Over the next two weeks, Sal and I operated on the prisoners and removed the disabled charges from their skulls. Each and every one of them was surprised when they woke up, because they had been healed. Even old wounds and scars had been removed. They were all grateful for the help, except for Liv. When she woke up, she had been angry that I had taken advantage of her friend Sal and forced her to operate on everyone.

The funny part was that Sal didn't correct her and let her believe that it was all on me. I didn't ask what her reason for that was and she didn't offer. Since I was usually the focus of someone's ire, it didn't bother me in the least, so I didn't correct her, either.

A few days after the last prisoner was operated on, we arrived in the system with the next business to raid. Our data files were filled with information on the place, so Simone and I easily infiltrated and raided it, removed everyone and stored the bodies, and left it like we had the others. We didn't stick around and jumped out of the system to head to the next destination.

A month later, after two more businesses raids, we arrived at the last camp. It was pretty much child's play for Simone and I to clear the place out, especially with Isabella nearby to assist. The camp only had a normal person as an administrator, so the signal to blow his suicide charge worked. We luckily found all fifteen prisoners and it took almost no effort to convince them it was a real rescue when I mentioned that we had an APC waiting to get them out of there.

The prisoners thought we were just taking them somewhere else on the planet and neither I nor Simone told them differently. It wasn't until they saw the hidden cargo shuttle that they started to suspect something. When the rear hatch opened up, they thought we would be transferring them into it... then Isabella shocked them by driving the APC right into the cargo area.

Simone almost moaned at their thoughts and closed her eyes. I took her hand to steady her and she gripped it hard when the shuttle lifted off and the prisoners realized that they were actually leaving the planet. I felt her reel from their thoughts and emotions and she liked that feeling a lot. Freedom.

We had to leave the prisoners in the cargo area while we built the appropriate barracks in the observation deck. It only took an hour, since we had already prepped everything, and made cubicle rooms for the bunk bed cots. They would have to double up for the most part, except for one of them. Rather than fight off for the single bed, we had them rotate every few days. That way, everyone had a chance to sleep alone.

Sal and I worked for another two weeks to remove the suicide charges from the newest rescued prisoners and they were very grateful to have that worry lifted from them. Liv still wasn't happy that I was making Sal work so hard; but, she couldn't doubt how much the people Sal saved praised her. They knew that if it wasn't for her, they would still have those loose wires and batteries in their heads.

We had another two months of travel to go and three more businesses to raid, so during that time, we all got to know each other fairly well. Most of us discovered that we didn't much like having so many other people crowded around us all the time.

We were all very happy that Sheph and Sandy had overstocked our food and other supplies, because with thirty nine people on board, we went through a lot of food every day. Rather than working on more satellites, most of my time was spent cooking for everyone. There were so many people that they ate in shifts, and by the time one meal was done, the next had to be prepped and served.

I lost my lounge couch as a sleeping area, since there was always someone there watching the screen. None of them had seen a television program in a while, so my sleeping arrangements changed to sleeping in the shuttle bay inside Monna. She was happy to have the company, because according to her, she loved her Grandpa.

*

The Wise One sat on the floor behind his desk and once again went over the status reports from all of The Order facilities. Fortunately or unfortunately, it did not cover the associated businesses controlled and run by the assassins. Out of the thousands upon thousands of temples, factories, churches, outposts, relay stations, compounds, retreats, and sacred sites, only one hadn't responded.

The Wise One brought up the coordinates of the focusing crystal mine that was three quarters of a galaxy away and wondered if he could subject a ship's crew to such a long trip. If he sent them on their fastest ship that could hold enough food to make the trip, with minimal stops along the way, it would be almost three months before they would reach it. He debated sending a message to the closest outpost to have them send a ship, and even then it would be almost a month long trip.

There was a reason the sacred sites were so difficult to get to and The Wise One was sure that if anything had happened there, he wanted to send someone he could trust to keep the information confidential. His decision made, he asked his secretary to make an appointment for Master Moor to come and see him at her convenience.

*

When we finally finished our mission, Beatrice dropped us out of hyperspace in the Dizahl System. We were all space weary and needed to get out of the ship's confinement. We had made a couple of stops to give everyone some air and some extra space; but, that almost made getting back into the ship and squeezing together that much worse.

This time when it happened, it was going to be for good. I had contacted the Bogorim Corporation at the previous stop and arranged for as large of a compound as they had on the second planet, as long as it was as far away from everything as possible. Even empty land would be fine, as long as prefab living spaces could be provided, well spaced out of course, for the number of people I had aboard.

