Tyrial did not feel comfortable wearing a Conclave uniform. His only consolation was that Sarah looked even more uncomfortable. Not surprising though, given that her uniform was meant for a man. She looked as though she was about to explode out of it at any moment. Scratching at the rough collar, Tyrial did his best to keep his concentration where it belonged. They were only a few minutes from dropping out of warp in front of the detention facility.

“Rella, prepare to transmit the docking codes,” Gabriel said.

“Yes sir,” Rella replied. She looked as nervous as the rest of them. She looked better too, not having been stuffed into a borrowed uniform.

Tyrial was glad she would be staying on the ship, he wasn’t sure he could have concentrated on the matter at hand if he had had to worry about her as well. The entry team consisted of Gabriel, Sarah, and himself. Gabriel said, and rightly so, that non-humans would stand out. The Conclave did not generally employ non-humans as anything other than servants, and rarely even then.

Surprisingly, Rella had protested at not being included even more strenuously than Kreshen had. She had even offered to tape her ears down in an effort to pretend to be human. In the end, though, Gabriel had convinced her to stay behind. She had, however, spent the last three hours since that conversation glancing worriedly at Tyrial.

Tyrial did his best to return those glances with confident reassuring ones of his own. Though it didn’t seem to be working, he kept trying.

Tyrial’s interface began a countdown indicating they were about to drop out of warp. When the pool of gravitons disappeared, Tyrial immediately switched all of his attention to listening for any echos. A great deal of this plan hinged on them being the only ship present. Tyrial was very obviously not a Conclave Mage, and if there were any other Mages here their entire plan would fall apart.

The forward viewscreen switched from statistic to an external view. Tyrial shuddered at seeing the starbase floating in front of them. He had been in detention facilities much like this one before. They weren't large, as starbases went, but there was literally nowhere to run once you were on one. They didn’t have escape pods or stationed starship’s like any normal starbase would. It was just one large floating prison for anyone the Conclave didn’t like. It was Orbiting a dead planet, in a system filled with dead planets and gas giants. Literally nowhere to go, even if you were a Mage, you still needed a starship with a working graviton emitter to escape.

Tyrial pushed down his feelings of unease, they wouldn’t do anything to help comfort Rella who was already nervous enough. He continued to try to shoot her what he hoped were looks filled with confidence. He wished he felt as confident as he hoped he looked.

Closing in on the starbase, Rella said, “They’re requesting clearance codes.”

“Alright,” said Gabriel, “send them what the Opposition gave us and cross your fingers.”

“Transmitting now,” said Rella.

As they waited for the starbase’s response, Tyrial asked, “How long do you think we’d last in a fight with that tank?”

“Well,” said Sarah, “so far I’ve seen about six turret emplacements that look like mark eight turbo plasma repeaters, and at least four missile launchers large enough to have six-ton Tri-Thorium warheads. So I’d say about as long as it took them to open fire.”

“Spectacular,” replied Tyrial dryly.

“We have clearance to dock at port five,” said Rella, sounding extremely on edge.

Nodding, Gabriel said, “Commence docking procedures. Tyrial, have you felt anything?”

“Nodda,” said Tyrial, “but you know my Talent isn’t that strong.”

“It’s the best we’ve got,” said Gabriel, “so It’ll have to do. Let’s get down to the airlock. Rella, you have the conn.” With that, Gabriel stood and headed for the stairs at the rear of the bridge.

Sarah got up from her station and moved to William who was sitting at the engineering station. She bent down and kissed him, then whispered, “I love you, dear.” She too then made for the stairs at the back of the bridge.

Tyrial did his best not to intrude on Sarah’s moment, using the time to check a few last-minute values on his own console. Standing, he almost bumped into Rella who had apparently moved up to his station while he was trying not to pay attention to his surroundings.

“Oh, sorry,” Tyrial said, “didn’t mean to —”

“Please be careful,” Rella interrupted. She was standing right in front of him now, looking up into his face. Reaching a hand up, she touched his cheek and said, “Please come back.”

Tyrial wasn’t exactly certain what to say, he wanted to say something reassuring. Something to make her smile again. He didn’t like to make promises he wasn’t certain he could keep. But he figured if he broke this one, he wouldn’t be around to feel bad about it. He placed his own hand over Rella’s still on his cheek. “I will, I promise,” he said, trying to convey a level of confidence he certainly didn’t feel.

He must have succeeded to some degree though, Rella smiled up at him, then nodded. Dropping his hand back to his side, Rella did the same with hers. Nodding back to her once more, Tyrial turned and headed for the airlock to join the others.

He found Sarah and Gabriel standing in front of the port side airlock. Joining them, he stood, shifting nervously.

“So,” said Sarah, “did you get her to smile?”

Confused for a second, Tyrial realized what she meant. “Ya,” he said quietly.

Smiling at him for the first time he could remember, Sarah said, “Good. Rella needs a good friend. If I wasn’t already married to William… well anyway, thanks.”

Tyrial nodded, he wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but now was definitely not the time to discuss it.

“Eyes front, get your game faces on,” said Gabriel.

Looking at the airlock door in front of them, Tyrial could see that it was about to start the cycling procedure. He calmed his nerves as best he could, forming the Void in his mind. He fed his anxiety and fears into it, allowed it to swallow his concerns. Or at least he tried. It seemed the anxiety and fears were coming faster than he could feed them to the Void. He had never walked into a Conclave detention facility willingly before. Not for the first time in recent memory, he wished Rella was near him again.

