officers it might normally carry into danger. It was the tradeoff Mashoj had to make in requisitioning it; the boat itself was available, but not the staff it normally enjoyed.

Instead, it had a few Vorak boathands and us. Jordan and I were center stage with our Casti ‘bodyguards’. Wurshken and Corphica were with her, Nemuleki and Lorel were with me.

At some point in my life, heading toward the giant swirling abyss of dark thunderclouds had become normal, and I wasn’t sure I liked what that said about me.

“Anything I should know about you, Lorel?” I asked. “We never did get to properly chat the first time we met.”

“Or since,” the Casti snorted. “I keep hesitating on whether or not I should call you ‘junior’ or ‘senior’.”

“Caleb will do just fine,” I said. “You trust my skills in a fight?”

“You come recommended by the Warlock,” he said. “It’s been a long time since we were cowering in a greenhouse.”

“Not that long….but you know, she trained me, so if I somehow don’t have her recommendation, isn’t it really her fault as a teacher?”

“I knew we should have left you on Korbanok,” Nemuleki sighed exaggeratedly. “You’ve let the Adeptry inflate your ego.”

Nemuleki probably didn’t know it since we’d been separated for the last couple years, but mocking me for vanity or arrogance was a sure-fire way to take the wind out of my sails. I’d run into too many arrogant jerks to allow myself to be one too.

Instead of firing back, I changed the subject back to business.

Agent Mashoj reported.

I frowned, consulting my handbook’s automatic compass. I’d been looking too far west and not north enough.

Sure enough, on the very edge of the horizon, a ship rocked back and forth on swells. The afternoon light was better than when I’d been rescue diving with Donnie; only now did I get a proper look at the ship.

It was massive. Had to be a thousand feet long, easily. It was large enough to be a floating sports stadium. But instead of an arena, it was stuffed end to end with shipping containers almost identical to the ones you’d find on earth. Once upon a time that resemblance might have surprised me, but not this time. It made sense after all. Shipping containers didn’t come with very particular cultural strings attached. The design was purely pragmatic, all the same concerns applied to both human and Vorak designs.

But one way the Vorak setup beat ours out was in materials. In a storm like this, the waves were pitching either end of the boat up and down fifty, sixty feet a time. More even. And the boat was only heading further into the storm. But it hadn’t broken yet…steel and titanium were only so durable, and a ship that long and that heavy was basically one big lever against itself. The fact that it hadn’t snapped in two meant that its hull must have exotic reinforcements.

Further supporting that idea was the fact that we weren’t finding containers floating in the water. None of the tie down cables had snapped even with the weight and motion.

It was a sturdy ship with engines powerful enough to move it. In open water, it would have built up momentum and out paced our boat.

But in these waves? It couldn’t even move in a straight line. We were gaining on it.

“We’re pretty small,” I noted to Nemuleki. “What are the odds they don’t see us approaching?”

“How would they see us at all?” she wondered. “Unless they have scouts standing watch out on the decks…”

“I only saw so many lights before,” I said. “But if there’s only seven or eight of them onboard, yeah, I can’t imagine they’re going to be watching their backs.”

“This is a hurricane, for strike’s sake,” Nem said. “Just standing on deck, they would risk being tossed overboard.”

“” Lorel said. “”

He reiterated the message to everyone on board, and we all stayed vigilant as our own boat zipped closer. Our own ship wasn’t ‘small’ by any means either. It reminded me of every average Coast Guard boat I’d ever seen on TV. Like those, this one wasn’t bulletproof. So if we started taking fire, it was up to me, Nai, and Jordan to give us the cover we’d need to finish our approach.

No gunfire at two miles.

Still none even inside one mile.

We had binoculars pointed at the container ship at all times, but we were being thrown up and down on the waves ourselves. We couldn’t keep a steady enough view to clock anyone who might be on deck.

Jordan announced. Slightly under a mile then. The back half of the ship would be in range, but not the front. Not yet.

