Torl's Journey

Three hours later, when the pressure stabilized and the engines returned to their normal hum, he made his way to the command center. He briefed the two navigators that they were destined for the Sinale system. They pulled up the route; Jaselle clucked and Farnle whistled, and then commented. “Well I’m glad we took on a full load of fuel, we will need it if we are to make the round trip. I’m not familiar with this system captain; will they have the facilities to refuel a cargo ship?”

“I haven’t been there before, myself, I assume that they will, but it would be just as well if we made sure there is enough fuel to return. Plot the most direct route, and make sure we have our proximity sensors set to maximum distance. I want to know if we are being followed. By the way, our destination does not leave this room. If I find out someone else knows where we are going, I will know who to talk to.”

“Yes sir.”

“Yes sir.”

With both of them acknowledging his instructions, Torl, nodded and then left the command center. He walked to the first officer’s quarters and joined Seala, then summoned the two security specialists to join them. When they arrived, he drew in the grays and browns and scanned them as he spoke to them about how he wanted security to be performed. The older one was a wiry woman in her middle years with a slight scar on her left cheek. Her name was Irnla, and she had a military background having fought in several small interplanetary skirmishes. She had been performing personal security services for local merchants and was looking for something more permanent. The younger one was a short muscular fireplug of a man in his early years, and could only be described as ugly, with a nose that seemed to cover half his face and showed several previous breaks, and a single eyebrow that reached across the bridge of a cavernous forehead. His name was Url and most of his experience had been in the employ of an underground boss who had recently been eliminated. Url was grateful for the opportunity to get off planet without being parted out first.

Once Torl was certain that they were intent on doing a good job and impressing him with their abilities, he told them that the former captain was in the captain’s quarters and that it would be up to them to ensure he received food and care. He was to be kept alive and treated as an executive prisoner, meaning no abuse of any kind, but no freedom either. No one other than he and Seala were to be allowed to see the captain, and the guards were not to speak to him except as needed to provide care. They would rotate duties. When not caring for the captain; they were to provide security for Seala and other duties as assigned. They answered to no one but Torl and Seala, and would clear any other requests for their time with Torl before committing to anything.

He also decided that he should determine how skilled they were, so he told them that each would be required to demonstrate their armed and unarmed skills over the next couple of days. They had free access to the workout rooms, and the fire range when not on other duties, and should take advantage of these facilities often. They agreed and he dismissed them to their duties, Irnla would have first guard duty at the first officer’s quarters and Url would care for the captain first. Torl coded their idents to the captain’s quarters so they could gain access to Relos.

As soon as they left, Seala asked him what he was doing with the grays and browns. He explained and told her how it was done. She tried it on him immediately and he blocked her scan, and then explained how that was done as well. They spent the next several hours going over different techniques and counter techniques. Torl found it quite enjoyable teaching techniques in an environment where they could actually use the power. Strange how different life was when there was no fear of Witch Hunters. He decided that they would spend at least one hour each day practicing various power techniques and discussing possible counters and alternate methods. This should be good for both of them as it was well established that the talent grows with practice, not just the skill, but the capability as well.

Early the next day, Torl summoned Url to the workout room to test his skills in unarmed combat. Seala tagged along excited to see Torl fight again. She laughed as he stretched and loosened up his muscles. Seala found it particularly funny that a man would want to do the splits and then touch his chest to the floor, he looked so ridiculous. When Url arrived, Torl allowed him a few moments to loosen up and stretch as well. He watched as Url stretched, to get an idea of what muscles Url expected to use in the sparring session, noting that he did not do the splits, but did do a lot of other flexibility exercises in his warm up.

With both of them warmed up, they entered the roped off sparring ring, and Torl laid out the rules. “You must pull any blows that would be fatal, or cause disability at full force. We will go three rounds, each round goes until one of us sustains a fatal blow, is knocked unconscious, or taps out. The next round begins as soon as both parties are conscious and standing at the ready again. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, begin.” With that Torl immediately kicked Url in the chin with a front snap kick, and bounced back to avoid Url’s spinning back fist counter.

Torl then threw a series of jabs, crosses, and upper cuts to test Url’s boxing defense, it was good, and nothing got thru. Url counter attacked with a series of punches and elbows, finishing up with an attempted double leg take down. He caught Torl with an elbow cross, but Torl blocked or dodged everything else, before countering with a barrage of punches, kicks and knees, tagging Url several times and causing the man to press in and work a clinch.

Torl was expecting the clinch and shot double under hooks, flipping Url to the ground and moving quickly to side guard. This apparently was where Url was the most comfortable, as he quickly pressed a series of submission attempts and reversals, that left Torl hard pressed simply trying not to get caught. The two men went back and forth with submission attempt after submission attempt, until Torl finally faked an attempt and threw a full swing elbow that landed cleanly on Url’s jaw. With Url dazed from the blow, Torl easily executed a full arm bar, and Url had to tap out. The first round took 9 minutes.

Round two began as soon as Url got to his feet again. He immediately performed a sweep that nearly connected as Torl had moved for a double leg take down. Torl noticed the sweep at the last moment and was able to jump back out of the way. Okay, Torl thought, he does have some kicks in his skill set. Let’s see how good he is at kick boxing. With that he started a series of punches and leg kicks, in ten to twelve move combinations designed to drive Url back into the ropes. At the last moment, Url slipped to his right and pulled away from the ropes, then started a series of punches and kicks of his own. Torl blocked smoothly, and then faked a leg kick and followed with a round kick to the head. He caught Url off guard, and the kick knocked him unconscious. The second round had taken only 4 minutes.