Tyrial was putting a great deal of trust into the Opposition and their inside man. There were so many ways this could go wrong Tyrial had not even had time to list them all. As he stood there trying to convince himself that everything was going to work out, the airlock began to cycle open. On the other side of the now open airlock stood several individuals in uniforms like the one he was wearing.

Gabriel barely waited for the airlock to finish opening before he was moving towards their welcoming committee. Tyrial and Sarah followed close behind him. When Gabriel reached the officer at the other end, he said, “Prisoner transport PT seventeen here to pick up prisoner eleven-thirty-eight for transfer to interrogation facility IF twenty-two.” He said it with just the right mixture of boredom and authority Tyrial had heard from countless other Conclave officers.

The officer in charge studied the tablet he held for several minutes. Tyrial did his best to keep an uninterested look on his face. It wasn’t easy, this cloak and daggers shit was not for him. If the opposition had asked him to rescue this man himself, he could have thought of several extremely direct approaches that would have suited him much better. Instead, he was standing here trying to pretend to be an underpaid Conclave guard.

Eventually, the officer looked up from his tablet and said, “Alright, everything checks out. Head over to cellblock AA, your man is in cell twenty-three.” With that said, he turned and with his retinue of guards following, headed down the hall.

Gabriel, Sarah, and Tyrial all shared a brief look, so far, so good. Gabriel led the way down the hall behind the departing officer. Tyrial had glanced at the map Gabriel had shown him earlier, but his anxiety made it almost impossible for him to recall. He remembered the major areas, engineering, guard crew quarters, etc. But the cell blocks and other prisoner areas were a maze.

Tyrial tried to concentrate on their surroundings as they walked to take his mind of what they were doing, or more importantly where they were. He was impressed with the construction of this starbase. In his previous visits to Conclave detention facilities, he hadn’t really been in a position to observe the construction very much. Now he took careful note of the reinforced doorways on either side of the hall. Another interesting feature was the heavy blast doors at regular intervals. Control panels littered the walls everywhere he looked. And of course, one could not overlook the autocannons hanging from the ceiling in every other corner.

Tyrial desperately hoped they did not have to fight their way out of this place. Making it back to the ship through all of these defenses would be hairy and time-consuming at best. And that was all assuming that they didn’t decide to cut the Osiris loose and blow it out of existence with the starbases external defenses. Tyrial decided to stop concentrating on the starbase around him, the more he saw the higher his anxiety got.

Reaching the lift that went down to the cell blocks, the three of them piled in. Thankfully the officer and his men had taken another hallway earlier. Tyrial was not sure he could have kept it together if he had had to share a cramped lift with them on top of everything else. Once inside, Gabriel punched in their destination, cell block AA. The doors closed and the lift began to move.

Sarah stretched uncomfortably, as she did so, one of the buttons on her uniform popped off and made a ping sound against the lift wall. Slumping her shoulders, she grunted, “The Void swallow this uniform.”

“Well,” said Gabriel, “I’m sure if you took it off, it would make for a very effective distraction.”

Sarah gave Gabriel a flat eyed glare and said, “Hilarious…”

“In all seriousness though,” said Gabriel while eyeing the uniform that only just barely contained Sarah’s breasts, “don’t pop anymore of those off, we don’t need some overzealous sergeant up our asses for a uniform violation.”

Sarah grunted again, then muttered, “Could have at least given me a couple of real guns instead of this peashooter.”

Smiling, Gabriel didn’t reply. Tyrial knew why, if it came down to a fight, it was mostly all on him. They had been asked to keep casualties to a minimum and a plasma rifle wasn’t going to accomplish that effectively. Tyrial was almost starting to wish that something would go wrong, at least then he would be in a situation he was more familiar with. That is, the Conclave trying their best to kill him, while he did his best to disappoint them.

The lift came to a stop a few seconds later, the display reading cell block AA. On the other side of the opening door were some twenty or more Conclave guards and other staff moving around in what looked like a fairly large control room. Stepping off the lift, Gabriel walked up to one of the officers and said, “Prisoner transport here for prisoner eleven-thirty-eight.”

Looking up from his tablet briefly, the officer said, “What? I haven't been notified of any pending transports. Where’s your paperwork?”

Tyrial braced himself, gathering his Will he prepared to unleash hell. Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, but before he could another officer said, “It’s right here lieutenant, it just came in.” This new officer walked up to the lieutenant and passed him a tablet.

Glancing at it, the lieutenant grunted and said, “Fine, but this stuff is supposed to be submitted well in advance, make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Yes sir,” said Gabriel.

“Sergeant,” the lieutenant said, “escort them down to cell twenty-three.”

“Yes sir,” said the sergeant. “This way,” he said to Gabriel.

Following the sergeant, Gabriel and the others moved down to one of the many reinforced doorways in the central control room. The sergeant swiped one of his fingers over a biometric reader and the door labeled ‘Cells 001-050’ opened.

Following the sergeant down the long row of cells, the hairs on Tyrial’s neck began to stand up. He had memories of places like this, and they weren't pleasant ones. He wasn’t actively using his Will but he knew he was walking through spheres of Ragnacite. All of the cells were protected with it he knew, even if the prisoner in question wasn’t a Mage. It meant that if something went wrong in here, they were probably screwed.

Arriving at cell twenty-three, the sergeant swiped his finger on another console and the door opened. Inside, sitting on a sparse cot was a short older man with thinning hair. Producing a pair of restraints the sergeant said, “Prisoner eleven-thirty-eight, stand up, your ride's here.”