We’d discussed the chance Jordan could disable the ship from here. It wouldn’t take much to bring the whole vessel to a halt. But if we damaged the ship in the wrong way, it might sink. That was a no go.

I wanted to search that sucker.

Still, we were low on information, and I was still bothered by not seeing the pirates’ own boat during the hurricane’s landfall.

Instead, Jordan materialized some simple psionics-embedded pucks wrapped in sticky glue. They would give off a signal that we could use to start mapping the ship and orient ourselves when we boarded.

We were within half a mile when things first started going wrong.

No gunshots broke out, but instead, the sea exploded beneath us.

The shockwave blew me and my Casti teammates over and a pillar of whitewater erupted just off the starboard bow. My heart pumped panic into every corner of my body, but I clamped down on it. Nemuleki and Lorel did the same—more diligently too.

Mashoj shouted.

Nai returned.

Her cascade could suffuse almost the entire boat, and if she ignored the innermost cabin parts, she could absolutely monitor the whole hull and deck. She tapped her psionics, leaning on me and my superconnector, and we relayed her cascade of the boat to everyone.

There was a dent deep toward the keel on the starboard side of the boat, but it hadn’t ruptured.

The second boom changed that.

We were bracing ourselves already when something did scrap along the bottom of the hull.

Another boom roared, this time directly under us. The entire vessel lurched upward from the force, a blast of water following on all sides.

Nai reported.

She should have said was that would have gotten us. Because with her cascade’s information running through all our minds, we knew a bomb had just gone off directly underneath us and that Nai had formed a split-second layer of crystal underwater to shield the hull from the blast.

What she meant though, was that even with Nai’s added armor, our hull was now leaking. We could all feel both the jagged hole torn in the steel, and the additional crystal materializing where Nai plugged it.

Nai realized.

I asked.

Mashoj reported from the helm.

Wurshken wondered.

Nai said.

Wurshken pointed out.

<…But submarines do,> Jordan said.

Of course!

I’d even been thinking about the submarine I knew Macoru and Mavriste had back when we first landed.

An underwater vessel was perfect for avoiding a hurricane’s dangerous wind and waves. We weren’t chasing one ship. It was being escorted by a literal pirate submarine. Two enemies, not one.

Mashoj screeched.

I started to ask, but then I remembered alien computers sucked. Their spaceship mounted torpedos had ultra-expensive computer guidance, but there was no group of pirates that would be able to afford the naval equivalent.

No, they were probably running something akin to a World War II sub, manual torpedos. Detonation on contact.

But the first one had still exploded…

I said.

<…Vrasta, you’re right,> Nai realized.

<…Not quickly,> she said.

Another explosion rocked underneath us. This time, it displaced so much water outward that we felt the boat fall out beneath us a few inches.

Nai’s armor, however, held.

<—that. If we lose the armor we’re all treading water,> she reported.

Jordan said.

Corphica asked.

Jordan and I both said.

I added,

Nai said.

We moved as quickly as we could while still being ready to brace for more torpedos. I had to reassure myself that the tiny zodiac rafts would never get hit with a torpedo; it was impossible. But that was little comfort as the six of us piled into the two rafts we had.

Lorel confirmed.

Nai slapped invisible armor around each of us, just so Jordan and I could save our own mass for attack, and we shoved the boats into the water.

Jordan, Corpica, and Wurshken peeled out ahead of us, and Nemuleki steered our boat to follow.

It took only a minute to cross the half-mile of water between us and the ship. No gunfire broke out. Sure enough, whatever Vorak were aboard? They weren’t looking closely enough.

Surely in part because it was nearly impossible for anyone to climb aboard. What was the point of keeping watch?

But unfortunately for these rak, not only had we come prepared, I’d even had recent practice.

It was Corphica and Wurshken’s job to fire our grappling hooks from our respective rafts. The ‘hooks’ were actually exotic magnet devices that could stick even to sheer surfaces, but they were mounted directly to our modified zodiac rafts.

No pulling ourselves hand over hand. They were motorized to yank our whole raft out of the water, dragging us up toward the deck.

