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Strong Soul sat in her usual right hand seat on the bridge of the Mrr'tani Pride, riding the ebb and the flow of the minds connected to hers. Each of them knew their place and their task, and they communicated silently through the links, connected to each other through them even through the distances that separated the three ships.. With Night Star next to her, holding her in the joining, she had no task to complete, it was enough that she was there, lending her strength to her Mrr'tani as the minutes counted down.

They'd arrived from hyper to find the Iztonian star system devoid of any other ships. It was expected, as there was only the small scientific outposts on the third and fourth planets and a rural colony on the second. The colony was one that stayed relatively technologically basic, mostly by their own choice. Strong Soul had looked up the colony on the journey here, and the residents of Iztonia Two were the kind who believed that too much technology was detrimental to the human experience. They were not militant about it, but chose to simply ignore most everything but the planet on which they'd settled. They still traded with the Alliance, though they didn't have any ties beyond that, for the Iztonian system was the one of the only places on the outer rim where rare crystals used in some of the more powerful weapons could be found. And for those crystals, the residents were furnished quite well with sturdy goods and buildings so as to make their lives a bit more comfortable on the planet.

As they were so lacking in technology, though, there was not even an orbital station, just a few communication satellites and one single comm relay node that connected the governor of the planet to the Allied network. Even so, the link was hardly active, only powering up once every few cycles so as to keep the machinery from shutting down from disuse. Very little was ever transmitted or received unless a shipment was expected, and none was for another few months at least. The cruiser that was the target for this journey was merely patrolling through on its usual route, intending to curb what pirate activity it could, and its scheduled course had no stop or communication listed with the planet at all.

It was the perfect place for the ruse Strong Soul had planned, as no one would be listening for the distress signal that the Ferret was now sending out. It would be another cycle and a half before the Iztonians turned on their comms, and by then everything would be decided one way or another.

On board the Ferret, her Guardians stood ready, each with a new pulse rifle and flechette pistol in addition to the more traditional knives that each carried for close-in fighting. The other Mrr'tani on the Ferret were also armed and ready to assist her elite Guardians when the time came. The cache of weapons and ammunition they'd captured when they took the Sisko ended up leaving enough for each and every Mrr'tani to be armed on both ships. On the Pride, Night Star, Strong Soul and her Frr'a'narr'ahn sat on the bridge, each of them with their own weapon, though the hardly believed that they'd need them. There was only the contingency in case the plan failed more fully than she could imagine. Night Star held all of them in the joining, allowing each of the Frr'a'narr'ahn to link their clans together and for Strong Soul to draw in the others, the AI's, the humans, and the clans without a Mother.

The Ferret was adift almost a light minute ahead of the Pride. She would have been visible on the scanners if there was anything powered up on the Pride, but for now, the only thing running on the ship was the barest life support, just enough to keep the five of them alive. All but the bridge had been cooled to unlivable temperatures, with the necessities of life for up to the next four days packed along the back bulkhead of the bridge, all so that there were no emissions from the Pride that anyone would be able to detect. The only means of communication needed was the links, though.

Similarly, the Sisko was drifting in a ballistic course parallel to the Ferret, all emissions cut from it as well. There were few Mrr'tani on board the Sisko itself, just enough to run the ship and maneuver. All the others who rode aboard her were already packed into the assault shuttles, ready for launch at a moment's notice. Every other able body was on board the Ferret, awaiting the arrival of the Allied cruiser, the Alan Hayes. The repeating distress call emanating from the Ferret's comms would serve as a lure for the cruiser, and together, Micah and the other AI's had altered the transponder on the Ferret to identify it as the Evergreen, the tug that was supposed to have delivered its supplies almost two weeks ago. Fortunately, the hull of the Ferret was already scored with micrometeor strikes and other various damage, and the name and ID numbers on the hull were nearly unreadable. Very little of the Alliance's resources were spent on keeping up the craft in the outer rim. The only ones who would see the markings would be backwoods settlers and people who didn't matter. There was little chance of anyone important having anything to do with a cargo hauler way out here.

