PART ONE-CHAPTER ONE

Remember these words as you prepare to leave this world.
A Dharmic Warrior is a person of the highest convictions,
not bound up in the iterations of ego, hatred, or anger.
Such a person minimizes the karmic consequences of all
actions, yet such a person does not hesitate to overcome
what needs to be overcome, to destroy whatever needs
destruction, and to comfort whomever needs comforting...
regardless of the danger, even under threat of death.
H.H. Polira, the Mahakarmin
on Merudhatu. August 3985

Jan sat nervously in the command chamber of the Tangent as she waited for Rig and Aiu to join her.

'What's keeping them? I don't know what to do; nothing like this has ever happened before!' she lamented to herself.

She had decided to reactivate the Tangent's computer's voice synthesizer, despite how much she hated conversing with a machine, but the current circumstances demanded accurate communications. Even worse than talking with a machine, the Tangent had grandmom Franklin's voice and personality. Though a century had now passed, Jan remembered how vigorously she had cried at the funeral. The death had been very tragic blow to the then nine-year old Jan.

Rig arrived first. He was still dressed in his white meditation pajamas. He embraced Jan and kissed her.

"I didn't notice you come in!" she said startledly. "I'm sorry, but I never give you enough attention. You're always there, but what do I do for you?"

"I am your willing companion: it is scarcely enough that I can help you. Our destinies are one," he said as his lean but firm hands held her soft hands, and they looked into each others eyes

"I'm so cruel to you. I should have married you and taken your name, my family be damned. Our daughter would be legitimate...." Jan added.

"Our daughter is alive and well despite any documentation; in fact, it is irrelevant to our mission in life!" Rig assured her.

"Death awaits me at the end of this mission. It is frightening...that I cannot avoid it. This struggle: what is the use of it all?" asked Jan weakly.

"I know it all seems very final," he said sadly as they embraced again. "Do not despair; our time will come again."

"Aiu is coming; I hear her!" warned Jan. "We must avoid staring."

Aiu hobbled in with the help of her elaborate staff. The passing years had not been kind to Aiu, for felimorphs did not live as long as human beings, nor did they do well during advanced aging. Her skin was wrinkled, and all her hair had either turned gray or had fallen out.

"It's as though we hit a rift in space; we're nearly half a light-year off course. We're moving through the Orion wasteland at sublight speed," explained Jan. "The interregulator was cut in half, but the ship will soon have it repaired. We must have hit some debris of some kind."

"The enemy is in motion in many places," wailed Aiu as she used her intuitive perception. "Merudhatu is in danger, Betelgeuse Station is in danger. I feel bad karma everywhere. We must leave at once!"

"We might be able to thread our way through this debris field at this speed, but we can't resume light speed without being able to read the beacon signals while in the hyper-void. We have to make repairs and check out the condition of the ship first!" said Jan.

"Aiu is right, though," added Rig sadly. "They are poised to attack Merudhatu at this moment; I can feel it. On a different front, Gianna and Tendzin are in mortal danger. I can feel my mother gathering up all her energy. I suspect that her influence got us through this debris field in one piece. "

"Can she do such a thing?" asked Jan worriedly.

"She is very powerful...far more powerful than they suspect. If I meditate, I might be able to help her."

Jan seated herself at a control console and then said, "I am manually going to see what's out there and test for damage. I have to drop all the null-detection fields, but we have to know."

Jan took several precious minutes to refamiliarize herself with the console controls. She shut down the null-detection fields, then she launched remote viewers and telemetry flares. When the remotes were in place, the flares fired and radiated a burst of wide spectrum energy throughout the surrounding region of space. Still, the Tangent was fairly well-hidden, because it did not transmit any signals; it only received signals from the remotes.

A profile of the ship finally appeared on the console display. "Looks good," said Jan, with just a bit of enthusiasm, after she had studied the ship from several different angles. "The remotes are coming back."

"There is a large object out there. It is a starship!" warned Aiu, as she saw an extra-sensory vision. "But it is a ship of the dead."

"It's just registering on the mainscreen now," added Jan. "It is big, and we are going to pass closely to it. I am reactivating null-detection fields. Tangent, scan and identify that ship," she ordered.

"It look like a derelict, and it's been punctured many times," said Rig observantly. "And I agree with Aiu; there does not seem to be anyone alive on board."

"The ship is the SS Princess Anne, of British registry," began the Tangent in the voice of the elderly grandmom Franklin. "It vanished in 3120 on the way to New Britannia, and all 720,429 persons on board were presumed lost. They were in a state of reduced animation, but they could only have survived that way for three or four years."