There was nothing keeping the boats upright though, and we had to cling to it for dear life. But both our boats made it easily.

Jordan confirmed.

Wurshken frowned, confused that there was any question.

she nodded, materializing her own gun.

“” I said, holding out one. “”

The six of us paused just long enough to join hands. Huddled together on the ship’s deck, it was almost like we were praying over a meal…with metal containers looming over us four or five stories.

I’d been warming up my superconnector on the boat ride over here, and now it was eager, stretching out toward the minds with me, the six of us ready to trust each other with our lives.

All six of us winced as the connection and its tension settled on our minds, but it cleared in a few seconds that would have been fatal in battle. I noticed it faded faster from Jordan than the rest. It made sense. These Casti hadn’t seen me in years, though of them, it faded from Nemuleki a hair quicker too.

I grasped my superconnector with both hands and began manipulating the connection between us, filtering it again and again until we had the bare minimum usage necessary to maintain the link.

Coalescence would be in our back pocket if we needed it. Having Nai in the loop would have been ideal, but this would have to do.

The six of us moved without another word. Nemuleki and Lorel followed me to the container ship’s starboard side while Jordan led Wurshken and Corphica up the port.

I popped a candled radar first, feeling out the back half of the boat. It was almost completely empty. Not even one soul could be felt even below deck. Wasn’t the engine room down there? Maybe the pirates weren’t interested in keeping the ship running. They just needed to drag it back to their islands.

Sure enough, as we marched forward my radar coverage reached the front of the ship containing the bridge and galley. Sure enough fourteen Adept minds hummed, wait— fourteen?

What the hell?

Even worse, someone noticed our radar ping.

Two dozen Vorak bristled angrily as the call went out among them. They had all been huddled in a clump…around a radio maybe? Listening to reports from their submarine, maybe. The Adepts weren’t evenly distributed though. Nine were in the huddle, but five of them were further forward in the boat, down low, deep in the hold but also far to the side.

Were they prisoners of some kind? It was hard to tell down to the inches, but their minds were just about as close to the ship’s hull as I could make out.

What were they doing there?

There was no time to dwell though, because while those five were staying put, every other Vorak mind on radar was hopping mad. We had seconds before they found firing positions on us.

This was going to be a harsh, harsh fight.

I didn’t need to call out ‘door’ to Nemuleki as I knelt, giving her a clear line of fire. I was relaying my candle radar through the superconnector, so she was aware the very moment the Vorak reached the hatch.

They swung it open and Nemuleki’s bullet caught them in the jaw.

Go. Go. Go.

We couldn’t stop. If any of us were caught in the long narrow spaces of the deck, we’d be fish in a barrel, no matter how much invisible armor we wore.

These pirates knew it too.

Two more appeared at windows, high up on the bridge tower. We felt them getting into position though, so we ducked behind the nearest gap in the stacks of shipping containers. They were steel. Good cover, but we were stuck unless I could attack those gunners.

Jordan could materialize something anywhere in the boat, but I could hear the gunshots she was dealing with.

I’d have to be our difference maker here.

I materialized my latest in Adept-psionic hybrid gadgetry and prepared to launch myself into an attacking position with my newest toy: web-shooters. Unlike their comic-book inspiration, these didn’t actually ‘shoot’ anything. Instead, they were a psionic prosthesis designed to aid the moment I wanted to materialize a cable or line of some kind.

I poked my head out for only the split second it took me to aim and materialize my ‘web’.

The cable didn’t launch from my hand to the ship railing ahead of me, no, it just sprang into existence already spanning the section I had in mind. It was the maximum length of cable I could make with my Adept range, and it was fastened to the deck of the ship where it met a railing.

I gave the line a solid tug to make sure it would hold my weigh and was satisfied.

I’d practiced this a few times in zero-G and on the Jack, but this was going to be its first test in a planet’s gravity.

But I had faith in my math. It would hold.

I asked Nemuleki and Lorel.

They both clicked yes, and I flung myself out from behind the containers and over the deck’s edge, clinging to my cable.