The prisoner stood and turned, facing the back of his small cell. He apparently knew the drill. Tyrial wasn’t sure if he knew he was being rescued or not. The Opposition had been a bit vague on whether he had been told. If he did know, he was controlling his emotions on the matter extremely well.

The sergeant walked up to the prisoner and put the restraints on his wrists. Pulling him around to face the door, he gave him a gentle push towards Gabriel and said, “He’s all yours.” Then, with a meaningful look, he said, “Don’t take your time.”

Nodding, Gabriel took the prisoner and headed back the way they had come at a brisk walk, Tyrial and Sarah following close behind. Given the look on that sergeant’s face, Tyrial had a good idea of who their inside man was. The question now was if that had been a generic warning or if their time was actually running out. Either way, it didn’t seem wise to dawdle and Gabriel seemed to agree as he was moving just short of a jog as they left the cell blocks.

Just before they reached the lift leading back to the upper parts of the station, a voice behind them yelled, “Stop!”

If it had been Tyrial leading, he would have just kept moving. They were so close to freedom, but Gabriel was a better poker player than Tyrial was. Stopping, Gabriel turned, a young man with glasses was jogging over to them holding a tablet.

“You have to sign for him,” said the young man, slightly out of breath. He held the tablet out to Gabriel.

Taking the tablet, Gabriel briefly tapped a few keys then pressed his thumb to the screen. Handing it back to the young man. “Here,” said Gabriel shortly.

The young man took the tablet and said, “Thanks.”

Before the words were even half out of the young man's mouth, Gabriel had already turned back to the lift. Once everyone was inside, he wasted no time taping the console to bring them back to the docking ring. As the lift began to move, Gabriel glanced at the prisoner and said, “Holding up Parinvar?”

“Well enough,” replied Parinvar. “What about you, your man there looks a bit pale,” he said, nodding towards Tyrial.

“He’ll be fine,” said Gabriel.

Tyrial did not feel fine. If he had to deal with any more of this anxiety he was going to throw up. He realized he was not well suited for sneaking around. Looking over at Sarah, she didn’t seem in much better shape. She wasn’t pale, but her hand hovered over her pistol, her finger constantly twitching.

Tyrial knew he was going to regret thinking it, but he almost wished the Conclave would attack so he would finally know exactly when and how fate planned to screw him over. If this mission gave him one thing though, it was a healthy respect for Gabriel’s constitution. The man was not sweating a drop and looked as confident as he did in his own ship.

Reaching its destination, the lift doors opened revealing a nearly deserted hallway beyond. Not wasting any time, the four of them moved down the hall in the direction of the docking ports. As they took the last corner and saw the docking ports ahead with not a single Conclave insight, Tyrial began to breathe easier. He thought that perhaps he would take back what he had wished for earlier. Now he just wished to be away from this place as soon as possible.

For some reason, as they got closer to the port which the Osiris was docked at, the hairs on Tyrial’s neck stood up higher instead of relaxing. The uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades became intensely acute and just out of habit, he glanced behind him.

He had only milliseconds to react to the sight of a rifle's muzzle pointed at them from the opposite end of the hallway. Almost on instinct, he created a gravity well to the side of the person holding said rifle. All at once, the shooter fired and Tyrial’s gravity well pulled the man off the floor he was crouching on and slammed him into the opposite wall. The plasma bolt hit the wall a mere meter behind them.

Gabriel had only just started to turn towards Tyrial when this all took place. As he registered the near miss and the shooter Tyrial had just thrown into the wall, Gabriel yelled, “Move!” Suiting action to words he shoved Parinvar ahead of him and made a dash for the docking port.

Once all four of them were in the airlock, Gabriel slammed his fist on the control panel to begin the airlock cycling procedure. Just as the starbase’s airlock opened revealing the Osiris’ already open airlock on the other side, a klaxon began going off. The four of them bolted through the open airlock into the dubious safety of the Osiris.

Standing just inside the airlock, Rella started to move towards Tyrial but stopped when she saw Parinvar.

“I was worried,” she said.

“No time to stop now,” replied Gabriel, “we still haven't —”

His words were cut off by a thunderous boom followed by the sound of metal crunching. Everyone ducked and covered their ears, waiting for the reverberations of the noise to die off. Gabriel began to swear sulfurously, looking back at the docking port.

Tyrial expanded his Will around him and took stock of his surroundings, trying to determine what had caused the noise. He quickly saw that the starbase’s escape prevention measures had been deployed. Four enormous claws extended from the starbase and grappled onto the Osiris’ hull directly. Any attempt to leave at this point would require that they leave a substantial portion of the Osiris’ hull behind. Not to mention if the grapplers had been activated so too where the gravity locks. Even with the Osiris’ oversized graviton emitter and Tyrial’s assistance, they would be unlikely to overcome those. None of that even began to address the plasma repeaters and missiles waiting for anything that managed to detach itself from the starbase.

Stepping around the corner, Kreshen walked up to them. Using two of his massive hands on one side of his body he held an enormous plasma autocannon that looked as though it would have been at home mounted to the top of a tank. In the other two hands, he held an assortment of smaller, human-sized rifles and pistols. Holding this assortment out to Sarah he said, “Brought your toys.”

Smiling, Sarah took the contents of the Tartarin’s outstretched hands and began strapping the various weapons to her body. Looking at Gabriel while she did this, she said, “So, what now?”

Having started to repeat himself, Gabriel gave up on the invectives and sighed. Looking at the docking port again, he said, “Looks like we go back in. We’ll need to disable those clamps and the graviton emitter, and we might as well kill the starbase weapons systems while we're at it.”

