FSE

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The Spacer's Legs almost exactly matched the image in Strong Soul's mind of how she thought it would look. Garish neon lights covered nearly every surface, and though the clientele was generally washed, they presented an image of a particularly rough and tumble crowd. There wasn't the sheer variety of outfits that she saw on some of the other worlds, though. Most of the humans, and some of the Mrr'tani dressed in very utilitarian clothing that lent itself to pockets and allowing grease stains and other marks to simply add character to the clothing.

The sheer number of Mrr'tani merely walking around the bar stunned Strong Soul. While she'd felt them, she was used to the feeling on every planet. Here, most walked with their heads high and the demeanor of the free Mrr'tani she'd met. The humans around them seemed to treat them no differently than the other humans in the bar. It was all one community made up of both species. No matter where she focused, Strong Soul could feel no animosity towards the Mrr'tani or the humans. There was always the subtle undertone of discontent that came along with living in close quarters, something she'd become used to feeling during her time at Mss'ranaw, but nothing overt, nothing strong.

They walked from the docking ring and into the promenade, if that was the correct term. All around them, there was the press of bodies, and to Strong Soul, the press of minds as well. It seemed that it wasn't a fluke, what she felt on the ship. The minds around her were not merely the Mrr'tani here. She could feel the majority of the human minds as well. They had an exotic flavor to the way that they felt, something new and different, even more different than her Father and Susan. They weren't longing and lonely like the Mrr'tani, but there was a subtle curiosity there, an awareness that something more was there to be experienced, but they were blind to it.

Inside the promenade, a wide walkway ran the periphery around a lowered central area. In the center was a large circular bar with humans of various sizes and dress clustered around its counters and two Mrr'tani and two humans pouring the drinks in the center. Above them, another walkway ran the circumference and catwalks criss-crossed over the bar seating area. Patrons of both species could be seen everywhere, on both floors, talking, drinking and some of them merely watching the others around them.

Strong Soul could feel more than one pair of eyes on the group as they emerged from the docking ring, the closest of which was a sky blue set that belonged to a tall and extremely lithe stripe-furred Mrr'tanah who was leaning against the railing that separated the raised walkway from the bar seating. She regarded them a moment with curiosity and Strong Soul felt the pricking of her mind as the Mrr'tanah stood up tall and straight before walking to meet them.

"Well, you must be the new ones," the Mrr'tanah said by way of greeting. Her voice was sweet and even, something that raised alarms in every one of Strong Soul's companions. "I'm Jessie. Norm said that you might have some business for me."

"He said he was going to have you meet us here," Strong Soul said, stepping forward with her hands across her chest. Something about the Mrr'tanah felt dishonest to her, and she couldn't tell entirely why, even with the link clamoring against her. "He didn't say why."

Jessie regarded her a moment and held her hands up at her shoulders, a gesture of peace. "Forgive me," she said, "let me start over. We don't get too many new people here. Most don't even know to look for us, and those that do rarely know the coordinates. We get a little suspicious sometimes."

"Of what? It looks like there are plenty of people that come and go through here," Strong Soul said.

"In my line of work, it pays to be suspicious. Norm said you had someone questionable?"

Strong Soul didn't have to turn to know that First Spark was safely behind Stargazer, and though she knew that Stargazer wouldn't have drawn attention to that fact, the flaring of alertness along his link made the fur on the back of her neck stand up.

"What is your line of work, Jessie?" Night Star asked.

When Jessie turned her gaze to Night Star, Strong Soul took the opportunity to fell the void around her. Night Star had gotten quite good at simply keeping the void in place when the were somewhere it was required, but that proficiency led to a touch of complacency, as Strong Soul rarely tested the bounds of his control. With a gentle push, she punctured the thin wall of the void bubble and let her mind flare against the seeking link she could so clearly feel, and she watched Jessie's eyes go wide in surprise as they returned quickly to Strong Soul.

"You," Jessie said, her voice breathless in surprise and awe. She swallowed heavily and returned her attention to Night Star, her eyes flicking back and forth between them. "I help runaways."

She looked from side to side and then gestured for them to follow as she led them to a corner in the darker section of the bar. While there wasn't a corner that they could disappear into, it seemed that the others in the bar made a conscious effort to avoid looking at Jessie and Strong Soul's group.

"I didn't know, I'm sorry," Jessie said quietly when they were all seated.

"Didn't know what?" Night Star asked.

Strong Soul still felt his suspicion, and she was glad for it. There was also Stargazer's wariness and First Spark's curiosity, but she let all those drift away and focused on what she was able to feel from Jessie. There was no animosity, and though there was still some duplicity and deception, it was well accounted for by what she admitted to doing. If a Mrr'tani was caught assisting runaways, the sentence was immediate execution. Most were shot, but others were left to the mercy of whatever squad of soldiers happened to find them.

