With a new goal in sight, the Granis System, I went to Cassie and she told me that it was about three weeks away. Rus had to divert from our previous hastily-chosen course to take a more direct route, in the hopes that we could arrive before the notice from The Order of me becoming a rogue, reached the distant tourist attraction.

I wasn't worried about being caught there, not after discovering its underworld connections; but, there would no doubt be people who would want to hunt me down for the one thousand credit bounty. Ohazith was kind enough to include the notice along with all the other information she had sent to the ship. I was glad that the bounty was so low and it stated that I needed to be alive to claim it.

Good luck getting me back there alive. I thought with a touch of hatred while I ate breakfast. As I sat at the table, each person that walked by me pat my shoulder, rubbed my back, or gave me encouraging words. When Luxea did it, she had leaned down and gave me a hug and whispered in my ear.

“I'm so sorry, Ullir.” Luxea breathed. “If there's anything I can do...”

I slowly turned my head so she wouldn't be surprised by the movement, and she leaned back slightly. “Can you teach me about engineering?”

Luxea smiled. “No.”

“But...”

“You can tag along when I do my daily check of the ship's systems if you want.”

“I'd like that.” I said. “It'll keep me busy, at least.”

“I do it after lunch, so meet me in the cockpit after that.” Luxea said.

“Okay.” I said.

We all finished eating and went our separate ways. They all went to their respective jobs and I went to my sleeping compartment to study. I wasn't sure what Rhubin did during the day, and I honestly didn't want to know. It was his business and that was as much information as I wanted to have on the subject. I had skipped going to lunch and met Luxea in the cockpit, and she waved me over to the side of the room. I wasn't sure what she wanted me for, then she reached out and tapped the wall. I heard a hollow sound and raised my eyebrows at her.

“It's just a facing.” Luxea said and pulled a wrench out from one of her jumpsuit pockets. “A fake wall to protect us from all of the electrical wires that would be floating around if we didn't cover them.”

I watched as she expertly unbolted the panel in only a few seconds.

“Take it out.” Luxea said and pointed at it.

I looked at the practically seamless metal and then looked at the little holes the bolts had left.

“That's right.” Luxea said and smiled as she passed me a tiny little tool with a thick hook on the end. “You need to brace it and yank with this to get the leverage you need to pop it open.”

“How do you decide what panel to open?” I asked and took the tool, did as she said and hooked the tool into a bolt hole, then pulled. The panel popped off the wall with a small suction sound and I put the panel down on the floor.

“The ship's schematic.” Luxea said and held up her datapad. “It tells you where all the junction boxes are that need to be checked.”

“I assume it also tells you what they are for.” I asked as I looked at about 6 large bundles of wires that entered a three foot by three foot square junction box. “This looks like a nightmare.”

Luxea chuckled and opened the junction box, and inside was like... well, I don't know what it was like. I had never seen anything like it before. Hundreds upon hundreds of connections, relays, welds, switches, buttons, and what I thought were fuses of some kind were scattered all over the thing.

“I was exaggerating before.” I said as I looked at the complete mess before me, and even with Presence and my mind automatically sorting everything into its own color, I couldn't make sense of it. “This really is a nightmare.”

Luxea laughed and took out something that looked like a datapad and plugged it into a port between two bundles of wires that I wouldn't have found if she had given me a map and detailed directions.

“You can't look at the whole as a whole.” Luxea said and pointed. “This goes to the medical bay.” She said and then touched the bundle of wires. “Main power.” She said as she rubbed her finger on a thick one with distinct markings, then touched the wire next to that. “Backup power.” She touched a huge bundle of wires next to that. “Video and audio tied into the communication system.”

I stood there as she explained what each bundle of wires did, and I was surprised that so much was handled by it. “If this box is ever damaged, it could ruin the whole ship!” I exclaimed, and she laughed.

“It could... if it was the only one on the ship.” Luxea said, and I stared at her.

“There's more?”