With the angle the Vorak had on the ship’s deck, it was actually very difficult for them to shoot directly down, especially at anything over the side of the ship. With the bullets that Nemuleki and Lorel placed, the Vorak were forced to hunker down while I swung.

As soon as I fell over the edge, I turned my jets to maximum, hanging from my cable and pivoting thirty feet around and then forward of my cable’s anchor. I swung inches away from the hull itself, launching myself from the swing’s highest point toward the bridge tower.

Now I was almost directly beneath them, though still two decks short.

It didn’t matter.

I was close enough to magnetize myself to the bridge tower’s exterior, and thread my cascade up to their deck in a thin line. With that guide, I materialized a kinetic bomb at the very tip of my contorted and stretched cascade.

The glass blew out, but the Vorak made no screams of pain. My bomb had probably crushed their ribs and lungs before they could.

I sent to Lorel and Nem.

They advanced, firing again on the Vorak that appeared again at the deck hatch.

I dropped back down to the deck with them because I felt one of the nine Adepts. Moving toward the section I’d just bombed out.

No.

Not one. Three.

Crap. Two more were marching toward us—without warning, I tackled Nemuleki and Lorel back out the hatch we’d just climbed through.

Ground spikes tore through the corridor walls where we’d just been standing.

“” I called.

The Adepts were splitting up between Jordan’s group and mine. Minimum, we were facing steep one-to-four Adept odds.

As quickly as they appeared, the ground spikes vanished, giving the Adept that made them a clear line of fire on us. There was no where for us to run to except back to the gap in the container stacks.

I materialized a shield to eat the first few bullets, but the Vorak wasn’t shooting a standard gun. There was a flash of red and my shield disintegrated into chunks with just one shot.

A second one caught me in the shoulder, but Nai’s invisible armor deflected the shot wide into the sea.

I frantically materialized shield after shield. The one saving grace was that I could make the shields slightly faster than the Vorak could fire the gun. It was something heavy and exotic. If it had the fire rate of any ordinary pistol, I would have been overwhelmed.

We made it back to our cover, but I felt the Vorak’s cascade go underfoot.

I warned, pulling Nemuleki back before she dashed into the stalagmite that jutted out.

I breathed.

Nemuleki suggested.

<…I lost a handle on it when the bullet caught me,> I admitted.

We didn’t have time right now.

Two more Adepts were marching toward us on radar. They must be shorter range than the one ground-spiking us.

I darted out before they could round the corner. I kicked one in the jaw, ducking my body down behind the other one in an instant. I was trying to lure the first Adept into shooting their friend with that exotic gun of theirs, but they didn’t take the bait.

Their friend didn’t appreciate me closing distance that easily, and they thrust an otter claw toward my face.

Even an unskilled Adept could kill just by getting a grip of someone, but I wasn’t about to give them a chance. I grabbed their wrist with one hand and their jaw with my other. They instantly tried to bring their teeth down on my fingers, but my augmentations were more than durable enough to ignore the bite.

I sent a spray of rocket knives toward the Adept still holding the hatch, kicked the second Vorak again, and dragged this one back with me.

One of the most devastating effective options in combat is something simply unexpectedly painful. All sorts of good training and tactical awareness can be overridden by more fundamental animal inputs like agony.

No Vorak every expected to be dragged by the jaw. So for three seconds, the Vorak couldn’t collect their senses enough to realize that they should pull against my tug as hard as possible.

Because I dragged them right into Lorel’s sight.

Credit to the pirate where it’s due, they didn’t stop fighting even when I was wrenching their jaw with one hand. They flailed with their gun in hand, trying to jam the barrel against me and fire, but they were too slow.

Lorel fired twice. One in the neck, one in the chest.

Even kicked in the head twice, the second rak rounded the corner too. Still holding their friend’s body, I only had to move on panic. Putting every scrap up mass I had into it, I pulled a spike horizontally out from the nearest container. It didn’t stab for any real damage, but it knocked their gun off course just long enough for me to leap up.