Beatrice flew us to the planet and all of the freed prisoners loaded up into Monna and I gave them their bundles of items and personal belongings. Jelly flew them down to the designated spot and they were surprised beyond belief at the place they had been dropped off. I was immediately contacted by Ral to ask what it had cost to rent an entire resort.

“Hunter! What were you thinking?!?” Ral almost yelled into the communications console. “You are absolutely crazy to rent out the whole resort! The place is almost empty except for us and the staff!” She said. “How much did you spend to do this?”

“I can't say such an outrageous number over a com signal, so I have to do it in person.” I said with a smile as I saw her blush. “I've got a few things to handle at home and then I'll come down to your personal room and show you how much...”

The call abruptly ended and the women around me laughed.

“If I didn't know better, I'd say that was a very nervous woman.” Simone said with a grin. “I think she let out a little scream at the end.”

I chuckled and looked at Beatrice. “When Jelly's back aboard, take us over to the space habitat.”

“With pleasure.” Beatrice said and when Jelly landed Monna in the shuttle bay, we eased away from the planet's orbit and flew over to our personal space station.

“We're home.” Hailey said as we docked to the station.

“Thanks for letting us abuse you like this, Adona.” I said.

“I'm glad we rescued so many people.” Adona said. “You need to call the portable maintenance bay, though. I need a good maintenance check and maybe an overhaul of my engines.”

“I'll have Sheph make the call as soon as I see her.” I said and we all left the cockpit to go to the main hatch. When it opened, Sheph, Gleas, and Deborah were there. No one said anything for a couple of seconds, then suddenly we were all giving each other hugs and kisses. A few tears were shed and there were quite a few admissions of missing each other and a few relieved laughs. Unsurprisingly, both Simone and Hailey managed to sneak a kiss with me during the scuffle.

“Sheph, can you call the maintenance dock and see if they can fit Adona in for a checkup and maybe an overhaul for her engines?”

“She already has an appointment for tomorrow.” Sheph said with a smile. “The crew chief was downright eager to get her in after so long.”

“I'm glad.” I said and put an arm around Simone and Hailey. “It's time that I get you two properly moved in together.”

“WHAT?” Nearly everyone yelled at the same time and Simone and Hailey laughed.

“I said together, not with me.” I corrected their assumption. “Hailey's moving in with Simone.”

“You know I didn't actually agree to that.” Simone said, teasingly.

“You didn't say no, either.” I said with a smile and she chuckled.

“Everyone? Want to give us a hand?” I asked.

They had a disbelieving look on their faces for a few seconds, as if I was trying to trick them into something, then they nodded or said yes. We all went up to the top floor and carefully gathered up Hailey's belongings and carried them over to the next section and Simone adjusted her own things to accommodate Hailey's things.

“It really is nice that you're doing this for us.” I whispered to Simone as the last of Hailey's things were put into the large closet.

“You can thank me after Adona's checkup by taking me on a tour of the system.” Simone said and shared with me her fantasy with the observation deck windows and having literally everyone in the system see us making love.

“That... is not... happening.” I managed to say through my surprise.

Simone leaned in to whisper. “What if you were in Stealth and all they saw was me?”

I closed my eyes as her desire spiked and I fought off her need to have me, then we quickly closed off those thoughts when Hailey came over to us.

“We have a lot of show to catch up on.” Hailey said with a smile and we all chuckled at having to catch up on almost six months of daily episodes.

“Tomorrow. We can start tomorrow.” I said and gave her a kiss. “I'm going to bed and I'm going to sleep for a long time.”

“I think we all are!” Sandy said and put an arm over Beatrice's shoulders. “When was the last time we were alone for more than an hour?”

Beatrice had to think about it. “About four months ago.” She said with a laugh. “Has it really been that long?”

“It felt like forever!” Sandy said and raised a hand. “Who is tired of eating in shifts?”

Everyone raised their hand except me.

“I had to cook it all, so I didn't actually sit down to eat.” I said and they all looked at me in surprise. “When was I supposed to sit and eat myself? I was the cook.”

“H-Hunter.” Simone whispered, and her voice reflected everyone's sadness that she could feel. “We didn't realize... it was so busy that...”

“I know.” I said and hugged her. “You all thought I was sitting down and having a meal with someone else.”

“Why didn't you say anything?” Hailey asked and gave me a hug.

“I didn't want anyone to feel guilty about it, like you all feel now.” I said and then smiled. “I just hope you can all forgive me if I don't cook again for a while. I'm kind of burned out.”

Simone gave me a platonic kiss and let everyone's feelings flow through it. “Since you worked so hard, and tirelessly, you can have three days off.”

Hailey made a snorting noise and burst out laughing, then everyone joined in. After a few minutes, we all filed out of what was now Simone's and Hailey's room and went to our own. I stepped into mine and went right to the bathroom and took a quick shower, then I filled the bathtub and added Hailey's bubbles. I soaked for almost half an hour and shared it with Hailey over our mental connection.