"They are most certainly all dead!" said Jan regretfully. "There is nothing we can do for them but to notify their descendants. It is a sobering reminder, though, of how dangerous travel used to be, in the days of the old pulsed hyperdrives, before we had star charts, beacons, and interregulators."

The Tangent increased the strength of its force shields as it threaded it way through the debris field toward clear space. Now and again, an object would impact the shields and disintegrate. Though they could see the flashes of the impacts in the mainscreen, there was no feel of the collisions within the ship.

"Please excuse me, but I must go to the shrine room," Rig apologized. "My thoughts are elsewhere; my mother needs my help. Do not hesitate to interrupt if you need me!"

The Tangent passed through the last billion kilometers of heavy debris. At last, clear space was in sight. Jan could not wait any longer. She ordered the ship to give the forward shields maximum power and to re-enter the hyper-void, on a special course to Betelgeuse station. There were a few more minor impacts against the shields as the warp generators caused the space ahead to recede and vanish into darkness.

"We're programmed to arrive at Betelgeuse Station via an alternate route," explained Jan to Aiu. "There is nothing we can do until we arrive."

"Bad things are happening there. Aiu is old; Aiu will die there," cried Aiu as she lowered her ears.

"No! No, you must not be pessimistic. When we get there, I will get you some medical treatment. I can't let you die, Aiu," Jan said with a raised voice.

"It is my destiny, as you and Rig have your destinies. My kittens will succeed me, and they will lead a better life. If only our males were monogamous!" lamented Aiu.

The Tangent performed a complicated course change while in the hyper-void and out-warped near Betelgeuse Station, but not in line with it's original trajectory. Cloaked with the near-invisibility of its null-detection fields, the ship proceeded to maneuver automatically until the station appeared as a tiny dot superimposed on the face of the red supergiant star which it orbited. Even heavily cloaked objects would present some kind of a silhouette against such a bright background.

Betelgeuse was always an interesting object of view, for unlike the smaller stars where humanity built its worlds, it was huge, red supergiant. Its surface, rather than being a uniform glow, was mottled by patches of purple and crimson coloration. Prominences arced outwards like thin filaments, and long, pink coronal streamers helped to mark the somewhat indistinct edge of its stellar disk.

"No ships are nearby, and the station seems to be intact," said Jan hopefully. "We're picking up normal beacon signals."

"The evil ones are close by; I can feel it!" warned Aiu. "Perhaps we've arrived first," said Jan as she cupped her hands and moved them to her chin.

"We are too late; they are all dead: every human, every felimorph, and every canimorph on the station are dead!" screamed Aiu.

"Aiu," urged Jan tearfully, "I have family there: Thorran and Elenna and their two children. There has to be hope!"

"Hope is gone for them, the same as for my kin who were there for genetic mapping. They shall be avenged!"

'Aiu, I just can't give up hope for them!' thought Jan sadly.

The Tangent continued its silent approach toward the station. Betelgeuse Station grew in size until it eclipsed Betelgeuse, and it continued to grow, surrounded by the distant coronal streamers. The station was ellipsoidal, similar in design to the perimeter stations at Columbia. Everything looked normal, and all the marker lights were on.

"We're close enough for narrow beam communications," Jan announced. "We have to take a risk to gain some knowledge; besides, I must try to transfer all the records."

"It is safe to do that," Aiu confirmed. "You must safeguard the records. They hold the future for my people!"

Jan commanded the Tangent to link up with the command channel of Betelgeuse station and to facilitate the emergency transfer of all records.

"I am now connected to the station's command center," informed the Tangent's computer interface. "Emergency record transfer is now proceeding. The messages of the station computer are contradictory: 'all is well, but everyone is dead', 'security is intact, but the defenses have been penetrated', and 'station functions normal, but heavy structural damage' are but a few of its comments. Only three of the total forty-eight transmatter stations respond with a 'ready' confirmation."

"I will have to go over there!" volunteered Jan nervously.

"Very dangerous!" warned Aiu. "I will go instead." Aiu immediately started shuffling toward the nearest transmatter chamber.

"Aiu! Stop! You're sick; you'll never survive," Jan warned.

"No difference; Aiu will die anyway," Aiu said as she began to move faster.

"You don't have a hazard suit, and you're unarmed too!" Jan countered.

"Aiu is armed. Aiu will die fighting!" screamed Aiu.

Jan began to run, but she still could not catch Aiu. The felimorph moved fast, especially considering how old and frail she was. Jan reached the transmatter chamber as the door closed and the red transit light came on. The light went out and the door opened to an empty chamber. Within a moment, the 'ready' light also went out.

'Oh no! We've lost the link with station. All its transmatter chambers are offline!' thought jan angrily.