“Kinda puts a crimp in the whole minimal casualties thing though ya?” asked Sarah, looking pointedly at Kreshen’s autocannon.

Tyrial wasn’t sure what made him do it, but without thinking, he said, “I’ll go, alone.”

Gabriel just looked at him for a few moments.

Rella took an involuntary step towards him and said quietly, “Tyrial, no.”

“I can get to the engineering section and back without killing anyone,” said Tyrial. “None of the rest of you could manage that, at least not without a few casualties. No offense,” he said, glancing at Sarah, Kreshen, and the impressive armory they carried between them.

“You sure?” asked Gabriel.

Tyrial just nodded. He knew this was the right course of action. With his powers, he could find non-lethal means of pacifying most resistance he encountered. It flew in the face of his creed where the Conclave was concerned. But he was beginning to understand that in order to defeat them, he had to concentrate on the long view. And that meant getting on the Opposition's good side.

Tapping his PA, Gabriel said, “William, can you override the starbase’s airlock controls?”

“I can cycle the airlock,” replied Williams' voice, “but I can’t keep it open. As for the grapples, it’ll be another twenty minutes at least. The encryption on the core of this system is epic.”

“Alright, get ready on my mark,” said Gabriel. Looking at Sarah and Kreshen, he said, “Get comfortable here, we’ll keep the Osiris’ airlock closed but if they decide to force it, we’ll need to dissuade them.”

Gabriel looked at Tyrial for a few seconds before saying, “Be careful, I know the Opposition said to avoid casualties but if it comes down to you or them, make sure it’s them. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” said Tyrial. As he was about to turn to face the airlock, Rella threw herself into his arms. Too surprised to react, Tyrial stood there as Rella tried to squeeze the life out of him.

“You better come back,” she fiercely whispered. Releasing him from her death grip, she looked up at him, and then, so quick he almost missed it, she raised up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Without waiting to see his reaction she turned and fled.

Standing there with a stunned expression, Tyrial was not sure what to make of that. Was he really risking his life so often that constant warnings to return were warranted? As he thought back over all the decisions he had made throughout his life, it struck him how often he had come close to death. Perhaps he wasn’t placing enough value on his own life. Well, whatever the case, if it came down to his life or Rella’s there really was no decision to be made. He would never let anything happen to her.

Coming back to reality, he realized that Gabriel was looking at him expectantly. Sarah was also looking at him, but she had a sly smile on her face. Shaking himself, Tyrial said, “I’m ready, open it.”

Gabriel looked at him for another moment, then nodded. Tapping his PA, he said, “William, cycle it.”

Tyrial moved in front of the airlock and waited. He gathered his Will and expanded it out around him. The grapples bothered him, if William couldn’t do something about them Tyrial wasn’t sure if he could. They were embedded with small shards of Ragnacite up to and including their control mechanisms. The protection was small but it would be problematic. Pushing that out of his mind for now, he concentrated on remembering the map of the starbase he had looked at earlier.

The airlock made a sound signaling it was about to cycle. Tyrial readied himself, as the airlock slid open, he dashed through the opening and threw himself against the far side of the hallway. As he had expected, bolts of plasma whizzed by. Using strong shields of gravity he was able to deflect the incoming bolts so that they missed him. Plasma moving that fast was very difficult to affect with gravity, which is why he didn't bother trying to stop it. Bending it was about as much as he could manage and it was sufficient to keep the bolts from burning a hole in him.

Estimating the rough trajectory of the incoming fire, he sent a gravity well flying down the corridor towards its source. The sound of bodies and equipment ricocheting off of the walls told him he had guessed correctly. Waiting a few seconds to see if he had missed anyone, he began moving down the hallway in the direction of the engineering section.

At every intersection, he had to stop and cautiously peer around the corners. He pushed his Will out in every direction for meters but there was so much Ragnacite floating around this starbase, both stationary and not, that he couldn’t trust his Mage Sight entirely. Several times he ran into guard patrols packing Ragnacite along with their regular weapons. Fortunately, Tyrial had taken to using his Will to carry several large objects around with him early on as a means to deal with these problematic patrols.

These large objects also worked particularly well against the turret-mounted autocannons that seemed to litter every hallway he looked down. Some of them he could deal with directly by the expeditious means of ripping them out of the ceiling with a gravity well. Others were protected by Ragnacite to one degree or another, for these he had to sacrifice one of his large projectiles to take out. Luckily the newly destroyed cannons in most cases provided additional debris that could be used against its siblings.

Glancing down the hallway which contained the door to engineering itself, he only just pulled his head back in time to avoid a hail of plasma bolts. It seemed some of the guards had finally broken out the big toys. Tyrial contemplated which of the very large heavy objects he had been toting around he should throw at this particular group. Moving an exceptionally heavy crate into position, he prepared to hurl it down the hallway when he heard the unmistakable sound of crystal tinking against steel. A second later his control over said heavy object vanished as a shard of Ragnacite rolled into view from the direction of the group of guards.

All of the objects he had been carrying crashed to the floor. If he wasn’t in a hurry, Tyrial would have been impressed. The Conclave so very rarely employed ingenuity he almost felt bad working around their clever use of Ragnacite as a Mage grenade. Tyrial stepped back down the hall out of range of the Ragnacite shard so it wouldn’t affect his abilities too much. As long as he wasn’t touching it he could still wield his Will outside its sphere of influence, but just being near it would weaken him. He then began to throw small bits of paneling and whatever else he could lay his hands on at the end of the hallway where the Ragnacite lay.