“Now you know why I said I can't teach you engineering.” Luxea said. “There are hundreds of these on a long haul transport. Each with redundancies and backups so that no matter what happens, things will always work.”

“Unless it's the main power reactor.” Rus said. “If we have to dump it in an emergency or it explodes, all the junction boxes in the universe won't save us.”

“How much backup power would we have if that happened?” I asked. “I mean dumping it or shutting it off, not exploding.” I smiled. “Are there things like high voltage batteries or secondary reactors on the ship?”

“We can last about twelve hours at full power without the main reactor.” Luxea said. “If we go to bare minimums, we can last for about a week.”

“I assume the ship doesn't have a spare main reactor.” I said, and she shook her head.

“We couldn't store it, legally anyways, even if we did have one.” Rus said. “Plus, we would need to be in a shipyard to change it out... and we would need the help of a lot more hands than what we have on this ship.” He chuckled. “No point in keeping an extra one onboard when we'd never be able to use it.”

I was going to suggest having it completely wired up and powered down, so that if anything cut off power to the main it could just be started up to take its place, then kept the thought to myself. I had no idea how large the ship's reactor was, where it was, or what requirements it needed for operation. Instead, I looked at Luxea's face.

“Show me what you can and I'll try my best to follow along.” I said.

Luxea smiled sweetly at me and nodded, then showed me what her daily engineering job entailed as we checked the junction boxes that needed to be checked. I wasn't surprised to discover that she was very smart and knew everything about the ship and its inner workings. She had been on it long enough that she could do most of the little repairs blindfolded and we were done well before suppertime.

“...and that's it.” Luxea said and bolted the last panel into place. “Maintenance check done.”

“Luxea.” I said.

“Yes, Ullir?”

“I only have one question.”

“What's that?”

“How does it work?” I asked.

“How does what work?”

“This.” I said and waved at the corridor we were standing in. “Lights. Gravity. Electricity. How does it work?”

Luxea opened her mouth to say something, probably to call me stupid, then she closed it and thought about my question. “Ullir, it's both simple and complex at the same time.”

“Try me.”

“Well, everything that works has... it's just...” Luxea stopped talking for a moment. “On and off.” She said. “Everything has an on and an off. Even the most intricate technology is made up of little electronic switches that just turn on and off. When done in specific sequences and faster than a blink of an eye, they can perform amazing things.”

I wasn't sure what she was saying, then she took my hand and lifted it up, folded my other fingers down and left my index one pointed up.

“This is off.” Luxea said. “Now do your Presence trick and make your fingertip glow.”

I gathered a little bit of Presence to my fingertip and it glowed slightly.

“This is on.” Luxea said. “While off, you are in one state, and when on, you are in another. If you do it rapidly, that's another state. If you do it every second and skipped every other second, that's another state.”

My eyes started to widen and my eyebrows raised up as she kept talking.

“If you do three rapid and one slow, that's another state.” Luxea said. “There are an infinite number of states you can create and they each have their purpose.”

“In an electronic system, you can set anything up, any commands you want, and the state of all the little switches inside tell it what do to and in what order to do it so it can follow those commands.” I said.

“Yes!” Luxea said. “The lights don't just turn on. They need regulated and constant power so it doesn't overload. Imagine if you just had 'power' and 'on' as commands. The lights would explode as all the power was shunted to them!”

“What it does is add a small amount of power, directs it where it needs to go, tells the light to accept that power, then adds the power in a steady stream to maintain a consistent glow and not just one short burst.” I said as I started to understand.

“That's right, Ullir.” Luxea whispered. “All electronics work that way, otherwise they would just pop the moment any power was added.”

I think that's why Light swords have basic electronics and aren't just a housing for the focusing crystal. I thought. If I held onto a bare crystal and tried to create a Light sword with it, it would probably create one at random, anywhere on its surface, and possibly kill me if it didn't just cut off my hand... or explode from not having any kind of regulator in place.

“I can see your mind working.” Luxea whispered again and leaned in close. “I can almost feel it.”