Round three began a minute later as Url took his time getting to his feet after recovering consciousness. When he did get to his feet, he immediately did a front somersault hooking Torl’s legs with his own and pulling Torl onto the mat. That was completely unexpected, and Torl found himself scrambling to get Url into full guard. He then tied Url up and began working his way to the ropes so he could walk the ropes to his feet. He had to fend off numerous submission attempts, but eventually got back to his feet, and used his knees, elbows and punches to break free of Url’s clinch. Url backed off, then performed a sweep kick, followed immediately by a leg hook, and caught Torl again dragging him to the mat once more. This time Torl rolled and spun back to his feet as though he had planned to hit the mat as part of his own offense. He immediately snapped off a series of kicks as Url scrambled to get back to his feet. Url survived the onslaught, and countered with lightning fast punches to the head and gut, followed by a shot to a double leg take down. Torl blocked most of the punches, but had to implement a full sprawl to avoid the take down. Both men bounced back to full standing positions, and began a new series of punches and counter punches, kicks and take down attempts. The action was fast and furious as both men pressed for advantage, both landed punches and kicks, but the fight remained on the feet. Finally, Url caught Torl with a massive right cross and staggered him. As he moved in for the kill, Torl instinctively threw out a front snap kick that landed flush on Url’s chin, and staggered him. Both men backed off for a few seconds as they recovered from the blows, but Torl recovered first, and moved in with a flurry of punches kicks and elbows, finishing with a flying knee that landed sending Url to the mat once more unconscious. The third round had lasted 23 minutes, and Torl pulled back to the ropes totally exhausted, and with several new bruises.

When Url regained consciousness and climbed back to his feet, he asked Torl why he needed security if he could fight like that. Torl responded, you can never be skilled enough to be safe when you sleep, or are distracted.

“You fought well, you need to work on your karate, but your jujitsu is very impressive, and your kick boxing is good. If your weapons skills are as good, I will be impressed. Tell Irnla she is up tomorrow at the same time. Well done.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir.”

“Hit the refresher, and then take a couple of hours to relax. Seala and I will spend some time in the command center. Report to us there at .0860.”

“Yes sir.

Torl and Seala stopped by the first officer’s cabin first, and after Torl had cleaned up, he instructed Seala in how to heal bruises and strains and had her perform those techniques on his numerous bumps and bruises. As they left the cabin to make their way up to the command center, Torl suddenly had a very strong feeling of danger, grabbed Seala and dove to the floor, just as a blaster seared the wall directly behind where he had been standing a second earlier. He held on to Seala and rolled moving them to the opposite side of the hall before he released her and came up into a kneeling position blaster in hand and scanned the hallway in both directions, both with his eyes and with his talent. There was no one there. Whoever had attacked them had vanished. He got to his feet, and reached out to help Seala up, and then still scanning the halls as they went, they worked their way to the captain’s cabin where Irnla would be on duty, and Torl could use the terminal to pull up the persona reading and vid recordings of the hall ways.

A few very long minutes later, they reached the captain’s quarters. Torl thumbed them in and closed the door as soon as they were both inside. Still scanning, he started across the sitting room toward the sleep station, as Irnla stepped out of the sleep station with her blaster in hand. “Oh, it’s you, sir. You should really announce yourself so we don’t blast you by accident… Sir.”

“Someone tried to blast us just a few minutes ago as we left the first officer’s quarters. So you will have to take a number. Cover the door; I need to access the terminal for a bit. Seala, come over to the terminal with me, you should learn how to do this.” Torl walked over to the terminal and signed in. He showed Seala how to access the persona ident program, and pulled up the location of all the crew and staff on board. Url and Jaselle were in their assigned quarters, everyone else was in their assigned duty locations. That made no sense, the ship was not large but there had not been time enough for anyone who had been in position to fire on them, to return to their current locations by now. “I don’t see how the person who attacked could be back where they belong by now. Let’s pull up the history and trace the attacker. To do that, you click here, then drag this, then push this button to run back in time. You could also select this option and enter the time you want to view, but we don’t have that far to go back.” He scanned back, and traced their persona readings back to first officer’s quarters, and all the others were still where they should be. He stepped back through the time where he felt the imminent danger and pulled Seala to the floor. “There! Did you see that, it looked like a shadow, right there?” Torl pointed to the screen and Seala saw what he was pointing to as he stepped through the sequence again. The shadow moved toward them, then disappeared back down the hall toward the cargo portion of the ship. Then it just disappeared. “Well, Seala, it would appear that we have an unplanned passenger on board. Let’s see if we can get a view of the individual in question.” He closed the persona ident application and opened the security camera search program. Again, he worked backward in time, tracing the two of them back to the first officer’s quarters, and back to the point of attack. Then he paused and switched from camera to camera to try and get a view of the attacker. One view showed an arm and hand as the blaster was pointed and fired, but otherwise the attacker was invisible. So Torl focused on the path they had seen the ghost image on the persona ident go. He checked every camera angle up and down the hall the ghost image had traveled, for fifteen minutes before and after the attack, but no images were visible, there were a couple of brief shadows, but no images of the attacker. “Well, whoever it is, we are not dealing with a disgruntled crew member. This individual knows how to avoid detection and tracing. Most likely they have a light diffuser to hide them from the cameras, and a frequency bender to hide their persona traces. They had to turn the light diffuser off to take the shot because it blurs visibility and they wanted to make a perfect shot, that’s why we saw the arm and hand. My guess is this is a professional assassin. The question is who would hire an assassin to sneak onboard a pirate ship and kill the two of us?”

“Irnla, are you proficient with persona ident applications?”

“Yes sir.”