Expanding his Will out further, he searched the area behind the group of Conclave guards for something suitably heavy to thank them for their earlier gift. Finding a slightly loose one-meter square solid steel wall panel, he prepared his gravity well. Increasing his barrage on the hallway corner protected by the shard of Ragnacite, he waited until he was relatively certain he had their undivided attention. He then released his gravity well in a strong burst, tearing the large wall panel free and sending it hurtling towards the backs of the unsuspecting guards.

The screams of pain that echoed up the hallway shortly after indicated that the panel had found its mark. Tyrial pulled out the plasma pistol strapped to his waist and carefully crept back to the corner of the hallway. There was so much Ragnacite floating around in this hall that he couldn’t rely on his Will. Glancing around the corner he saw the heavy steel panel laying on top of a group of groaning and mostly unconscious guards. Laying on the ground in front of a particularly burly individual was the offending autocannon that had almost removed his head earlier.

Stepping cautiously into the hall, he moved down towards the engineering door. None of the guards looked to be in any condition to resist at this point, but you could never be too careful. Not that heroism ran strong amongst the Conclave but there was always that one outlier when you weren't prepared for them. Just like whichever of those intrepid fellows had come up with hurling a chunk of Ragnacite at him.

Reaching the door without incident, Tyrial peered around the edge. The enormous area seemed to be devoid of human life, perhaps they had all been evacuated. Stepping through the door, he took stock of the area. An extremely large fusion reactor took up the bulk of the space spanning several floors. There were stairs and lifts spaced at regular intervals around the edges of the room. Walking up to the railed edge of this floor Tyrial took a closer look at the fusion reactor.

Disabling that would definitely shut down the graviton emitter and all the weapons systems, but it would also disable life support. He hadn’t gone through all the trouble of probably not killing anyone just to sentence them all to asphyxiation now. Though the facility was filled with murderers, extortionists, and thieves, most of them still deserved a fair trial. And then of course there were the prisoners to think about.

Looking around, Tyrial saw the graviton emitter on the floor below him taking up most of the space not currently occupied by the fusion reactor. Spotting the control system, he moved to the nearest staircase and carefully worked his way down to the lower floor. Still with no sign of human life, he looked the controls over. With William’s help, he could probably permanently disable the system in a few minutes, by himself though, he was left with more direct means.

Stepping back, he formed a strong concentrated gravity well in the middle of the control system and then intensified it quickly. Tyrial listened to the satisfying sound of agonized metal and shorting electrical connections. The klaxons that had been going off since he started his journey were now joined by several other alarms with varying degrees of annoyance. As the graviton emitters control systems smoked and smoldered, Tyrial began to float off the decking he had been standing on.

That would take care of the gravity locks, and the lack of local gravity would suite Tyrial just fine. It gave him a substantial advantage in mobility until the guards could manage to get to their mag boots. The next task was going to be more difficult. Fortunately the time Tyrial had spent working with Zin’dar had given him some insight on how ship systems, and by extension starbase systems, were configured.

He knew that the weapons systems took a monstrous amount of energy to run. So too did propulsion systems, but since the starbase was stationary, he shouldn’t have to worry about those. Tyrial used light pulses of gravity to propel himself around the engineering department. Back on the floor he had started on he saw several power management systems with cables leading up to the top floor. Propelling himself up to the top floor he found what looked like most of the starbases power distribution systems. Right next to him was the largest of them, moving closer and inspecting the subsystem he saw several labels indicating this was likely the power distribution system for the primary weapons.

Second verse same as the first, he thought to himself. Putting some distance between him and the power distribution system he created another intense gravity well inside the delicate electronics. The reaction this time, however, was noticeably more energetic. The explosion threw Tyrial against the far wall with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Gasping for breath, he looked at the now molten remains of melted slag that used to be the weapons power distribution system.

Looking himself over he didn’t notice any major injuries. He had to blink several times to clear the afterimage burned into his retina from the explosion. The sounds of yelling drifted up from the lower floor of engineering. It seemed he had gotten their attention. Shaking his head, he sharpened his concentration. Using small precise bursts of gravity he propelled himself back to the central floor of engineering and without slowing down headed for the exit.

Several very surprised looking engineers just gaped at him as he flew past. Tyrial hoped the guards weren't as quick to find their mag boots as the engineers had been. Tyrial flew down the hallways as quickly as he dared. After the first time he slammed into a wall due to some poorly placed Ragnacite he was more careful when taking corners.

Several times he ran into groups of confused guards floating around, some with injuries from his previous trip through. Any that looked brave enough to use a plasma pistol got an extra helping of Tyrial’s gravity wells and usually another taste of the hall paneling. As Tyrial passed down another hallway he glanced at one of the many blast doors he passed. He wondered why they hadn’t tried to trap him using those yet. They weren't Ragnacite reinforced so they wouldn’t stand up long but still. Perhaps that was Williams doing.

Reaching the second to last hallway, Tyrial slowed down. Drifting close to the corner of the hall, he cautiously peeked around it. Sure enough, a small pack of Conclave guards were floating aimlessly near the Osiris’ docking port. And naturally, at least one of them had Ragnacite on him. Looking back down the hall for some form of floating inspiration, nothing caught his eye at first.

Then he had a thought. The guards were essentially weightless. Once he got them moving they would float anywhere the wind took them. Smiling, Tyrial created a gravity well in the hallway they were floating in. He increased its size and intensity slowly, gathering and compressing the air in the hallway. None of them even noticed the slowly condensing sphere of opaque air in the hallway at first. It began to form water droplets as the moisture in the air condensed. He could feel the gentle breeze blowing past his spot just a few feet down an intersecting hallway.