The Vorak corrected, aiming over the spike first, but my own hand snatched out to force their aim off. In my other hand, I materialized my own pistol and aimed under the spike for a gut shot. Like me though, their free hand clamped down on my wrist.

I had the advantage though. Because before they could start struggling, I dissolved the ground spike jutting between us. The recouped mass was enough to create a kinetic bomb right between us.

The rak saw the ripple in the air, but couldn’t wrench themselves backwards quickly enough to shield themselves from the blast.

I was blown backward, deeper between the container stacks. But the Vorak was blasted clean through the metal deck railing and into the sea below.

Where was the third one? Still at the hatch? Fine. This was getting too close for comfort. We would win, but if we didn’t change something, we were going to be forced to take risks. Especially if I made another mistake like losing hold of the Coalescence in our back pocket.

I said.

Lorel noted. Splitting up was correct for ambushing, but they’d detected our own radar signal.

I said.

Even if five of the Adepts still hadn’t moved, the remaining nine were still a shockingly large figure for an operation like this. More than thrity Vorak we had fought at the mall, and less than ten of them were Adept.

Here we were facing a smaller total, but with even more Adepts.

Absurd.

I bet even the Missionary Marines didn’t have fourteen Adepts in their entire number, and they were a militia more than a hundred strong.

Wait…

I risked poking my head out from behind the containers again. Not to look at the Vorak pinning us down here—they were still there—but to eyeball the contour of the hull.

Those five Adepts I sensed on radar…

At least one of them was powerful, like… Big Bear powerful.

They weren’t inside the ship near the hull. They were outside, clinging to it.

And the pirates weren’t the only ones with a submarine.

“Providence,” I muttered. “Literally providence!”

I gave a mad cackle and reached for Jordan.

<[Hey, I’m going to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Help?]>

<[Go.]>

I didn’t need full Coalescence for this. Just like how I limit my superconnector to Nai’s radar, I could limit myself to Jordan’s huge transmitter array. It was ordinarily powerful enough to blast a signal far enough to reach a planet, but we didn’t need to make that long distance of a call.

No, they were idiot do-gooders, like me.

They ran toward the storm too. It was even how we’d met.

I sent the signal far and wide in every direction, but I had a feeling the most relevant direction was down.

There was no doubt among the enemy Vorak they heard the message. Enough of them understood Starspeak to grasp I was calling for help, but, surely it was a bluff, right? The mix of confusion and laughter on the faces we could make out in the distance certainly said so.

Unfortunately for them, it was anything but.

The first clue was a shout going through the Vorak on the cargo ship’s deck.

“Below!”

“More, at the bow!”

The five Vorak at the bow started moving. What had they been waiting for, an invitation?

<[Holy shit,]> Jordan marveled.

“We’re going up top,” I said, pointing up the shipping containers. “”

I reached out for the newcomers’ psionics too.

I shared.

Mavriste chimed in.

Macoru added.

Nemuleki panted while we ran down the cargo ship. “How’d you know they were there? I mean, I saw them on your radar too, but how’d you…y’know, know?”

“They said they were heading toward Coast City in preparation to help with the Hurricane,” I said. “Well the hurricane didn’t hit Coast City.”

“Gulf City,” Nemuleki corrected.

“Whatever,” I huffed. “Point is, they were anticipating where the storm would be. Failing that?”

“They’d follow it,” Lorel nodded. “I get it.”

The pirates were in disarray. They’d mobilized to respond to the six of us and our assault. It left them completely vulnerable to an attack coming from the boat’s bow.

Jordan, Corphica and Wurshken fell in with us seamlessly and we made our way between the stacks of containers until finally… Between the stacks, a metal frame staircase offered to take us up top where the pirate and marine Adepts were beginning to clash.

Three of the pirate Adepts were growing. Seven, eight feet tall already. They were like Megatherium, adding to their body’s size and mass with Adeptry.

I recognized two of the marines fighting them atop the crates too: Mavriste and ‘Middle Bear’. Vo.

“What do you say? Shall we help them out?” I said.