“I want you to review the persona tracing from the time we docked at Silius Three up to now. We are looking for any traces or idents that don’t match the crew and staff on board. We need to find out where this assassin is holding up. Plot each location you find a shadow or any other indication that someone unknown is on board. That should give us an idea of where to look. It looks like you and Url are going to be earning your pay on this trip.”

“Yes Sir.”

Torl summoned Url to the captain’s quarters, to escort them to the command center. When he arrived, they told him what had happened, and discussed a change in schedules to ensure that one of the two of security specialists was with them at all times. He also set a policy that they would review the persona scans every day looking for traces of the intruder, until he or she was caught. Before they left for the command center, Torl did a persona scan of the path they would take and all parallel paths, to make sure the assassin was not waiting for them to come walking into another attempt. He emphasized that there was to be no hero stuff, if they identified where the assassin was, or would be, they were to contact him and a plan would be set for taking action. He could not afford to lose his security specialists to stupidity.

“Seala, we will need to change our schedule and vary our routes from one place another. We want to make it very hard to anticipate where we will be at any given time. We will also need to vary where we sleep. The two most secure locations on the ship are the command center and the captains quarters, I’m going to order cots to be set up in both locations, so we can sleep in either at random. I’m also going to have some additional persona detectors and security cameras installed in the locations we most often visit, especially around the first officer’s quarters. We may get lucky and catch this person in a mistake. But we cannot count on it. We will need to work on some techniques to help people like us become more difficult targets.”

They arrived at the command center without difficulty and checked the progress. Farnle reported that the long range scanners showed no indication that they were being followed, and they were making good time on the current path toward Sharing Six. They would be in a communications dead space for another 15 days, but should then be in range of the Sharing system. Twenty days should see them in orbit around Sharing Six if everything continued to proceed as smoothly. Torl told him to have cots brought in to the command center and the captain’s quarters and that he and Seala would occasionally sleep in one location or the other for a while. In addition, he wanted to be notified immediately when communications were established with the Sharing system.

“Url, contact Irnla and have her run scans of sectors 5, 26 and 13, we will be returning to the first officer’s quarters for a little while.”

“Yes sir.”

A few seconds later Url reported all clear in the specified sectors, and they made their way back to the first officer’s quarters. Torl posted Url outside so he and Seala could have some private time to go over techniques to make them more difficult targets.

As the door closed, he turned to Seala and said, “Okay, let’s get to work. Draw in pink, yellow and blue. The first technique we need to master is image displacement. We will use the power to reverse the locations of two images, ourselves and the vacant space near us. Using this technique, will allow us to appear to be walking down one side of the hall, when we are actually walking down the other side. To make this effective, we will need to begin walking down the opposite side of the hall from what we normally do. The idea here is that if an assassin shoots where we appear to be it will miss us, giving us a very short period of time in which to escape, or respond. Watch me, weave the colors like so…” As Seala watched, she saw the weave, and as soon as it was complete, Torl instantly switched places with the desk he had been standing next to.

She walked over and put a hand out to touch Torl on the shoulder, but her hand went right through him. She reached down where the desk had been, and contacted its firm surface. This was pure illusion. Torl let the weave go, and suddenly he and the desk were back where they had been.

“You discovered the flaw in this tool. It is pure illusion, if you are not careful, the illusion can be discovered, and someone as smart as most assassins are could easily figure out where you are based on what is displaced.

Even so, it is simple to do, and if done properly can provide a certain degree of additional security. You have to focus on where you want the swap to occur, and things like walking through doorways becomes a little tricky, so you will need to spend some time practicing.

Try it now, we will work on it in front of a mirror to help you get proficient.”

Seala concentrated and made the weave, focusing on the space immediately to her right. Nothing appeared to happen.

“Good. You did well. Remember, you appear now to be a small distance the right of where you actually stand. If you walk through the door now, you will appear to walk through the wall. You cannot see the illusion, so you won’t notice, but that is a dead giveaway to anyone watching you. She walked into the sleep station where there was a full length mirror, and saw herself appear to step out of the wall to her right. Wow, it really did work. She wondered why she could not see her illusion without the mirror; that seemed rather inconvenient.

She saw Torl enter the sleep station beside her, and turned toward him. “Why can’t I see my own illusion?”

“It has to do with your self image. You have learned over the years that the image in a mirror is a reflection of you, not the real you, so you can see it. With this illusion, you are projecting yourself into a new location, your mind knows that you are still where you are, and cannot accept that you are somewhere else. If you use the same technique on someone or something else, you will see the illusion. I had a master back on Arth that said he had reached a state of selflessness that allowed him to see his illusion as real, but he is the only one I ever heard of who could.” He reached out to pat her on the head, but his hand passed right through her. Then he took a step to the left and reached toward her illusion, and suddenly she felt his hand touch her head. He was projecting, but how had he been able to walk through the door without her seeing the illusion step out of the wall.

“How did you do that? Walk through the door I mean.”

“I moved my projection focus, you have to do it in many small steps, and it projects smoothly only when you are moving. Basically, I moved the projection to be in front of me as I walked through the doorway, and then moved it back to my right once I was through the doorway. It takes practice as I said. Take a couple of steps and try moving your illusion gradually to another position around you as you move. Watch in the mirror so you can work out how far to move it in each increment, and how quickly you can cycle your increments.” She practiced for half an hour until she got the image to move smoothly through a doorway without being obvious. She found that it worked best for her to step through the doorway and move to one side or the other immediately while having the image move forward into the room. This way the image did not appear to be moving unnaturally. Torl had her practice for another half an hour on moving around objects in the room, becoming conscious of where her image was relative to the room, while not stumbling over things herself, took some real concentration.