There was no time to stir Rig from his state of deep meditation. Jan knew that she would have to act fast. Although she felt numbed by the latest events, and although she lost her way twice, she somehow managed to find the equipment chamber. She quickly searched through the lockers until she found a hazard suit in her size. She removed the clothing she was wearing, arranged her charm to dangle from her left side, and, at what was an excruciatingly slow pace, climbed into and attached the interlocking pieces of the hazard suit. When she was done, the raised silvery mesh gave her the look of wearing a spider's web.

An overhead hoist dropped the yoke of two part (front and rear) control unit over her shoulders. Electrical and breathing connections slipped into place automatically as Jan set the fore-to-aft unit bindings at each side. Wasting no time, she went to a sealed locker, a locker that had not been opened in over three centuries. From it, she removed a special telemetry-proof case and opened it on a nearby table. It was grandmon's Brandon Retriever Special: a side arm without equal. It was a weapon that legally should have been destroyed long ago.

Jan placed the telemetry goggles over her eyes as she plugged them into the control circuit of the hazard suit. She gripped the handle of the Brandon with each hand in sequence to enter the electrical patterns of her each hand; then she removed the program 'enable' cartridge from the handle, replacing it with a power cartridge. The weapon would now function for her alone; no one else could make it fire. Finally, she removed the 'torpedo' launch module from the case and snapped it into place on the underside of the barrel.

A warning flashed on a nearby facsimile of the mainscreen, "ILLEGAL WEAPON ON BOARD! ILLEGAL WEAPON ON BOARD! SUGGEST IMMEDIATE ACTION!"

"Cancel the alarm! ordered Jan tiredly.

She had only to install the external control module for the Brandon. Jan fumbled with the connector, but she could not make it fit into the auxiliary module connector; the patterns of the new and the old connectors did not match.

'It's time to go, and I'm not managing well!' she thought with a sigh.

In desperation, Jan opened an accessory compartment in front of the hazard suit. It was filled with adapters. One had to work! She found it and completed the installation of the control module. There was only one thing left to do before she put on the helmet.

There was a memory trace cartridge with instructions. She went across the corridor to the nearest room with a learning booth. She sat in the chair and manually inserted the memory trace cartridge into the console. She tried to sit as still as possible while instructions filled her mind. It was not an ordinary memory trace; it was filled with thoughts, feelings, and many irrelevant pieces of information from grandmon Franklin.

Jan turned her gaze toward a blank wall. She paused for a moment; it was as if she were staring at her grandmother. "I didn't know, I really did not know about the true disposition of the Columbian fleet!"

Once the helmet was locked into place and the recirculator began to supply fresh air, Jan switched on the weapons module. She stumbled as she tried to leave the chamber. The goggles gave a distorted view of her surroundings. She could see to the front and to the rear at the same time. Various functional symbols were suspended in the air in front of her. The symbols were a mixture of telemetry and firing information. She commanded the Tangent to erect a force wall in front of her. She mentally commanded the gun to fire at low power. A thin blue energy beam, followed by a sharp sonic snap, was emitted from the barrel and vanished into the force wall.

All the symbols were gone when Jan turned off the control unit. Now she could walk normally; it was time to enter the nearest airlock and cross the gap to Betelgeuse Station. As she placed the Brandon against its magnetic sheath, she saw an inscription plate attached the weapon's side. It read, 'BEWARE OF THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF THIS BRANDON! IT KILLS WITHOUT PITY! MISUSE CAN ASSIGN A USER A TICKET TO HELL!'.

'Of course, I won't have to use it!' Jan told herself trustingly.

Jan paused, staring out into space through the open outer airlock door. It was precipice overlooking infinity, and it made Jan queasy. She had always had a mild fear of heights, but she resolved that it would not bother her. There was no time to practice using the Brandon, and there was no time to practice navigating in a hazard suit in free fall. Jan ran toward the door without stopping, letting her momentum carry her out into space. After a moment of orientation, she gained enough confidence to continue onward. As she crossed to the station using the power of the pulsed plasma motors in her back-pack, she paused to look behind her. The Tangent was gone. A moment of panic seized her, until she remembered that the null-detection fields cloaked the ship from view. The hazard suit pack contained a locator that would return her to the ship.

Jan skimmed the surface of the station hunting for an airlock. She found one within seconds. She pulled a lever to open the outer door; then she swung her body to match the orientation of the airlock chamber.

Once inside the station, she saw that the airlock pre-chamber was empty. Cautiously, she stepped out of the airlock, expecting the weapon alarm to go off at any moment. The alarm was ominously quiet. She left the pre-chamber through the nearest door. It opened into a corridor that curved out of sight in both directions. It too was empty. Within a few meters, she found a tram station with the door open.