Hailey really liked that I was still doing that for her, taking baths and thinking about her, and she went to bed and fell asleep with my calm and comforting thoughts in her head.

I finished the bath and dried off, dressed for bed and climbed under the blanket. I ensured my mental alarm, my meditation and Presence gathering techniques were still working, then went to sleep.

*

Kara's ship was very lucky that they arrived at the outer coordinates of the system where the sacred site was located. The gravity field disturbances around the star had settled down and their entry was only slightly bumpy as they hit a band of gravitic energy that wasn't supposed to be this far out from the planet. When she asked the co-pilot to explain what had happened, he couldn't talk.

“What is it?” Kara asked, confused at his silence.

The man couldn't bring himself to say what his instruments were telling him. The pilot took a moment to check the readings himself, just to make sure he was on the proper approach to the planet... and froze. The ship drifted towards something in the distance and he couldn't make sense of it.

“Is that a ship's hull?” Kara asked as she looked out the cockpit's window, since neither pilot seemed able to do their jobs. With no real ambient light, except for the distant star, it was actually dark in space. “I think we should avoid that.” She said and hit the pilot on the shoulder.

“What?” He looked at her and she pointed. “Oh, shit!” He cursed and reversed the engines, then hit the emergency thrusters and the ship lurched to the right. There was a loud clang and the ship shook for a moment, then they were clear.

“What happened here?” Kara asked and looked at the current system plot in front of the co-pilot. “Was it a battle or something?”

“It's... the planet.” The co-pilot said in a whisper. “It... I don't know how to describe it.”

“It's...” The pilot started to say and was at a loss as well. “Look for yourself.”

“By the Goddess' blinding light.” Kara whispered when the screen showed what was left of the planet. Hundreds of jagged asteroids made from the molten layer of the planet that had been ejected into space, swirled around what was once a full-size planet. It was almost half the size and it looked like large chunks of it were being torn out and spread in a growing oval shape.

“What happened?” Kara asked. She had never seen or heard of anything like it before.

“We don't know.” The pilot said. “According to the readings, the planet... no, planetoid is being ground up by the star's gravity, because it's in an unstable orbit and is much closer than it's supposed to be.”

“That can't be right.” Kara said. “How would... it's not possible to...” She shook her head. “What happened to the ship we almost ran into?”

“We did run into it.” The pilot corrected. “It was a lot bigger than us, so when it hit what we did...”

“Instead of hitting a bump, it was like hitting a wall.” The co-pilot said. “That's also what happens when you jump too close to a planet's gravity well.”

“Is anyone alive?” Kara asked.

“it doesn't matter if they are.” The co-pilot said. “We can't rescue them and we can't take them with us.”

Kara glared at him.

“Unless you want to switch places with someone, then we can take them.” He said. “You know how tight our supplies are and how far it is to the next Order system.”

Kara bit her tongue and kept her scathing remarks to herself. “Can we at least check to see how long they've been here?”

“Unless their computers are still running, there's no way to check on this end. We would have to somehow find out where they came from and when they left to come here.”

Kara used a mental technique to calm herself, so she wouldn't get angry at being so helpless. “Record everything into the secured database and get us out of here.”

“It's going to take a while to calculate a safe exit.” The co-pilot said. “The gravity fluctuations are throwing off everything, especially the hyperspace calculations.”

Kara frowned. “Then how did we survive?”

“We were extremely lucky.” The pilot said. “Maybe that wreck was just large enough to mitigate the gravity wave we hit, or we came in just far enough away from the epicenter and the wave had dissipated enough on its own.” He shrugged. “Who knows.”

“We'll have to submit a spacial anomaly warning notice for this region.” The co-pilot said. “There's no way to tell what this place is going to end up looking like.”

“Since we can't leave right away, can we get any closer to the planet?” Kara asked.

“Not on your life.” The pilot said, adamantly. “There are actual chunks of planetary crust floating out there.”

Kara sighed. “Any estimate on the computer's calculations?”

The co-pilot shook his head.

“Let me know when we can jump.” Kara said and went back into the ship to her small room. The Wise One was right to send me out here. She thought as she sat down to meditate. Something tore that planet up and we need to keep it quiet until we find out what happened.

Kara winced when she tried to gather the ambient Presence around her, then she gasped when she realized why it felt weird. There should have been two sources of Presence nearby. She could only feel one and it was the star. There was no Presence left in the planet. The only other time she had felt something similar was when she had been on Relique and encountered the 'dead' worlds on the other side of the portals.

It's happening here, too. Kara thought with surprise.