"That you were a Mother," Jessie finished, looking at Strong Soul. "You are the ones the Allied Planets are looking for, aren't you?"

"What have you heard about us?" Stargazer asked, leaning his weight onto his elbows against the table. Strong Soul knew the look that he was giving Jessie, and the intensity he could muster would throw anyone off whatever game they happened to be playing.

"They're looking for a rogue Mother. They know she's on a Juniper class freighter. They've been looking for you for a long time."

Strong Soul could taste her astonishment and her awe, and it wasn't simply because of her abilities. With the proximity and the fact that the link had already been made, there was little Strong Soul could do to shut it down, but she let it retreat, most of it blocked by Night Star's void.

"There's a large enough reward on your head that any human could buy their own planet."

"They must not know what we look like," Night Star said, settling back. "Otherwise, you'd have recognized us right away."

"No, they haven't published any pictures. They've just been telling everyone to be on the lookout for an escaped Mother who almost destroyed a cruiser."

"Well, at least that is a small blessing," Stargazer said. "They know the model of our ship, but nothing more than that. Still, that gives the trackers something to look for."

"You're safe here for right now," Jessie said. "We don't have trackers here. It's something that we pride ourselves on."

"How did you manage that?" Night Star asked.

"The humans here have always valued freedom. It's one of the reasons they founded this place and didn't hand out the coordinates to just anyone, and it's the reason that we're kind of hard to get to. No one wants to jeopardize the balance we have here, so everyone is very careful about who they invite. We've only ever had one tracker manage to get on to the station, and when our sensitive Mrr'tani found him, they weren't nearly as lenient as some of the humans would have been."

"I can't say I disagree with them," Night Star said, his voice dark to match the smoldering anger that Strong Soul felt from inside him.

"It gives us a safe place to do our work, though," Jessie said. "A couple crews managed to liberate a couple of servant transponder coders, and when we get runaways here, we like to...share the love."

She turned back to Strong Soul and smiled.

"I'm assuming you're the one that needs the recoding?"

"No, my master released me himself. First Spark is the one that needs it," Strong Soul said, holding her arm around First Spark's shoulders.

"Well, hold out your hand, then," Jessie said, sliding something out of her pocket. Strong Soul recognized it as the same thing that Marcus had used when she'd left Silverwell to register her free status, and she nodded quietly to First Spark, signaling it was safe.

First Spark held out her hand and Jessie waved the wand-shaped device over the girl's hand. The chip beneath her skin flashed to blue and Jessie put the wand back in her pocket.

"There you go. You're a free girl, now."

Jessie reached across the table and took First Spark's hand. At the contact, Strong Soul felt a surge of power from the both of them and her hand tightened around First Spark protectively as she watched Jessie closely. If anything, her expression belied even more shock than it had when Strong Soul had revealed herself. Strong Soul felt the linking of clanmates through her link with First Spark, something deep and powerful.

"Two of you?" Jessie asked breathlessly. "Two Frr'a'narr'ahn?"

"No," Strong Soul said quietly, shaking her head.

"Keeper of Hearts," Jessie breathed. "It's true."

Strong Soul nodded, pushing through the void bubble once again, this time more than a gentle brush of minds. This time, she extended the link the rest of the way and let it flow, giving Jessie the full feeling of connection, both with her and with First Spark. The power of the link surprised Jessie, but not as much as it did Strong Soul. They were linked together, directly and through First Spark, a Frr'a'narr'ah of Jessie's clan, the desert clan. The power of the joining drew a gasp even from Stargazer and Strong Soul saw Night Star's hands tighten into fists on the table, and watched the sheer pleasure of rightness cross his face.

"But...why are you here?" Jessie asked. "Everyone believes you're somewhere on the outer rim, or beyond."

"Now that you've felt the Mrr'ouwff," Strong Soul said, "you know its power. I've connected thousands of Mrr'tani, and now wherever I go, it's like a psychic beacon for trackers. It's why we work so hard to keep the gift from emerging."

"You didn't just try to destroy that cruiser, did you?" Jessie asked. Strong Soul noted with mixed amusement that she didn't even assume that it was someone else.

"I didn't want to destroy it at all. Too many Mrr'tani died on that cruiser, but we had to escape."

"We've heard whispers, rumors, that it wasn't just that you tried to destroy it, that somehow, every single Mrr'tani on that cruiser mutinied at the same time, and that's what caused the problem."

"More or less," Night Star interjected.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Jessie asked, the excitement tingling like little bubbles of carbonation in the front of Strong Soul's mind. "Do you know how many Allied ships are crewed with Mrr'tani, with only a small human crew on board to make sure that they stay in line?"

"What do you mean?" Strong Soul asked.