“Okay, you need to work on that constantly over the next few days until it becomes as natural as walking. Let’s try another technique. This one is illusion too, it will not fool a persona detector, but it does fool cameras and the human eye. Draw in gray, green and blue. Good, now weave them like so…” She watched his weave, as it was completed, she gasped…. He disappeared, just vanished in front of her eyes. She reached out to where he had been standing, and felt his strong hand reach out and grasp hers. “You see? Now you try it.” She did, as she completed the weave, she heard him say “Good.”, but she was already on her way into the sleep station to look in the mirror. As she entered the illumination came on, but she looked in the mirror and she was not there. She just saw the other wall.

“Again, you discovered the flaw in this technique. You walked into a room where the persona detectors turn on the illumination upon entry. Some of the less used of the ship’s halls have auto illumination installed; using this technique when you walk those halls will give you away. There are other locations where persona detectors perform other actions; you will need to be cautious of these areas when using this technique. Once you have mastered these two techniques, I will work with you on disrupting the persona frequencies, which, when done in combination with the illusion can allow you to move about the ship virtually undetected. Of course, you will not be detected at all, meaning you will disappear from the persona recordings and lights will not come on for you. It also seems to interfere with electronic printing, so you will not be able to open doors or pass security locks while using the disruption techniques. For now, spend some time working on the two illusion techniques. Get to know how close you can get to the persona devices without triggering them; work on moving around with the projection in tight quarters. We need to make our way back to the captain’s quarters before the evening bell, and I would like you to be able to use the projected image on the trip there.

Torl went to the terminal to begin work on an analysis program to extract and trace the persona ghosts. It took several tries to identify the data points that indicated a ghost in the persona data, but once he got that working, he was able to pull an analysis easily.

Most of the ghost images had occurred near cargo bay 4, the one which had no cargo. A few others had occurred near the captain’s quarters and the first officer’s quarters. It appeared that these two locations had been staked out.

Strange that an assassin would take such risks, there was a fair amount of traffic in the access halls that lead to those two areas. Being invisible to electronics is useful, but the devices that do this typically create a type of warping to the human eye, and even without that, the individual is still physically there and can be bumped into or stepped on. It is risky to spend any notable time in a busy area.

Torl decided to look at the persona files for the periods where the assassin was staking out the captain and first officers’ quarters. Sure enough there was traffic through the halls where the assassin was positioned to watch the entrances. A couple of times the traffic was significant. The only way that the assassin would not be detected is if he or she was not on the floor. He called Url into the office, and asked him to have pressure detectors installed on the walls and ceilings of the access halls leading up to the captain’s and first officer’s quarters and the command center. These should be routed into the security system and cross checked with the persona detectors. He explained that the data indicated the assassin was taking positions on the wall or ceiling of these halls.

It was about time for them to move again, so Torl pulled the persona scans for the sectors running along his chosen path for getting them back to the captain’s quarters. No indication of ghost images, and all persona’s identified in those areas were crew or staff that had reason to be in those areas. He then called Seala away from practicing the illusion techniques; they both implemented the projection technique and then followed Url out into the hall to make their way back to the captain’s quarters.

As they were about to round a corner into the main hall approaching the captain’s quarters, Torl again had that feeling of imminent danger, and took Seala by the arm and changed directions so suddenly that Url had to hustle to catch up with them again. To his credit Url made no comment and asked no questions, he just caught up and resumed his role as the attentive protector. Torl guided them to the command center instead of the captain’s quarters and contacted Irnla as soon as they arrived and told her to scan the hall they had been about to go down when he had the premonition. Sure enough there was a persona ghost in the hall. He told Seala to stay put in the command center, grabbed a portable communicator and took Url with him as he retraced their steps to the entrance to that hall. Then he contacted Irnla again and told her to come toward them down the hall from the other direction. Everyone was to pay particular attention to the walls and ceiling, not just the walkway; any warping of visibility should be fired on first then examined. They all three moved into the hall at the same time. Torl caught an impression of movement at the other end of the hall, and then saw the tracer fire as a blaster burned a hole in the wall behind his projected image. He fired back instantly, and heard the thump as the assassin hit the floor. A second later Irnla fired at a spot on the floor of the hall ahead of them. She apparently hit the light warp device because a young man in gray space gear appeared lying on the floor, trying to reach his dropped blaster. Irnla moved in quickly and kicked the blaster away from the assassin. Url was there very quickly as well, and the two of them pinned the man down and handcuffed his hands behind his back. As they did so, Torl thought he saw another blur move past them going away from him, and out of sight around the corner. This might not be over after all, he would have to look at the scans, he doubted that the captured man would talk; assassins were notoriously hard to get any information out of. They would try anyway, but it was not likely that they would get any information unless Torl touched his thoughts, but he wanted to avoid getting into any kind of habit or reliance on such techniques as they were generally believed to be in the gray realm, and could lead one into the dark side of the power. If they could not find out any other way, he might have to resort to that, but they should be able to look at the scans, so far they had been able to find traces, so it was likely that they would find one for a second assassin if that is what Torl had seen.