You're jittering, love, Night star said, chuckling softly in her mind.

Hush, she chided, the waiting is the part I hate the most.

Really? he asked with a silent pulse of amusement. I've been inside your head, remember? I know how much you enjoyed sitting in the trees waiting for your prey.

Behind her, the amusement of the others brightened their links as well, and though she tried to deny it, there was a certain rightness about what was happening, just as it was when she was stalking her prey in Airgidbaille. It was the meditative calm before the action, where she could gather her thoughts and focus them on what was going to happen.

Except now, her thoughts were no longer her own. There was the press of all of her Mrr'tani bearing in on them, and there wasn't the calm that used to come with the silence. Now, it was barely controlled chaos.

You're letting them control you again, love, Night Star thought gently to her. Remember, they are YOUR Mrr'tani, just as much as you are their Frr'a'tan'lass'i'ah.

Where once she would have resisted, or at least made excuses, more of what Catcher of Souls had told her and taught her began to sink in. She wasn't merely a bystander in all this any longer.

All around her, the energy of the others swirled and pulsed. Some of her Mrr'tani were calm and ready, her Guardians most of all. They were filled with a conviction that they were doing everything they were meant to do, and that when the action came, they would make their Frr'a'narr'ah and Frr'a'tan'lass'i'ah proud.

There were the others, though, the ones that had never had to fight, who had never known violence other than what was meted out to them by their human captors. They had never held a weapon before, and the thought of what it could do filled them with anxiety and stress.

But the ones she was most concerned about were the ones from whom she could taste the blood lust. They were calm, like her Guardians, but the calm was tinged with an eagerness that made her fur stand on end. They wanted this, and they relished it. Their anger and rage flowed down the links with a vehemence that shocked her, and she was doing her best to ignore it and simply let it be when Night Star's words broke through that passivity.

Some of them were from the Desert clan and others from the River clan, and there was an obvious resonance with the Frr'a'narr'ahn behind her. It was something she could draw on and use to her advantage. With a deep breath, both physically and mentally, she drew the Mothers closer to her, letting their link with their clanmates be her conduit.

It was something she'd only done in crises thus far, the ability to override the other Mrr'tani's minds and supplant her own thoughts and emotions within their minds, and now, in the calm, there was more time to focus. It was both a good thing and a very bad thing, for it left her time to consider what she was doing and how it might affect her Mrr'tani. She couldn't think long about it, though, lest it sway her from what she knew had to be done.

Across the link, she sent waves of calm readiness. From her Guardians, she drew those feelings and the absolute surety of rightness. She used those emotions to calm the hearts of the raging, vengeful Mrr'tani, tempering their anger into pure potential energy. The rage had a different taste and much more energy than the calm of her Guardians, though, and even though tempered, there was excess that could not be quelled.

She took what she could from them, spreading the potential energy throughout the links, lending more alertness and motivation to each and every Mrr'tani on board any of the craft. What she could not siphon off, she pushed down hard within each of the raging ones. She wound it tight like a spring, powerful and ready for release, but contained for the moment. She could feel it like a steel trap in each of their minds. There was no passivity when she was done, but the anger was quelled, and she could use the explosive power of that anger when the moment called for it. And she had no doubt that the moment would come that she would need the raw, sheer power of the raging berserkers that they had become.

Exit footprint detected at the jump point, Keeper, Micah's voice said in her mind.

It's time, she said over the links. Be ready.

Everything was already set in motion and there was little that could be done to alter the plan this late, so for now, all Strong Soul could do was watch, shifting her focus to where she needed it. She trusted her Mrr'tani to do what they had practiced and agreed to do.

