Cygnus stared out the wide window as a destroyer, yet another of the enemy’s seemingly endless supply of warships, descended on the planet below.

The evacuation was complete. The last few people planetside were hurrying onto ships, protected by the planet’s bulk. They would be gone long before the bombs fell.

A victory, such as they were.

Cygnus hated that he was now counting a lost planet, millions of lost homes, as a victory.

It was better than those millions being counted in bodies, but that was cold comfort in the night, when he weighed their chances, and they came up wanting.

Andra was down there. They had fought about that. She insisted she go, that she help wherever she could. He insisted that she stay, safe and protected.

She was too valuable to risk. The stability that she brought to his vast powers was not something they dared risk.

Of course, she was also perfectly willing to fight him when anyone else would have bowed to his wishes.

And so they fought, a shouting match in the halls that sent everyone scrambling for cover as coffee mugs exploded and tables lifted off the ground, light as air.

In the end, she won, because he couldn’t stop her.

He could still feel her, red ribbons of anger threading through her thoughts and down their bond. Selfishly, he closed his shields on her for the first time. He didn’t feel like hearing her thoughts about him just now, and certainly didn’t feel like sharing his own.

“How fares the evacuation?”

Senator Ursa, who was, technically, still Cyg’s employer, and was one of the rare few leaders who cared more about his people than his own image.

Cygnus didn’t like him especially. His mind was slippery, like all politicians. But at least he cared, which was more than most of the leadership at the moment.

“The last few ships are leaving now,” Cygnus reported, feeling those minds like comets as they lifted off and blasted for the sky. The destroyer was nearly low enough to reach the planet, but that didn’t matter now. Not really. “Have they noticed us?”

“If they have, they don’t seem to care,” Ursa said, and watched as the planet’s atmosphere splashed away from the huge ship, the friction lightning visible even at their height. “I still can’t figure why. They could destroy us with a few good shots.”

“Perhaps they want us to suffer,” Cygnus murmured, eyes on the alien destroyer, and the planet below. Any minute, there would be a burst of light, and the planet would explode like nearly a dozen before it. They could have made a stand, could have fought with telekinesis, but the leaders, in their wisdom, decided to let this one fall. He still didn’t know why. “Or they want us afraid. Fear is a powerful-“

(CYGNUS!)

Cygnus clutched his head as Andra’s scream cut through his shields like a red-hot poker between the eyes.

Images pummeled him, glimpses through her eyes of ships, slick-black and nimble landing, unloading dozens of beings that surrounded her.

(Grab on!) he said, all anger forgotten in the wash of her fear as he connected with her seamlessly. Syzygy was only a breath away, and took barely more than a thought. (Focus on me!)

They managed it once, teleporting her off a dying world in the moments before it detonated. They could do it again.

Through her eyes he saw the aliens for the first time, crystalline, with veins of blue coursing through them, almost human except for the jerky, halting, too-fast way they moved.

The people around her died in a rain of white blaster-fire, screaming, dissolving into piles of dust that blew away with the howling winds.

Cygnus pulled with all this strength, every ounce of power he had focused on pulling her to him, to safety.

A new presence cut between them, sharp as a knife and every bit as determined as they were.

Cygnus screamed as the new five ripped them apart, thread by thread as they fought to hold the link.

And then, like fingertips slipping from his grasp, she was gone.

“No!” he yelled and struggled to reach for her again, but it was as if a sheet of glass, invisible but unbreakable, was between them. A moment later, his last sense of her vanished completely, no matter how he searched. “Andra!”

Despair and grief swamped him, and he fell to his knees, still searching, reaching for any slightest hint that she might still be alive.

Below him, the planet exploded, and the alien destroyer, somehow radiating smug malice, lit up and kept into hyperspace, a successful predator that knew it was beyond challenge.

A fist slammed into his face and shook Cygnus back into awareness even as it sent him sprawling. When he looked up, it was to the face of Indus Crux, his second in command.

“Breathe,” Dus said, and knelt next to him, uncharacteristicly serious. When Cygnus tried to ignore him, tried to reach for Andra again, Dus shook him back into focus. “Cyg, you need to breathe, and focus on me. Dammit, you’re ripping the ship apart!”

(She’s gone) Cygnus told him, too far gone for words as black grief threatened to pull him under. (I felt her vanish. I felt-)

(I’m sorry,) Dus told him, and pulled him into a tight hug, one of the few who would ever be allowed close, and one of the two... now the only... person Cygnus trusted. (We’ll pay them back.)

(But she’ll still be gone,) Cygnus told him, and let himself break down for the woman who used to share his mind. (And I let her die.)