After a few minutes, one of the guards finally began pointing to the sphere and babbling excitedly. Tyrial doubted they had any idea what they were looking at. Once he figured he had a sufficient quantity of air collected he created a strong gravity well anchoring him to the side of the wall and then released his sphere. With a thunderclap, the compressed air rushed down the hallway in all directions at hurricane speeds.

The guards who had been standing in front of the airlock were literally blown away by Tyrial’s cyclone. He could hear them bouncing off of the walls, several of them hitting quite hard when they reached the first turn in the hallway. The air rushed past Tyrial’s hiding spot, spraying him with a light mist of water. As the rushing air finally began to slow, Tyrial could only just barely hear the guards screaming and moaning from somewhere far down the hallway. Hopefully, there were enough turns between the airlock and them that they wouldn’t bother Tyrial.

Slowly, Tyrial moved out into the hall he had just vacated. Moving down the hall to the Osiris’ airlock, he expanded his Will and examined the docking port the ship was attached to. The grapplers were still embedded into the Osiris’ hull.

Tyrial tapped his PA, once connected to the bridge he said, “I kept my side of the bargain, how's the grapples coming.”

A short pause followed before Williams' hesitant voice came over the PA, “I… I almost had them, but then the system reset itself when the gravity emitter went down. I lost access to the airlock, the grapples, the blast doors… everything. I think I’ll have them in a few minutes… I’m sorry.”

Tyrial smiled, even if it was just over the PA, William was finally starting to address him directly. “Hey, you’re doing more than I could. Don’t worry about it, just do what you can,” said Tyrial.

“Understood, I’ll keep you posted,” replied William, sounding just a touch more confident.

Tyrial floated slowly over to the airlock, tucking himself into the indent where the starbase side door was tightly shut. It would offer at least some protection if someone came around one of the corners unexpectedly. Smiling to himself, Tyrial thought about the crew of the Osiris and how much he was coming to like them all. Sarah had smiled at him several times recently and even William had looked him in the eye at least once over the last week.

He was beginning to feel like he belonged. He was fairly certain that at least a few of them would miss him if he didn’t make it back. Rella in particular certainly would. Speaking of the short Zyrtha, Tyrial was still fairly confused on that subject. He was getting the distinct impression that Rella was looking for a relationship. But then there were the strange comments Sarah had made. Was Rella interested in William? He couldn’t figure out what Sarah had meant earlier when she mentioned her being married to him in relation to Rella’s happiness. It was very confusing. But then people always were.

For now, Tyrial tried to put that all out of his mind. The important thing to remember was that for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t indifferent to his continued existence. He was looking forward to getting back to his shipmates, he was looking forward to seeing Rella again. Somehow, the total destruction of the Conclave, which until now had been the one and only driving force of his entire existence, was being superseded by another. Instead, he found keeping his friends safe and happy was becoming the single most important fact of his life.

Friends… what a strange term to his mind. He knew almost for a certainty that he could call at least one of the people on the Osiris by that name, perhaps several. He knew that there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do for Rella at least, that much was certain. He realized it was her he had been thinking about when he had volunteered to take out the starbases systems. He had wanted to personally make sure she made it out of this mission safe. Well, so far so good. All he had to do was wait for William to override the airlock and grapple controls and they would be on their way.

Standing in the opening of the airlock, reminiscing about his life, Tyrial didn’t notice the sound at first. Cocking his head to the side, he suddenly realized there was another sound coming to his ears other than the droning of the klaxons. It was a rhythmic clunk-clunk-clunk sound. So… the guards had finally located their mag boots. Tyrial expanded his Will out farther, looking for the source. Finding it wasn’t difficult, two intersections down the hallway to his right there was a very large bubble of space his power could not penetrate. And it was moving in his direction.

Stepping back out into the hallway, Tyrial tapped his PA and said, “So, William, don’t mean to rush you but hows that airlock access coming?”

“Almost there,” replied Williams' voice, “maybe two more minutes, three tops.”

Tyrial looked up and down the hallway he was standing in. To his right, there was nothing but empty hallway as far as he could see. Expanding his Will, he looked harder. Nothing to his right until the slowly moving bubble of Conclave guards. To his left, more nothing until the smaller floating bubble of Conclave guards he had blown in that direction earlier. Apparently his little cyclone had been a little too efficient. No ammo, no escape.

Turning he looked at the airlock. The door itself was impregnated with trace amounts of Ragnacite, the same as the grapples were. No way to force it, looking at the grapples more closely he didn’t see any way to affect those either. Moving back to the other side of the hallway, he looked at the whole mess. Couldn’t affect the door, couldn’t affect the grapples.

The hallway itself, however, was just regular durasteel. Grimly, Tyrial considered his only remaining option. If the Osiris tried to tear free with the grapples still engaged, the chances were high that it would suffer catastrophic damage. Alternatively, if they were extremely lucky, they might tear the entire docking mechanism free of the station instead. Or, with a little less luck and Tyrial’s help, he could make certain that's what happened.

The downside, of course, was that he himself would by necessity and a lack of an escape route, be standing in the very hallway he was planning to vent into space. Tyrial sighed, just when he had started to almost enjoy living. The sounds of marching footsteps told him he didn’t have much time left. His back to the hallway opposite the airlock, he braced himself.

Tapping his PA one more time, he said sadly, “Sorry William, times up. Thanks for the effort though. I know this is asking a lot, but if you would, please tell Rella I said thanks, for everything.” Without waiting for a reply, he disconnected the commlink.

