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Strong Soul pulled back from the link with Melissa enough that she could feel the rest of her Mrr'tani, leaving Melissa sitting in the Captain's chair, the whites of her eyes still coal black with the Frr'a'tan'lass'iah's power. She fumbled with the links, seeking through as quickly as she could, trying to find another anchor.

Somewhere beyond the links, though, in the physical world, she vaguely felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder, drawing her back even further until she finally caught hold of her link with Night Star. It was the strongest and thickest of her Mrr'ouwffi, and she clung to it, feeling her body shuddering in the seat on the pride, sobs shaking her chest, even though she couldn't feel them while she was lost in the links.

You couldn't stop it, love, Night Star's voice said, caressing her mind gently with its tenderness. You may be the Frr'a'tan'lass'i'ah, but until now, you've been an innocent. You can't know the suffering these Mrr'tani have experienced at human hands.

I should have expected it, she responded, a wash of hot anger taking the place of everything else. Firebreather told me, I've felt it in the others on Mss'ranaw, on the Sisko...

That's not the same, love, Night Star said, his voice in her mind soothing, washing over her with a flood of his own pragmatic calm. You've heard about it and experienced it second-hand. Melissa has lived it her whole life. If it was you, would it not take a colossal effort to keep you from taking revenge?

That's not how I wanted it. I don't want bloodshed.

You can't control everything, love. That's what Catcher of Souls has been trying to tell you. The Mrr'tani are simply your ship and you are their sail. Everything still depends on the hyper waves of life. You can only give us the means to use those waves to get where we want to go. There's always going to be waves too big to sail.

How can you be so calm?

Because I've seen more than you, love. As much as you want to deny it, there are things you can't change, and railing against them isn't going to help.

Another wave of steadying calm washed over her and the link with Micah opened again, feeding the information she'd been ignoring since the battle on the bridge back into her mind.

Right now, your Guardians need you. Grieve later, love, lead now.

She took a deep breath and sank into the links once again, still keeping the joining with Night Star close to her mind, a rope to give her a way out of the quicksand. She knew she couldn't use it. To pull away from her Mrr'tani right now would shatter them again. She'd worked so hard to keep them together through this much and she could never abandon them. Still, there was something comforting about having that lifeline.

While the Pride was safely out of the way of any of the fighting, something they'd worked out ahead of time to keep the Frr'a'narr'ahn safe, there was almost too much going on in and around the Hayes to keep track of. Strong Soul had never had this many active links in the forefront of her attention before, and there was a learning curve to keeping them all where she needed them. Diving back into the links, she found the other Frr'a'narr'ahn doing their part among their clans, tying the fighters together, keeping them working closer than even Strong Soul could herself.

She took a moment to watch the way that the other Frr'a'narr'ahn were working, the instinctive way that they joined their clans without even thinking about it, and she couldn't help the tinge of jealousy that sang through her. While they were not practiced in handling the links, they simply stepped back and became what they were mean to be, conduits for the thoughts of their clan. It wasn't a luxury that Strong Soul could afford, though she could use it to her advantage. She could let the clans with Frr'a'narr'ahn drift to the back of her mind and only keep the Mothers in her attention, having faith that everything she needed would be relayed through them. After all, that was how it was supposed to work, or at least that's what she and Catcher of Souls thought.

Having two clans that she could leave to the other Mothers gave her much more room in her mind with which to drive the others. Many didn't need her full attention, benefiting more from her presence than from her direction, but others, such as her Guardians, needed more from her, and she gladly gave it. The links that screamed out the most for attention were Wind Blade and Steel Heart. Her two personal guardians weren't needed in the Pride, for if there came a time that their skills were needed in the current battle, then all was lost anyway. Strong Soul knew that they would not be happy watching their brethren in the heat of battle and having to merely sit with her on the one ship that was not in any action whatsoever. Now, they were the leaders of the main strike force that had forced its way into the airlock nearest the bridge.

Their links flared to life and she blinked her eyes as her vision fragmented, drawing on Micah to filter the input into something she could more readily understand and deal with. It was a skill she'd come to rely on more and more since she discovered the AI's affinity for keeping track of everything and feeding her what she needed to focus on at the moment. Without him, she knew the task would have been much more difficult to manage.

The airlock door had blown inward and the Guardians were on the move through the corridors of the Hayes, steadily making their way to the bridge. Most of the humans that they came across were already subdued by the newly-liberated Mrr'tani on the Hayes. The initial wave of links that opened touched each and every one of them, and most were able to deal with the humans near them before the humans realized what had happened. Some were dead, but for the most part, the Mrr'tani had obeyed Strong Soul's wishes to leave the humans alive so as to fan the flames as little as possible when the fighting became known further away.

The humans that were the problem were the ones who had been in the human-only sections of the ship and had managed to arm themselves. Micah fed Strong Soul the views from the security cameras throughout the ship, so she knew that a large group was headed towards the bridge. Fortunately, First Spark was still guiding Melissa, and the humans on the bridge, unarmed and cowed into submission by Melissa's display when she killed the captain, were not eager to try their luck in subduing her and the other Mrr'tani on the bridge. They'd managed to secure the blast door, effectively sealing the bridge off from any assistance from the outside. The Hayes' AI, under the control of Micah and Mary, had locked out all the controls, effectively isolating the ship in space.