As he reached the place where the assassin was down, he was able to see that he had hit the man in the right leg with his blaster shot, causing him to release the pressure on his anti-grav gear. If he had hit an arm instead, it would have been likely that he would have been able to maintain his location on the wall and move away, or get another shot off, aiming for Torl’s trace rather than his image. They had been lucky this evening, if they had to do this again, a different strategy would be needed. They dragged the assassin back to the captain’s quarters, where they searched him pulling several weapons and numerous other devices out of his clothing, before they put him in a closet and set a secure lock on it. Torl went to the console and pulled the recordings for the period of the conflict, and sure enough there was a persona ghost moving away as Url and Irnla were securing the downed assassin. There was at least one more on board. He showed the traces to Url and Irnla and told them to try and find out how many were on board. Then he took the items they had taken off the assassin and put them in a fire safe which he then locked away in the captain’s private safe. They would need to determine what all those devices did, but that would have to wait for now. He and Url left and headed back to the command center after he scanned the sectors on their path. He reversed his projection to be on the other side of him before they departed, just in case he was wrong about the assassin heading for safety to plan the next move. Irnla had been instructed to secure the doors and leave the assassin locked up until they returned tomorrow to question him. No one would question him alone, and she was to take no chances that the other assassin might come back and take her out to get the captured one free.

They got back to the command center and Seala looked very relieved to see him, running over to give him a hug. Torl found out later that she had been monitoring the security cameras and had seen the blaster trails. But then the feed had failed. So she was not sure of the outcome. He explained to her that they had captured one, but that there was at least one more assassin, and the other one had gotten away. They slept in the command center that night, sleeping in a bit the next day as well after a very stressful day.

When he awoke, Torl immediately checked on Irnla to make sure everything was okay at the captain’s quarters. She said that there had been some noise in the closet where the captive assassin had been put, but she did not respond, and it went quiet after a while. Otherwise the night had been uneventful.

She felt that they should begin questioning as soon as possible since it was likely to take a while to get an assassin to talk. The danger remained until the other was captured or killed as well. Torl had to agree, so once he and Seala were up and going, he sent Url, who had slept the night with his back against the command center door, back to the captain’s quarters to assist with the questioning. Torl emphasized that a blaster should be aimed at the assassin by one of them at all times, and they should never both be within reach of him even with his hands cuffed.

A few minutes later, Irnla and Url contacted him to tell him that the assassin was found dead in the closet when they went to bring him out. It appeared that he had chosen to end his own life rather than face questioning. Torl cursed himself for not thinking of that possibility and scanning him as soon as they took him. Now they would get no information from him. They could still run his fingerprints and persona scan through the crime database, but it was unlikely that there would be any record for an assassin, and they would have to be in communications with one of the inhabited systems to do a full check. They could not allow the other assassin or assassins to have that much time to work.

He went to the captain’s console in the command center and pulled up the analysis program he had written earlier, and plotted the persona shadows since the previous lunar rise, to see if he could determine what the remaining assassin or assassins were planning. There were only five traces found in that timeframe that could not be accounted for by the attack yesterday. Two of them were obviously the escaped assassin returning to the cargo area. The other three showed movement toward the first officer’s quarters early today. He did a full scan of the halls near the first officer’s quarters and sure enough there was a shadow trace in a hall outside those quarters. Why would an assassin make such an obvious move after being caught the previous day in a similar situation? That was not consistent with what he had heard about the workings of assassins. This felt like a reverse trap. He summoned Url and Irnla to the command center to consult on the matter. When they arrived, he showed them the trace findings, and explained his concerns. They agreed that it was unlikely the assassin would repeat the pattern that had been uncovered the previous day, unless it was to lure them into some action that could be exploited. After spending a couple of hours trying to figure out how they could be exploited if they attacked the assassin’s position, they came to the conclusion that the only way they would know is to spring the trap, but that they needed to do it differently than they had before to try and surprise the assassin into making a mistake. Torl did not like the solution, but the assassin appeared to be content to wait them out, there had been no movement on the scans.

The projected illusion was unlikely to work a second time, and with the assassin being aware that he could project illusion, it was very likely that there would be some form of persona detection in use now, so the invisibility technique would not be safe either. Url and Irnla had both volunteered to walk up to the assassin’s location as bait, but he did not want to risk them to spring the trap if he could help it either. Finally, he decided to enlist Seala and use the gray techniques to try to spring the trap without sending anyone into the line of fire.

They all four returned to the captain’s quarters, and Torl worked with Seala, instructing her on how to link with him and feed him the power colors he would need. Meanwhile, Url tended to captain Relos and Irnla examined the items they had taken off the captured assassin, running them through the computer databases to determine what each was.

As they prepared to spring the trap, she ran down the list of tools the assassin had had at his disposal. The light diffuser and frequency bender that they suspected were there, plus a small portable persona detector, several types of blaster, a tangler, a device for sending out an electromagnetic blast that would disable all electronic devices within five parses, this device was very dangerous on a starship since the engines, navigation, and life support could all be affected by such a device, and with that range there would only be a few places on ship where at least one of those systems would not be affected. From outside either the captain’s quarters or the first officer’s quarters it would take out both the navigation system and the life support system, very dangerous indeed.

Whoever wanted them dead, it would appear was willing to kill everyone on ship to accomplish the task. In addition, the assassin had carried a portable communicator with a long range and full encryption that appeared to be remote enabled for controlling some form of computer access device, and an emergency beacon device which was capable of relaying a message through any passing ships or solar systems, presumably to report the success or failure of the mission. If the other assassin had the same tools, then Torl would have to make sure to disable him or her first, and then determine what the trap was. They could not risk the electromagnetic blast being set off when the assassin discovered that the trap did not work.

They ran one more check with the persona detector to make sure that the assassin had not slipped away. The ghost image was still positioned outside the first officer’s quarters. Torl secured the assassin’s devices in the fire safe and stored it in the captain’s private safe again, then turned to Seala and told her it was time to begin. She immediately linked with him and started feeding him the grays, browns, and blues as he had instructed her. He started drawing in the same colors plus the pinks and yellows to prepare his weaves. As he drew the power, he instructed the two security specialists to take up positions at either end of the hall where the persona detector indicated the assassin was located, they were each to take a portable communicator and monitor the encrypted frequency for his instructions. They were to take no action regardless of what they heard or saw until he told them to. As they departed, he secured the door, and sat down next to Seala to prepare the weaves.