I blinked my eyes and saw her Presence starting to gather as she became aroused, and I absorbed the small amount still on my finger, in case she got the wrong idea and tried to take advantage of me.

“You've opened my eyes to several new things and it's letting me see why some things are the way they are.” I whispered, and she closed her eyes at the compliment. “Thank you very much, Luxea.”

“You're welcome.” Luxea said and opened her eyes and looked at me forlornly.

I could see in them that she had missed a golden opportunity, so I cupped the sides of her face with my hands. “I'm still taking your advice, remember? I won't get involved with anyone on the ship.”

“I shouldn't have given you that advice, Ullir.” Luxea sighed. “It's denied you a way to help you deal with your grief.”

“I have dealt with it.” I said. “I put it right into the same bundle of anger that I have at The Order for killing my parents.” I leaned forward and touched my nose to hers. “She wasn't even a rogue and she was killed, because according to The Order, I am a rogue and she collaborated with me.”

“Ullir, you...” Luxea took a shallow breath and let it out. “The Goddess teaches us that anger will eat you up inside.”

“Not if you use it to keep yourself from making mistakes.” I said, paraphrasing what Ohazith had said to me, then let Luxea's face go.

“Ullir, you killed three people with... whatever it was you did with the communications system... because of that anger.” Luxea said. “You almost died.”

“That's because grief stopped me from using my anger properly.” I said. “You were right. I should have stopped when they were dead and I wouldn't have drained myself by wasting my energy on trying to kill corpses.”

“Ullir, that's not what I meant.”

“I know.” I said and turned and walked away. “See you tomorrow for my next lesson.”

*

“Look at this place.” The Order member said and waved at the carnage in Ohazith's room. “What the hell happened in here?”

“By the looks of the console, it exploded.” The second one said.

“After they killed the collaborator.” The first one said. “Why did it explode and kill the three of them?”

“A fail-safe device, perhaps?”

“If we had come here instead of trying to chase that ship...”

“We still would have found the same scene, just an hour earlier.” The second one said. “Showing them that we were willing to chase them, even without the possibility of catching them, showed them our resolve to find them.”

“Why did we do that again?”

“They started to run as soon as we entered the system.” The second one said. “Only guilty people run.”

“They could have just been leaving on their own.”

“Not at full burn like they did.” The second one said. “It's too bad we didn't get their ship identification, though.”

“It shouldn't be that hard to find them.” The first one said. “How many long haul transports can there be out this way?”

“More than either of us has the time to chase down and inspect.”

“So, what do we do?”

“We need someone more sensitive than us to look this place over.” The second one said.

“Why?”

“It glows with Presence.”

“If you hadn't noticed, everything does.” The first said, sarcastically.

“Yes, but you failed to notice that the glow isn't coming from the bodies. It is on them.”

The first one knelt on one knee and looked at the remains of an older man and concentrated on it. “You're right. It's not an internal glow.”

“We'll check the guests to see if there's anyone sensitive enough for the job. If there isn't. We'll have to send for someone.”

“That could take weeks, even in our ship.”

“Do you have anywhere else you need to be right now?” The second one asked.

“Well, considering we were sent to deliver messages when any normal courier could have done it... no.” The first one said and smiled.

The second one chuckled. “Let's skip the search here, then. Tell the ship to go back to Ulathall and report what happened here, and that we need someone with a more precise grasp of the use of Presence to come here and inspect things, then possibly track this flow of Presence.”

“Do you think it'll last that long?” The first one asked.

“I'll try and construct a barrier that should hold the state of the room intact... for as long as I can maintain it, anyway.”

“Do you want me to...”

“No, it would just disrupt my concentration if you try to help me or make part of the barrier yourself.”

The first one shrugged. “I'll make sure they bring you food and...”

“I don't have to stay here to keep it going.” The second one smiled. “It only has to be within my detection range.”

“You're lucky, then.” The first said. “I have to keep looking at things to have it work.”