"Take a cargo tug," Jessie said. "It takes a crew of almost five hundred to make it work, six hundred if they want it to be really efficient. Stick fifty humans on board, a couple dozen trackers as overseers, and the rest is all slave Mrr'tani."

"How does that work?" Strong Soul asked. "Seems like it would be easy for them to take over with so few humans."

"That's what the overseers are for," Jesse said. "They keep the others in line because they can sense discontent and mutiny. They're not like Mothers, they can't see inside a Mrr'tani's being. They can't really truly see as the Frr'a'narr'ahn can, but they can sense enough, especially the strong emotions that are close enough to the surface to bring the idea of rebellion into their heads."

Night Star growled softly beside Strong Soul and she reached out to put her hand on his arm, calming him with a gentle stroke of her mind. She knew how her lover felt about the trackers and the overseers.

"Besides," Jessie continued, "the Mrr'tani who are allowed on the ships are those that have at least proven that they're no trouble. It's a reward in some ways, letting them off the planets and they get to see the stars. Shipboard life is a little more lax than on the planets. The ship captains don't really care what goes on or what the Mrr'tani get up to as long as the ship operates efficiently, and allowing them an easier life than they're used to on the planets helps foster a sense of goodwill for the crew. It's all about manipulation."

"But with so many..." Strong Soul let her voice trail off as the implications started to form in her mind. With so few humans on board, and with the intensity with which most Mrr'tani hungered for the connection of a Frr'a'narr'ah, not to mention the Frr'a'tan'lass'i'ah, there was no question about the results of an encounter.

"Now the cruisers are a little different. They're crewed fairly equally. The humans don't want their warships manned solely by Mrr'tani. There's still plenty on board, but not enough to make a full mutiny possible."

"What, exactly, are you proposing?" Night Star asked, his voice halfway between curiosity and hostility.

"What's the end goal to all of this?" Strong Soul asked, turning to him. Where there was once just a desire to be left alone, to go back to her cottage and the estate, she felt something different emerging. The more she contemplated the road ahead, the more she realized that she would never be able to truly go back. Not unless there wasn't the threat hanging over her head.

"I don't know," Night Star said, shaking his head. "We never got past keeping you safe, to be honest. I don't know if Marcus had some grand master plan in mind."

"But you did," Strong Soul said, her eyes holding his. "You know what I'm talking about. You were the one that started telling me the stories, the legends. You know where this leads."

"Those are stories, love. How do you expect to get from here to leading the Mrr'tani back home? You're strong, I'll give you that, but you're nowhere near strong enough to take on the Alliance."

"I don't have to be. It doesn't say that the Frr'a'tan'lass'i'ah is supposed to single-handedly win some war. That's what Catcher has been trying to say to me."

"So what? We take a couple of tugs? What good is that going to do us?" Night Star demanded, his voice rising over the quiet tone they'd been maintaining.

"It's not the tugs, love," she said, smiling. "Well, it is, but only in part. It's the Mrr'tani. There aren't enough free and refugee Mrr'tani to do anything important. The Alliance sees to that, holding out freedom as a carrot if you're really, really good and you toe the line. They point to Mrr'tani like you and say 'See? If you're obedient and good, you can be like him. Own your own ship and be free to go all over the galaxy.' All the while they keep beating us with a stick while our attention is focused there."

She paused and watched the comprehension dawning on his face as she felt the swell of pride from within as he smiled back at her.

"The Mrr'tani need to stop waiting on one Mrr'tanah to come and save them. We need to make them realize that they can save themselves. We need to make them see and feel what it is to be Mrr'tani again, instead of some shell of what we used to be."

"And you think you can do that with a tug?" Night Star asked. Then he smiled, the look that Strong Soul loved so much.

"I think I can start with one at the very least."

"What do you need?" Jessie asked, leaning back across the table, the spark of interest having grown to a full on inferno.

Around her, Strong Soul felt the press of her companions, the swell of their excitement, and she wondered to herself how much of it was simply passed from her to them. While they were optimistic, she still couldn't help the nagging feeling that she couldn't feel the difference between their thoughts and hers, and that she was simply pushing them along with her.

She caught Night Star's face out of the corner of her eye and when she turned to look at him full on, he smiled at her and winked. It was a simple gesture, shared only between the two of them, but the meaning behind it was clear. She wasn't influencing them any more than they were her. It wasn't a subsuming of minds, but a meeting of them. She felt the urgency within all of them that matched her own, the feeling that they were finally starting to find their purpose. It was the giddy anticipation mingled with excitement, yet still an inkling of fear and dread.

As for herself, she didn't want to still the rapid beat of her heart or the flow of her breath. She watched the group speak and felt something familiar. It was the same feeling she had sitting in wait with her bow. She wasn't feeling the fear and uncertainty of the hunted any longer. Now it was the patient confidence of the hunter.