First he prepared a mind blast weave as a last resort, then he prepared the nerve block that he had used on captain Relos, and a weave to cause the persona detector the assassin was likely carrying to go off, just as it would have if they had used the invisibility illusion and walked into the hall. Finally, he prepared a weave to generate a small controlled electromagnet blast that would shut down all devices for a space about equal to four paces in diameter. Then he reached out tentatively for minds in the area where the assassin should be. There was Irnla, and Url, he brushed past them and moved on, there. He contacted an unfamiliar mind that was as calm and quiet as one of the monks back in the monastery where he had been raised. Best to be safe, he brushed past that mind and kept searching. There, a second calm mind watching from behind Url, and taking careful aim with a blaster. Torl spoke to Url through the communicator telling him to duck and roll as he put the nerve block in place on the one behind Url, just as the assassin’s finger tightened on the firing nub on the blaster. He felt the assassin’s panic as the block went into place. He was disabled, but he had gotten a shot off. No time to worry about Url, Torl released the electromagnet blast weave next to the other assassin, then reached into the assassin’s mind, and saw that he (it was a male), had been set to activate some device he carried that according to his mental image would have poisoned the air for a full parse around his position. Both the assassins had masks on that would protect them from the poison. He was sure that at least one of the targets would be close by if the two security guards were present. Torl used the mind blast weave and took the second assassin out, he could not risk such a weapon being activated, and he did not know if it would be affected by his electromagnetic blast. It could be completely mechanical. He then went to the console and activated the air sampler and added chemical filtration to the area. The system did not detect anything, so it looked like he had been successful. He contacted Irnla and Url using the communicator. Irnla responded immediately, but there was no response from Url. He sent Irnla to check on Url, and a few seconds later she responded that he had a blaster hole through his right thigh, and was unconscious, but he would be okay. She had bumped into what must be one of the assassin’s bodies as she traversed the hallway on the way to check on Url, and she wanted to know how he had rendered them unconscious. Torl said he would explain later, but she should go back and secure that one first. He told her to make sure she was careful with any devices she found on him because he had been preparing to activate a poison device.

“You’re a witch aren’t you? How else could you know what an assassin was preparing to do? Not that I’m complaining, you probably saved my life, but if I’m traveling with a witch, that is something I need to know.”

Torl reached out and touched Irnla’s mind and found no hatred or disgust in it, so he answered. “Yes, please do not share that information with anyone. Now be careful, with Url down, I need you more than ever.”

“Yes sir.”

While she worked, Torl prepared another nerve block and put it in place on the assassin he had hit with the mind blast. No telling what state the assassin would be in when he regained consciousness, some minds could recover much more quickly than others, and the calmness he displayed as he prepared to poison an unknown number of people indicated a strong constitution. He needed to question these two, or read them. If three assassins had been sent, he needed to know who sent them and why, not to mention whether or not three was all that were sent.

Two hours later, Torl and Irnla had secured and searched the two assassins and had them cuffed and stretched out on the captain’s office floor. Seala had called for a medic to see to Url and he had been transported to sick bay. They would use the power to help with his healing later, but right now both Torl and Seala were exhausted from the amount of power they had used and the stress they had been under while it was being used. Torl could not allow himself to relax yet though, if these two committed suicide before he got the answers he needed, they might never know who the rich and powerful enemy was who had ordered they (or at least he) be killed. A team of three assassins would not have been cheap under any circumstances, and when sent to perform the assassination on a star ship the price would go up exponentially due to the high likelihood that they would not return from the mission.

He reached out with his mind to the female assassin whom he had placed the first nerve block on. She was filled with hatred and revulsion, and underneath a firm determination to kill or die at the first opportunity. He spoke to her verbally asking who had sent them, and monitored her mind as she decided how to answer him. He could see that she did not know, the other assassin had hired her to assist. Verbally, she told him that they were secret service and had been sent by the planetary council to eliminate a thief and debtor who was a star ship captain. This was the story they had prepared in case any were captured. Next he asked how large their team was. Verbally she spat that he would never know, because she did not know except that there were others besides herself and the other assassin who had been with her. Monitoring her mind, he could tell that she knew he had captured them both, and that the original team had consisted of only the three. She was momentarily overcome with a sense of failure, and he saw an image flash through her mind of a capsule in one of her teeth containing a nerve agent to allow her to commit suicide. He quickly grabbed for something to stuff in her mouth, but he was already too late, she had clamped her mouth shut and activated the capsule. She jerked a few times and expired. Torl, immediately scanned the other assassin, and found he was still unconscious. He told Irnla about the capsule embedded in the assassin’s tooth, and she opened the remaining assassin’s mouth and searched until she found the tooth with a cap that would cover such a device. She pulled a knife out of her suit and pried the tooth out. That would not feel good when the assassin regained consciousness, but they would not lose another to suicide.

Completely exhausted, Torl told Irnla to secure the remaining assassin in the closet they had locked the first one in, and dispose of the other body. He and Seala needed to rest for a while to recover, so he told her that they were going to return to the first officer’s quarters, since he was now convinced that these were the last of the assassins. She was not happy with his decision, but she accepted it on the condition that she could abandon the captain’s quarters to guard their door once the body was disposed of. Knowing that he would be in no shape to defend them if another attack did come, Torl reluctantly agreed. She knew he was a witch and still wanted to protect him, his respect for Irnla was growing by the day.