He was relatively certain that the blast doors would mostly contain what he was about to do, assuming thier automated functions still worked. If a few Conclave guards got spaced, well, it was a small price to pay for Rella’s safety. Gathering his Will, Tyrial prepared a ring of gravity around the airlock. He would have to push on all sides at once and quickly. He put all his strength into the preparation. He did not want this done halfway.

Before he released his Will, he closed his eyes and brought up an image of Rella. As he was about to release his Will, he remembered the last thing she had said to him, he remembered the quick peck on his cheek. He didn’t want to leave it like this, he didn’t want to die. That realization stung for a moment, why did he have to die just when he started to care about living.

Anger started to boil up in him. Anger at the Conclave certainly, but also at the world in general. After everything he had suffered, didn’t he deserve some measure of happiness before the end? No, he would not die like this. He would not give those Conclave bastards the satisfaction. He had always escaped their clutches before, if not entirely unscathed, still alive.

Quickly, he built another gravity well around himself, effectively anchoring himself to the spot and, hopefully, holding on to whatever air there was around himself. He didn’t have time to make it fancy, just a point at his center that pulled everything inward. The gravity pulled his clothes tight against his skin and gave him a queasy feeling as his organs responded to the unusual gravity. That done, he released his Will and with a thunderous boom, blew out the entire side of the hallway, airlock and all.

He watched as a large detached chunk of the starbases hull floated off along with the Osiris. The air around him rushed with the force of a cyclone out of the enormous hole. The intensity of the blaring klaxons changed as the emergency blast doors started to slam shut to contain the breach.

As he floated in his rapidly diminishing bubble, waiting for the last of the air he wasn’t holding onto to escape, something slammed into his right arm with incredible force. He heard something snap and pain blossomed in his mind. Thrown off balance by the pain and the force of the impact, he didn’t realize he had been thrown out of his protective bubble until he was already caught by the turbulent hurricane rushing out of the breached space station.

He desperately tried to move the gravity well he had created to catch himself, but before he could get it in place, he slammed into the ragged edge of the hole he had created. The force knocked all the air from his lungs. More snapping sounds reverberated in his mind as pain became his one and only reality. He lost track of time and space, the excruciating pain in his chest and arm consuming all thought.

In panicked desperation his mind tried to form a coherent thought, only the panic managed to get through. He tried desperately to refill his lungs but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t draw a breath. Then the information his mind was trying to deliver to the last vestiges of his consciousness finally came through. He was floating unprotected out into the vacuum of space. He could feel the moisture in his mouth beginning to bubble, his eyes were freezing shut by the frost forming on his exposed skin.

As his world narrowed and the blackness became absolute, he used all his remaining functioning facilities to summon an image of Rella in his mind. He wished he could apologize to her for not keeping his promise. He wished he could at least tell her that he had tried, that because of her, he hadn’t given up.

In the tiny point of light that was his remaining consciousness, he perceived a change in momentum and an echo of pain as though from miles away. Then even stranger, the sound of rushing air. As that tiny light began to blink out, he simply assumed it was a hallucination. If he was going to hallucinate in his last seconds, he would have preferred something more pleasant than the sound of air.

Almost as if in answer to his last wish, his mind registered the feel of something soft on his cracked lips. As the tiny light went out, he decided to believe it was a last kiss.

Sharp pain intruded on his unconscious mind, lighting the spark again. His chest felt like it was going to explode, the pain was immense. He began to wish for the darkness to return. Finally, the pain began to recede slightly, replacing it was a not entirely unpleasant sensation on his lips again. As the spark again began to flicker, he wished the universe would just let him go, he didn’t want to die in agonizing pain.

As he began to sink back into the welcoming blackness, pain exploded in his chest again. This time sharp, intense, and almost all-consuming. Kicking and screaming, the pain dragged his consciousness back to the forefront of his mind. He tried to scream but he had no air. Desperately needing to let the scream escape he breathed in. Pain flooded into his lungs, joining the pain from almost every other part of his body. Pain, and air.

Coughing he breathed in again, taking in more pain and more air. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to breathe, nothing in his memory had ever hurt so much as breathing at that moment did. Despite the pain, he kept at it. He didn’t understand how it was possible but air meant he was alive, and some inner part of him refused to give up despite the pain giving him an almost fervent desire to be dead.

Breathing through the pain, he tried to open his eyes and failed, his lids were held fast. His nervous system had its hand’s full processing the mountains of pain. Somehow though, his eardrums had survived the depressurization. And with that one working sense, over the sound of his own ragged labored breathing, he heard someone crying.

Lifting his one working arm towards the source of the sound, he tried to force his tortured vocal cords to work. He tried to speak the name of the person he knew was next to him crying, but the attempt just came out as a muffled croak.

A soft hand took his, another lightly brushed his cheek. Speaking through her sobs, Rella said, “It’s ok Tyrial, I’ve got you.”

He didn’t understand how, it made no sense. Suddenly an overwhelming need to make sure she understood he hadn’t given up took hold of him. Working desperately to get his voice to cooperate, he croaked out in short bursts, “I tried... Didn’t give up... Held the air, something hit me. Sorry.”

He wasn’t sure if it made sense, but at least he had gotten it out. He wanted to make sure she understood he hadn’t tried to sacrifice himself. He realized now that caring about other people didn’t mean giving your life for theirs. It meant making sure you both survived.

Gently squeezing his hand, Rella said, “Shhh, quiet. You’re alright now, just relax.”

He wasn’t alright, he knew. Rapid depressurization had a number of ill effects, not the least of which were embolisms. And then there was the feeling of something warm and wet running down his side. He almost welcomed the feeling, it wasn’t pain and it wasn’t cold.