The view through Fire Breather's mind showed him sitting in his place on the bridge of the Ferret, calmly anticipating the approach of the cruiser, all the Ferret's sensors focused on the footprint as the Alan Hayes emerged from hyper. They could tell the exact moment that the distress signal reached the cruiser for the emissions tripled, the cruiser pushing the engines to full, right to the maximum that would be considered safe. At that speed, it barreled towards the tug.

Decel turnover in three minutes for zero zero intercept, Micah relayed to the ships, using Strong Soul's mind as the conduit.

That's four minutes on Micah's mark, Night Star's voice said over the link.

The starships were great lumbering beasts, and even the much smaller Mrr'tani Pride was much larger than anything Strong Soul ever needed to worry about on a hunt. In her world, thought turned to action almost instantaneously. In this world, there was no such thing as an instant response. Each and every action required a buildup of velocity, which was why the Sisko was already in motion beside the Ferret. It would have taken too long to get the hulking tug up to any respectable speed.

The shuttles were a different story, though. Light and nimble, they had thrust to spare for acceleration, loaded as they were for atmospheric flight. Here so far from the planet, they'd have plenty of maneuverability.

Night Star and Strong Soul shared one mind more than any of the others around her or on any of the ships, and though Strong Soul controlled the hunt, Night Star was the expert on the ships and what they could do. She trusted his judgement completely to make sure what she wanted would be translated into practical action.

The readiness and waiting tension washed back over the Mrr'ouwffi, an indication of her Mrr'tani's acknowledgement of the information. Everyone was ready, and after another two minutes, there would be nothing anyone could do to change the course of this hunt.

It took all Strong Soul's restraint not to open the links early, to resist the urge to just peek through a Mrr'tani mind so she knew what she was up against. But she couldn't. To open her mind too early would be to give away her own presence, something that had to be avoided until the very last second. So instead, she took solace in Micah's infinite patience. He could watch the numbers tick down as the time got closer and closer, his eyes unflinching, but even there, she could feel the tinge of excitement. He had learned a great deal in the short time he'd shared a link with Strong Soul and through her the others. Where before he was nothing but cold calculation, now his mind vibrated around her with the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of watching the prey come closer and closer to the trap that was set and ready to spring.

His excitement, however, was tempered by a calm that Strong Soul knew well. She'd felt it herself so many times. It was the calm that descended the moment that the bow was drawn and anchored, the moment when the world narrowed down to just the prey and the tip of the arrow. In that moment, Micah was closer to her than even Night Star, and she wrapped that closeness around her like a blanket as they watched the clock tick down together.

Turnover, they said as one, when the countdown hit zero. On the sensors, they watched the Hayes perform its roll to begin its deceleration.

_Bay doors open, _Mary said almost immediately.

Standing by, came the response from Flame Dancer, the lead pilot for the assault shuttles. _ Launching in thirty seconds._

Night Star began loosening his hold on the joining, and the space between Strong Soul and her Frr'a'narr'ahn grew louder and brighter, all of them blending into a single mind with so many connections. The feeling being linked to the Mothers was becoming even deeper than any of them could have imagined, and having the twin Mothers there as well only brought a greater connection, both between them and the Mrr'tani joined to them.

Held back so hard against the full joining, there was a pressure in Strong Soul's mind, as if she was full of something that had nowhere to go and was simply building and building.

_Five...four...three...two...one...Launch! _

Every one of the assault shuttles powered up and with spacing no human or unjoined Mrr'tani could have accomplished, they launched themselves in two neat files from the bay on the Sisko, not even 50 meters between the first shuttle's tail and the next shuttle's nose. The grav launcher in the shuttle bay pushed them free of the ship with the perfect angle to each one so that when the thrusters powered up, they were clear of each other and within thirty seconds, ten assault shuttles all lit off their drives and turned for the cruiser, weapons armed.

The Hayes was still far enough out that by the time the first shuttle's emissions registered on their sensors, all of them were aimed on an intercept course, and Silver Wind, the Sisko's master at arms, was powering the particle cannon each tug kept for defensive use.