By the time Irnla returned to guard the door, Torl and Seala were sound asleep. When they awoke late the following day, Torl still felt weak. Seala seemed to be fully recovered, so Torl asked her to visit Url and use the healing techniques on him. He sent Irnla with her as escort.

As she walked to sick bay with Irnla scanning the halls constantly with both her eyes, and the portable persona scanner they had taken from one of the assassins, Seala began drawing in the power colors, and preparing the healing weaves. She worried about Torl, he looked really exhausted even after a long nights rest. She knew he had been using the power in ways he preferred not to just trying to keep them all alive. He had told her that he believed they had stopped all the assassins finally, and they would be safe now, but he still sent the remaining security specialist with her, and stayed in the first officer’s quarters alone. He probably would be working on something rather than resting.

When they reached the sick bay, they found Url trying to sit up while the med techs fought to hold him down telling him that the leg needed to remain above his heart for the most effective control of swelling. He growled but finally subsided as he saw Seala and Irnla entering the room. Irnla smiled at him, and with mischief in her eyes said “Can’t even handle a couple of med techs. I heard you were a much better soldier than that. We will have to work on that.”

Url growled again, and responded with a statement that made Seala blush and Irnla laugh out loud. Seala asked the med techs how his leg was, and they responded that they cut out the cauterization caused by the blaster, and reconnected the nerves, muscles and blood vessels so he would eventually be as good as new, if he would just lay still long enough for it to heal a little. She smiled and responded that he would lay still the rest of the day, but that they might be surprised at how fast he healed, since he was an athlete. As she spoke, she completed the healing weaves and applied them to his leg. She also prepared a weave to make him sleep comfortably for half a day, she would apply that as they left. Knowing how effective the healing weave was, she was certain he was already healed enough to walk on the leg, but he would be much better off if he stayed off it until tomorrow. Even that would seem miraculous to the med techs, she just hoped it was not too unbelievable.

They laughed and joked with Url for nearly an hour before Seala noticed that Irnla looked ready to fall asleep herself. She spoke up saying that they needed to get back to Torl to keep him from working himself to death.

She completed the sleep weave and laid it on Url, and they made their way back to the first officer’s quarters to see how Torl was doing.

They found him sitting at the terminal as expected. He said that he was just about finished with a program that would systematically scan the entire ship for any personas that were not registered, and any persona scan ghosts. If any were found, it would send an alert with the location of the offending persona to the portable communicators he and the two security specialists would be carrying for the rest of the trip.

He had also finished the analysis of all the ghost readings and was convinced that the assassins had entered the ship with the food stores in cargo bay 2, then moved to cargo bay 4 after they were in deep space. He wanted to search cargo bay 4, and then seal and depressurize it to eliminate it as a possible hiding place on the ship. He also wanted to search cargo bay 2 to see if they could determine if the assassins had come in within the food supplies, or if they had had inside help to stow away on board. All this could probably wait until Url was back on his feet, assuming that was not too long. Seala told him that she believed he would be up and around by tomorrow. He responded that he was confident that with her administrations he would be.

Seala told him that for now, he and Irnla needed rest and recovery, they could not continue to operate on fumes. Irnla said she needed to check on captain Relos and the prisoner before she could take time to rest, and at Torl’s nod, she left to do so. By the time she returned half an hour later Torl was asleep in his bunk. Seala instructed Irnla to lie down on a cot she had brought in and get some sleep. Seala would make sure the door remained locked and would wake them if anything came up. Irnla wanted to disagree, but it was clear she would not be able to remain alert any longer, and all the scans showed that the ship no longer had any unaccounted for personas, so she did as instructed and went to sleep on the cot.

Four hours later, Torl woke, finally looking like he had recovered. He went over to Irnla’s cot and woke her up. She too, looked fully recovered after a trip to the refresher. Torl contacted the command center to make sure they were still on the direct course with no indication of anyone following, and had that state confirmed by Jaselle who had just come on duty and gone through all the scans and logs.

Finally, Torl said that he and Irnla needed to question the prisoner, and asked if Seala would prefer to spend the next couple of hours in the command center with Jaselle, since the questioning was something he did not think she should be part of. Having seen enough violence and death for a life time, Seala said that she would be happy to spend the time in the command center; maybe Jaselle would show her more about the navigation unit.

Torl and Irnla escorted Seala to the command center and then went to the captain’s quarters to question the final assassin. Torl was anxious, he really needed to know who sent the assassins and who exactly they were after, but while mind blasts typically only rendered the target unconscious due to sensory overload, weak minds often collapsed from them. Only time would tell which had happened here.

They retrieved the assassin from the closet, following the same process he had demanded of Irnla and Url when questioning the first assassin, only one of them would be within reach at any given time, and the other would hold a blaster on the assassin, even though he was handcuffed. Since he was handcuffed, Torl decided to remove the nerve block and let the pain of the bruises and cramped muscles assist with the questioning. The assassin was conscious when they got him out of the closet, but his eyes were blank, showing no emotion. Torl cautiously reached out and touched the man’s mind. To his relief, the mind was running at the speed of light. He was desperately trying to figure out a way to escape, or at least kill his captors. He was aware that he no longer had the option of committing suicide, and was trying to come up with alternatives. Torl nodded to Irnla, and as they had planned, she began asking questions in a rapid fire mode.

“What is your name?” No response. Torl found the response in his mind, his name was N’Jerl.

“Who sent you?” No response. Again the response came to the top of his thoughts. He only knew the client as Councilman Aarl, and payment had come through a third party who he thought had lied when he said his name was Tindle.

“How did you get onboard?” No response. His mind confirmed that they had come aboard in the food stores.

“Did you have aid from someone onboard?” No response. No images rose to the surface of his mind, so most likely no aid was given them.