He tried to clear his throat again, there were still a few more things he wanted to tell her before the end. Before he could make a second attempt at speaking, however, two new sounds came to him. One was the sound of running footsteps, too even and too regular to be anything other than Dr. Liam Hughes. The other, far less welcome, was the sound of another Mage using his Will.

“Foolish girl,” Liam said as he got closer, “how could you run in here without even waiting for the atmosphere to regulate. Do you have any idea how much danger you put the rest of the ship in by forcing the airlock to open early?”

Apparently ignoring the admonishment, a still sobbing Rella said, “Hurry, I got him breathing again but he's bleeding pretty bad.”

Tyrial felt Liam kneeling on his other side, but he wasn’t paying much attention to either of them at the moment. Concentrating with all of his remaining strength he gathered his Will and expanded it. As he pushed his Will out over the Osiris, he ran into another Mage’s Will. Pushing harder, Tyrial overpowered the other Mage’s attempts to control the space within the Osiris and pushed his own Will out over the entire ship.

The other Mage must have been extremely weak or extremely tired. In the shape Tyrial was in he should not have been able to overpower anyone even remotely capable of being a ship’s Mage. It seemed he could hold the other mage off for now, but Tyrial wasn’t certain what to do next. He was in no shape to warp the ship.

His concentration stabilized for the moment, he overheard Liam say something about a sedative. With his Will now covering the ship, he could sense the two people kneeling over him. Liam held a syringe in his hand and was moving it towards Tyrial. Reaching out, Tyrial took hold of Liam’s arm. Trying to save what strength he had left to fight the rival Mage, he spared some to get his vocal cords working again.

“No sedative,” he said. “Need to stay awake.” The act of talking made him start coughing again, the pain from that almost made him lose his Will and consciousness both. Finally getting his spasms under control, he croaked out two more words, “Conclave Mage.”

“Tyrial —” Rella began.

She was interrupted by the sound of the ship’s intercom and Gabriel’s voice. “If you have him get him stable, we have company and things are probably about to get dicey. We have a Conclave ship incoming, don’t know why their Mage hasn’t torn into us yet, but we're not sticking around to find out.”

Tyrial knew why, and it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. That last coughing fit had taken almost everything he had left out of him though. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold them off. As he was trying to figure a way out of this stalemate, he sensed Liam holding another syringe. He started to lift his hand to intercept it.

Taking his arm, Liam said, “It’s a stimulant, won't do much for the pain but it should help keep you conscious.”

The sting of the injection was nothing compared to everything else Tyrial was feeling. As promised, the medicine began to sharpen his mind, bringing him fully back from the abyss he had been hovering near. On the plus side, he felt far more in control of his Will. On the other hand, he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming. The pain in his arm and chest were almost beyond comprehension.

Pain, however, was transient. He could scream later. Concentrating on his Will, he pushed it out farther, beyond the Osiris. He sensed the plasma bolts screaming back and forth between the two ships. Occasionally when the two were close enough, he could feel the other ship itself. The rival Mage had given up on attacking them directly it seemed, he was now concentrating on protecting his own ship.

The Conclave Mage obviously had no idea how bad a shape Tyrial was in or he would probably have kept at it. Even with the stimulant, Tyrial knew he didn’t have much time. He couldn’t warp the Osiris, so he had to disable the Conclave ship so they could escape at sublight. Even as weak as the Conclave Mage was though, Tyrial didn’t think he could overcome the other Mage’s Will on his own territory.

“Chest compressions with broken ribs was risky,” muttered Liam. “Need to get this bleeding under control, won’t have anything left to have an embolism with otherwise. Here Rella, hold this, harder, put your weight into it.”

Tyrial could feel pressure on his abdomen, it hurt, but it was nothing compared to the rest so he ignored it. He tried not to let his physical surroundings distract him from the job at hand but the fact that his time was quickly running out didn’t escape him. He didn’t have time to invent some ingenious maneuver, this time he would just have to trust to luck.

Conclave ships, like all other human vessels, placed the ship’s Mage at the center of the bridge on the floor. And the Conclave being the Conclave, their forward view screen was likely to be opulently large. He had used this ploy once before, but it relied far too much on luck. He had to hope the Conclave Mage was at the point of exhaustion, that he wasn’t very quick of thought, and that he was in fact, sitting where Tyrial expected him to be.

He was almost completely out of options, however. He could feel his mind slowing down again, the dark abyss creeping back. And that was assuming he didn’t have a stroke before he had the chance to die of blood loss.

Putting every ounce of his remaining concentration to work, he expanded his Will beyond the Osiris and waited for the Conclave ship to come within range. As he sensed the ship entering his sphere of influence, time slowed. He pushed with all his strength against the Conclave Mage’s Will, right at the front of the ship where the bridge would be located. The surprise attack allowed him to push back the other Mage’s Will by almost a meter before his rival regained his footing and halted his advance.

It was sufficient, however, for Tyrial’s plan. Before the other Mage had a chance to push back, Tyrial used the last of his strength to form a gravity well. As his consciousness began to fade, Tyrial ripped the two-meter square view screen off of the front of the Conclave ship’s bridge and sent it hurtling down the center of the room. Just before he lost control of his Will, he sensed the opposing Mage’s bubble of control around the Conclave ship vanish.

Finally relaxing, he let the darkness begin to carry away the excruciating pain that was wracking his body. As it swallowed the last of his consciousness he heard Rella say, “Don’t leave me Tyrial, I need you.”

I need you too, he said into the darkness.