It was barely a moment after that Night Star dropped the void shield between the Mothers and the Mrr'tani on the cruiser. The links crashed over them, all of them hungry and seeking connection, latching on immediately when they found it, and Strong Soul led the others down the paths that opened before them. The energy that had built up in their minds pouring over the Mrr'ouwffi. It was a relief to not have to do this on her own, for while the tugs had five or perhaps ten overseers, all of them known to the other Mrr'tani on board, the cruiser was a different matter entirely.

Out of every twenty minds that linked, one was a traitor, and the number of them opened a black pit in Strong Soul's heart. There were so many. She started to draw the energy from her Mrr'tani and then stopped, halting the flow down the links.

Not all were sympathizers. The taste of some of them told her that they were not willing. They wanted desperately to be free, but there was something that held them to the humans.

Leave these be, she said to the Mothers, passing along the distinct flavor of those links. Incapacitate them, but let them live.

There were others, though, about whom there was no doubt. Their hearts were full of loathing and terror at the mere touch of the Mrr'ouwff. These were the ones that were the danger.

These, Strong Soul said to her companions. Each of them started off in a different direction, all of them using the mass of energy from the familiar and the newly linked Mrr'tani, throwing it down the links to flood the traitors, the amassed power such that it almost boiled their blood in their veins, leaving every one writhing on the deck before finally gurgling their last breath.

Confusion rained down the links as the other Mrr'tani on the Hayes saw their kind dropping in every corner of the ship, but the confusion quickly gave way to elation at the touch of the Keeper of Hearts' mind to theirs, and finally a vengeful joy at the realization that their tormentors, their informers, and their overseers were the ones laying in the pools of blood.

Hardly five seconds had passed since the links were made and the overseers were dealt with. Now Strong Soul could focus on the others, searching for the any Mrr'tani on the bridge. The Hayes was different than the tugs, though, and where the tugs kept Mrr'tani servants at the stations, the cruiser had only three Mrr'tani present. One was dead, an overseer of the worst kind. The other two didn't man a station, but instead were the stewards who had been caught on the bridge when everything began.

The overseer had died in a spectacular fashion, the result of Sun Dancer's overbalance of power, and the bulkhead near where he once stood was splattered red from what looked like an explosion of blood. It dripped heavy and thick down the consoles, and the humans nearest him were still trying to comprehend what happened while they tried to wipe his blood from their faces. In the chaos, only one human was looking at the screens, and out of the corner of one Mrr'tani eye, Strong Soul saw him starting to raise his head to turn, an expression of panic on his face.

She didn't have time to be subtle or safe, and with her sheer force of will, she drove down the links to the two left on the bridge. The first she sent hurtling from her place near the lift at the back of the bridge to the human at the tactical station. The second was still holding a tray with a carafe of coffee and the associated service. The rest of her consciousness poured into him and she focused solely on his mind and his senses, leaving the Pride behind to inhabit solely his mind.

The bridge coalesced around her and she dropped the tray square into the lap of the human sitting in the center seat, the man she knew to be the captain of the Alan Hayes. Even as the tray was still in motion, she was moving, claws sliding fully from their sheathes as she placed the Mrr'tanou's claws full around the man's throat.

Even with her attention fully on this one Mrr'tanou, she could sense the rest of them around the cruiser, the elation, the unrestrained violence that her Frr'a'narr'ahn struggled mightily to keep in check, to hold back from the blood bath that was sure to occur. She could spare no attention for that right now, and what casualties there were she would have to live with, a thought that stung more than she wanted to admit.

Now, she thought to the other Mrr'tani.

Almost instantaneously, the Sisko lit off its drive while the Ferret turned and began decelerating. All three AI's opened their own communication ports to the cruiser's computer, sending data to flood it along with Allied access codes used in emergencies to allow another AI to control a malfunctioning ship. Circuits fell into place in the other AI, looking in Strong Soul's mind like bridges lowering, gates opening and huge vault doors sliding slowly open. The Hayes pushed all her thrust into deceleration, matching the Ferret and Sisko's flight path while the relative velocities slowed.