The second chuckled. “You need more mental discipline, my friend.”

“No, I just need more time to practice.” The first said. “Which I could do if we weren't sent out all the time to do things like this.”

“Well, we'll have about two weeks before the ship comes back. That should give you plenty of time to relax and practice.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” The first one said. “This is a resort! Who's going to practice meditation while in a place like this? Not me!”

The second shook his head. “Go on, then. Have fun.”

“Yes!” The first one said and strode away.

“Give the ship its orders!” The second one nearly yelled, and his friend gave him a wave of acknowledgement. “I'll call and tell them myself after I set up this barrier.” He said and closed the door, then pulled some Presence around himself and closed his eyes. He made what his mind thought of as a soft blanket and laid it over the room. It didn't stop things from happening inside the room and only slowed down the dissipation of Presence. As long as he kept pouring Presence into his blanket, it would contain the Presence within the room.

At least, it had always worked that way. The Order was fortunate to have someone with that skill this time, otherwise they wouldn't be able to track whoever it was that had doused those three men and most of the room with Presence. He had felt stronger Presences before from different masters; but, this room had been hours old by the time they had reached it, after some investigating and the staff had discovered their missing owner. The Presence in the room was still quite prominent, and that had been a surprise for him to see.

The second Order member's thoughts drifted to the message about declaring an apprentice a rogue and the minuscule bounty on his head. If it was him, this Ullir, then both the level of the warning and the price of the bounty will increase. He thought and finished making his soft blanket barrier, then he called the ship to confirm their orders.

The fast courier ship left orbit around the small moon, accelerated out of the moon's gravity well, then jumped to hyperspace. The two Order members had grossly miscalculated the timetable. It had taken them a week to get to Esyndae because of all the stops they had to make to deliver the warning about Ullir. Without those stops, the fast ship made the trip in two days, picked up their requested expert, and was back on the small moon of Esyndae two days later. The shuttle from the ship landed and the expert stepped out and was greeted by both Order members who were very surprised at her sudden arrival.

“Master.” They both said and bowed slightly. “Welcome to...”

“Take me to the room right now and pray to the Goddess that it's still intact enough for my needs.” Master Kara Moor snapped angrily at them.

“Y-yes, Master Moor.” They both said and led her from the landing pad and into the resort as quickly as they could. As they approached the room, the second member of The Order dismissed his soft blanket and Kara saw it dissipate. She nodded to him and opened the door, then she caught herself before she gasped.

L-look at this place. Kara thought in shock. Her eyes almost burned at the amount of Presence in the room. It came from near the console. She walked over to it and put her hand into the radiating Presence. Ullir. She thought as she recognized his Presence, then she turned and looked at the three bodies just inside the door. He killed them.

Kara closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She opened them and looked at where the bodies were. She knew they had been standing when they were hit by something, so she walked over to where they would have been standing, and looked back at the console. She saw the woman's body and the two laser blasts that had killed her.

There's too much of his Presence in here and I can't tell if he was in the room or not. Kara thought. They obviously shot the woman and he reacted, and did something with Presence; but, I can't tell what it was.

Kara turned and bent down to examine the older man, then unbuttoned his suit coat and then his shirt. Now I know. She thought as she saw the huge indent in the man's chest where his heart should have been. There's only one attack that I've heard of that could implode a man's heart like that. She closed her eyes for a moment. Oh, Ullir. She sighed because her student was losing his way. “What was the name of the ship that left orbit when you arrived?”

“They don't have the ship's name on record, Master Moor.” The first one said.

“Excuse me?” Kara asked and stood.

“It's against their policy to record those things. Or passenger names.” He said. “All they do is take pictures for identification.”

“Show me.” Kara demanded and he handed her a datapad. She flicked through the seven pictures in an instant. “We need to find that ship.” She said and left the room at a fast walk, and the other two Order members quickly followed her. I'm coming for you, Ullir. She thought. You will answer for your crimes.