Strong Soul could feel Micah feeding codes through the links to the other AI, attempting one thing after another, trying to gain full control over the AI, or failing that, the ship, but until he was successful, it was up to Strong Soul and the Guardians to ensure that the bridge didn't fall back to the humans.

She opened the link between the Guardians and Micah, feeding the camera views directly into their minds, letting them see what she was seeing, trusting their tactical knowledge and proficiency to make the correct decisions, for now only an observer in the battle. Her heart raced with Steel Heart's, her breathing matched Wind Blade's, and adrenaline coursed through her with each and every turn they made. All of her Guardians had some effect on her as they moved, and as a group, she was closer to all of them than any other Mrr'tani in the battle. The others without a Frr'a'narr'ah were dim presences in the back of her mind, occupying only enough attention so that they could draw what they needed from her. Even being as separate as they were, though, the relief and sheer rightness of the links were clear and bright.

The humans had finally realized what was happening, and the chaos of the original contact was beginning to fade into the background as their training took over and they started to fully organize. What was an easy victory on the tugs was beginning to turn into a deck by deck battle. The Mrr'tani had the advantage, though, having secured most of the crucial sections, the humas too arrogant in their own position and superiority to think that the Mrr'tani might defy them.

There was someone else with the boarding parties, though, whose link tasted different, burned a different color from the Mrr'tani, and Strong Soul shifted her attention from the Guardians to Bridge Walker. He opened his mind readily to her, and though she could not see fully as she could through her guardians' eyes, she didn't have to see to know what he was feeling. He was new to the links and to sharing his thoughts with the Mrr'tani, but he was quickly adapting to the new sensations, and through him, Strong Soul was learning more and more about how the human mind saw and perceived the links.

Now his mind was showing opening her to others, some of the humans closest to the Mrr'tani on the Hayes. She could feel the same love that she felt from Bridge Walker within their minds, the despair and the heartache at having to choose between their friends and their duty. Some simply stayed where they were, locked in quarters, trying to shut out the sounds of the fighting and the thoughts of what was happening on either side. Others did what they could to save the ship, but refused to fight. There were others, though, who had yet to make up their minds, or who had decided to fight on the side of the Mrr'tani. Those were the ones that she was most curious about. Now that she knew humans existed who found peace and love between them and the Mrr'tani, she was more open to allowing the sympathizers to stay and join their federation.

With a thought, she shifted from Bridge Walker, along unfamiliar paths, the route feeling like a scrambling crawl, clawing her way along the ever-thinning branch of a tree, knowing that she could make it to the next branch before the first gave way, but not fully perceiving it. She had to trust, and when the line of the link thinned too far, she cast her mind fully off, reaching out to the others she knew were there. The thinnest thread is what she caught, but it was enough to give her a path into the other mind, another like Bridge Walker. Shock and fear flooded the link when the human felt her presence touching her mind, though there was something beneath it, too. Though it was new and very different, along with the fear, there was a welcoming feeling, like she was a piece that filled a place that he was missing.

She deliberately kept her presence small and unobtrusive at first, letting him feel her there, and become used to the presence in her mind. Bridge Walker almost knew what he was asking when he sought her out the first time, but this one had no idea what he was welcoming into his mind, and the last thing she wanted to do was overwhelm him with the connections she'd grown used to. The trepidation began to fade and he opened his mind wider to her, the fear giving way to an insatiable curiosity. She smiled to herself at the feeling of it washing over her, the feeling so very Mrr'tani that she knew she'd found what she was looking for.

You are one of the sympathizers, she spoke in his mind.

Confusion flooded the link and she knew the cause immediately. The humans had never had any voice but their own inside their head, and they had no concept of the communication that could be accomplished when minds were linked.

You need not speak, she assured him, for I can feel what you do. You have friends among our kind. If you care for them, you will help us.

The link started too weak for her to feel or see much of anything from the human, but the longer she stayed, the less foreign the mind became and the clearer his thoughts.

-can't, his voice said in her mind, no weapons.

You are a weapon yourself, she replied. Your words and your mind. Let me in and I will show you how.

Not Mrr'tani, he protested. How could you accept us?

We welcome all who desire freedom and equality, let me show you what it means to be one of us.

Finally, the last shred of resistance faded away, and she pushed herself into his mind, finding that certain place down deep where the humans never realized one could touch, and she bound it with her own, then with Bridge Walker and finally, she opened her mind, letting in the rest of her presence, allowing him to feel what it was to be fully connected with the others. His mind opened slowly, even moreso than Bridge Walker's had, but it finally did open, accepting the links and feeling them beginning to connect him to the whole.

There was something different about this human, though. There were connections within him to other humans, though she knew they were buried so deep that even he wouldn't have been aware of them. Curiosity took over and she prodded one with her mind, and memories and images came unbidden to her mind of a female human, though she could sense that she was far away, not on this ship, but on a world he'd visited. Even though there wasn't the connection that the Mrr'ouwffi gave to the Mrr'tani, there was still something there, and she marveled at it. She'd thought the humans link-blind, but some seemed to have the capacity for a very different kind of link.

You are welcome among us, she said, but you have to help us. You know of others like you, who don't wish this war to lead to more bloodshed. We do not wish to kill the humans, but we will do as we have to do. Help us, and you can stem the tide of blood.

Resolution filled the link and she knew that she'd gotten through to him. Time would tell what it was that had broken the wall, but for now, she was simply grateful it had.

Send your Guardians to the med bay, Keeper of Hearts, and I'll help.