Around the Hayes, the assault shuttles closed the distance quickly, moving in towards the cruiser with a wary eye to the weapons. Weapons that had yet to come online. Strong Soul spared a glance to the tactical station and the quick look told her all she needed to know. Blood dripped down the console and pooled on the floor as the Mrr'tanah steward she'd sent towards the officer there had continued to the communications station, sharp claws and teeth rending anything that was unfortunate enough to get in her way.

First Spark, Strong Soul called over the link, knowing the telltale markings of the desert clan on the steward, I need you.

It only took the other Frr'a'narr'ah a moment to track back across the links, but it was too late for the two officers, one already dead and the other gasping her last breath. Still, control was restored, and Strong Soul could focus back on the captain.

The voice with which she spoke was pitched so that all on the bridge could hear it, the words harsh, tinged with a growl of rage.

"I am the Keeper of Hearts," she growled. "And I am claiming this ship in the name of the Mrr'tani Federation. Assault shuttles are closing on this ship with a full complement of Federation Guardians."

She gave that news time to sink in before she continued.

"If you continue to fight, then I will release my hold on the Mrr'tani you have abused and mistreated for so long, and I guarantee they will not be as merciful as I intend to be."

"You're just some hyped up furball, Melissa," the captain spat, "I've seen every inch of you, and you're not some messiah."

"Melissa is here," Strong Soul said, letting more of her power bleed into the Mrr'tanah's body. She knew the effect that she was having and she looked fully into the captain's eyes as the energy rushed in, filling the Mrr'tanah's normal eyes with black. "But I am the one in control. Cease your resistance and we will leave you be on the planet. Ignore my warning, and we will slaughter every last human on board this ship."

"I'd say kiss my ass, whiskers," the captain sneered, "but you've already done that."

Something in the tone of the man's voice, or perhaps it was merely the reaction from Melissa's mind, but there was no way Strong Soul could have prevented what happened next. With a strangled cry of pure, unadulterated rage, claws sunk into flesh and while warm blood poured over her hand, she ripped the claws sideways, muscles pulling them through anything in their path, splaying open the captain's throat to the spine while her other hand moved almost of its own accord to the man's belly, pressing claws through the soft, furless flesh there as well.

Within seconds, the captain lay dead on the deck and Strong Soul pushed with all her might to regain control, forcing the Mrr'tanah off the body, the blood still dripping from her claws.

Panting and growling, she turned her attention to the other humans on the bridge, fangs bared in a snarl, glaring at one human after another as they cowered back against their consoles, looking on at their captain disemboweled on the deck. She roared, long and loud and just as she was about to charge another of the humans, Strong Soul finally found that thread, the one that would let her take the control she needed.

The response was sudden, Melissa stopping in the center of the bridge, eyes clearing and rage subsiding, panting with exertion.

Once she had fully regained control, Strong Soul stood up straight in the borrowed body, carefully assessing the states of the others around her. She'd felt something akin to the rage and hate when she'd taken the tugs, but this was on a whole new level, and it surprised her the strength of the hatred these Mrr'tani held for the humans on this ship. She didn't need to think long about why that might be.

She'd done what she needed to, though, bought the time for the assault shuttles to land on the Alan Hayes' hull and begin cutting their way through the airlocks.

"Your ship is mine," Strong Soul said through Melissa's voice. "You have seen the lengths to which I am prepared to go. Stand down and secure yourselves in the mess hall and you will not be harmed. If you resist, we will do everything we must to secure this ship in the name of the Mrr'tani Federation."

The silence carried weight as it settled on the bridge, and she took advantage of the stillness and the shock to walk back to the center chair and calmly sit down, making herself comfortable, claiming it as her own.