“Who was your target?” No response. Torl’s image immediately came to the surface of his mind, but the name associated with it was “the monk”, which was a little confusing.

“How did you plan to escape?” No response. The plan was to hide until the ship reached a port if possible then hide in the food stores again. If the food stores were not unloaded, they would try to sneak out behind an android or robotic cargo mover. If they made it off the ship they would lay low until the ship departed, and then arrange passage on the first outbound passenger ship.

“How were you to report success or failure?” No response. For success, they were to post a request for a diamond cutter to travel to Silius Six (an uninhabited android mining planet), on Sinale Three within the Sinale year. Failure was not to be a survivable option. They were to commit suicide if they could not complete the mission.

“Why was the assassination ordered?” No response. Surprisingly, an answer came to the surface of his mind. The monk could not be allowed to reach Sharing Six.

That was the last of the questions they had planned to ask, but Torl decided he would try to make the assassin believe that they still had the other assassins, so he asked the next question.

“What are the names of the other two assassins?” No response. In his mind the names and images of the other two assassins came forward. The other male assassin had been named N’Jin and was related to N’Jerl somehow, possibly a cousin, Torl could not interpret the word he associated with their relationship, but the feeling of being related was clear. The female had been named Finz, and was his mate.

“Look N’Jerl, we interrogated N’Jin already and he told us that you came onboard in the food stores. He also told us your name and the name of the third assassin who is currently being interrogated in another room. There is no reason for you to remain silent and go through the pain of torture. In the end, I will pump you full of talk juice and you will tell us what we want to know anyway, why not save yourself the pain and us the trouble?

That hit home, he saw the calm exterior crack as the eyes flashed fear for just a moment. The turmoil in his mind though did not subside, he knew N’Jin would not talk, but how then did Torl know their names? N’Jin was the weakest of the three, but N’Jerl had believed that there was nothing that would have made him talk. Maybe this talk juice the monk spoke of was used on N’Jin. Could there be such a drug that they did not have immunities built up for? It was possible.

Torl decided to press the advantage with another little tidbit. N’Jin told us about the suicide drugs in your tooth and we removed it. His was pulled during the torture phase of his questioning. Again he hit the mark; N’Jerl had been trying to figure out how they had known to remove that tooth. He spoke for the first time.

“Bastard! You’ll get nothing from me. I don’t know how you got that much information from N’Jin, but neither he nor Finz know anything about the other things you have asked.” As he spoke, he pulled his feet up so that he could kick out or lever himself onto his feet. Torl heard his plan as he formulated it in his mind. He intended to launch himself at one of them hoping to get the other one to fire their blaster and kill him. Torl pulled out the tangler he had appropriated from the assassins, and fired it at N’Jerl, neatly wrapping him up so he could not launch himself. He turned to Irnla, and instructed her to put her blaster down and return him to the closet for storage until they got to port. She did so without comment. Once she had pushed him back in the closet, Torl wove a temporary nerve block and blocked N’Jerl’s hearing so they could talk. Then he relayed the key information (leaving out the names of those who had hired the assassins the fact that he had thought of Torl as “the monk”, and that Torl was not to be allowed to reach Sharing Six).

“You have some useful talents, Sir. I hope that you have not been using them on me.”

“I would not use these particular talents at all were the need not so great. We had to know if there was someone else on board who could be a risk, and it would have been nice to know who wanted me dead and why.”

The next day, Url was back on his feet, and Torl sent him with the available staff to search the cargo bays and bring back anything the assassins had left behind. He outlined where in cargo bay 2 to look based on the information he had gathered from N’Jerl’s mind, and instructed them to depressurize cargo bay 4 once the search was complete. Several hours later Url returned with a cart full of items, mostly weapons, clothing and concentrated food packets that they had gathered on the search. There was nothing of any use from an informational perspective, as expected the assassins had left no trail to follow had the hiding place been discovered. Url had found one trap set around the weapons cache in cargo bay 4, but it had been easy to disarm. Impressively for a team of three who had been holed up for roughly 10 days, there had been almost no outward sign that they had been there. The items had been discovered only because they knew where the assassins had been. In the food stores area, they had discovered the places inside the pallets where the assassins had stowed away, but there was no other evidence they had ever been there.

Torl had them catalog everything and dispose of anything that was not of use to the ship, crew or staff.

Url and Irnla also urged him to try and render judgment on the remaining assassin before they reached their destination to avoid any jurisdictional disputes with the local authorities. Url felt they should just execute N’Jerl and be done with it. Irnla however, believed that a tribunal needed to be held and documented with the verdict and sentence handed down formally by the ship’s captain. Failure to do so, in her opinion was to become lawless themselves. Torl agreed with Irnla even though he would have preferred to turn the man over to the authorities on some planet. He listened to their arguments and decided that he should go through with the tribunal and not trust to planetary justice to keep N’Jerl from making contact with someone who would reinitiate the contract on Torl.

The next day they held the trial. All the evidence gathered through traditional channels, including the witnesses to the assassination attempt, and the computer trace results were presented by the prosecution (Irnla), and Jaselle who had been appointed as the defense did her best to muddy the evidence and defend N’Jerl in spite of the fact that he would not speak to her or anyone else. She called him to the stand to speak in his own defense, and he refused to speak.

In the end, the evidence was overwhelming and no notable defense had been raised, so Torl was forced to render a guilty verdict and sentence N’Jerl to death.

The standard method for execution of a death sentence on a starship was to eject the individual from the ship and allow the sudden depressurization to terminate the individual. Torl instead gave N’Jerl the option of a chemical overdose if he would simply confess. N’Jerl refused to speak and in the end was ejected from the ship as prescribed in common starship law.