There was an information panel on the wall next to the tram entry way. She pressed her right hand against an ID plate; then she queried the station computer about the last transmatter usage, and about the location of Thorran and Elenna. She was informed that the last arrival had been at chamber number twenty-seven. That chamber was three levels down and a quarter of the way around the station. Jan was told that the tram would take her directly to that location. There was no good news about Thorran and Elenna. They had both been last recorded at their duty stations, but their current whereabouts and situation was unknown. Only one human lifeform, Jan, one felimorph, Aiu, and forty to fifty indistinct life forms were currently registering within the station.

Jan was about to board the tram when she was informed that there was a message from Archela waiting for her.

"Yes, I would like to hear it," she replied hesitantly.

"Treeshia! This is Tendzin! Gianna and I think we've found one of their human indoctrination stations here on Archela. We've been discovered, and something big is underway!' he said as a background crash drowned out his voice.

"They're here! Lord, they're trying to kill Gianna. I have to...."

The computer announced the end-of-transmission.

Jan staggered onto the tram and ordered it to take her to transmatter station twenty-seven. She was shaking, and her whole body felt deeply chilled. She tried to collect her thoughts as she watched the tram pass through sections of the station.

Most of the route that the tram travelled was through transparent tubes. After a few moments, she wished she had not looked.

The view within a passing chamber nearly sent her into convulsions. The walls were splattered with blood and viscera. Mangled corpses were everywhere. Their faces bore the look of extreme agony...broken bones protruded forth at gory angles.

'Thorran, Elenna, their children...it must have been their fate too!' she thought as she felt sickened.

Jan turned her face away; she could not bear to look any longer. Not really thinking logically, she commanded the tram to stop at the next station. The situation was vaguely familiar, so she tried to remember.

'Time twister, just as we were shown at seminary! They dared to use the time twister, our most disgusting invention. They have miscalculated! We know how to avenge this atrocity!' she thought as her thoughts turned from pain to anger.

She switched on the Brandon and emerged with the weapon drawn and set for maximum power. She also activated her force shield to give her added protection. Jan burst into one of the larger curving corridors. The display in front of her registered many green and black dots, indicating that the corridor was safe.

Without stopping to look, she jumped by several human bodies; then the corridor was a clear for as far as she could see.

She stopped at another information panel to relocate chamber twenty-seven. The chamber was two kilometers down the corridor and three floors below level. Jan felt she could at least find Aiu; she did not know what else to do at that moment. If everyone else was dead, she could not help them and did not want to see them!

As she moved rapidly down the corridor, yellow dots briefly appeared in the display as a warning of danger. Jan stopped, but now the telemetry showed the corridor to be free of danger. She continued toward Aiu.

Nothing happened for three more kilometers; then red dots flashed to warn of danger behind her. A sonic alarm sounded in her helmet. Someone was aiming a weapon, but Jan was not sure what to do. In desperation, she leaned against the corridor wall and pushed back with all her strength. A wave of energy passed by. As she caught the edge of it, it knocked her against the wall behind her, as the wall in front of her was smeared in red. The words 'EEUVL BEAM IMPACT' flashed in her helmet.

The energy beam had created a temporary vacuum, so it was followed by a loud, reverberating snap. It had breached the wall behind her. The air pressure was lower through the tear in the wall; it pulled Jan inwards. She tried to grab the edge but missed. She fell down a long service shaft. She tried to grab the railing of a walkway made of metal mesh, but she missed it; then she bounced off a couple of girders before coming to rest on a wide shelf. The hazard suit had insulated her from serious injury.

'Lord, the pain! I might have broken bones, but that's not the worst. The energy beam managed to penetrate my shield and slice through my suit! The suit repaired itself. If it doesn't me in place, my gut will hemorrhage instantly! I can't believe this is happening. I'm no warrior; I'm not even sure I can find my way out of here. What good is this weapon if I can't...great, now I've lost the Brandon. Why am I here?' Jan asked herself in all seriousness.

Minutes passed as Jan lay moaning and bewildered. She staggered to her feet. No major bones seemed to be broken. 'Is it time to use the Mantra of Reprieve? But it's for a really big event, not this ridiculous escapade of mine. I'm expendable, so I will not use it to just save myself.'

Jan looked around for the Brandon. She raised her right hand and concentrated. 'Come!'

There was a brief scraping noise behind her. She turned and caught the Brandon moments after it had become airborne. She returned it to its sheath as the motors in her pack lifted her back up the shaft toward the tear in the corridor wall.

'Aiu! I am coming! But if I sweat any harder, it will fog up my helmet!'

Jan nervously re-entered the corridor: she did not want to get hit by another EEUVL beam. All was clear. She continued toward chamber twenty-seven. She would soon be directly above it, at which point she would finally descend a staircase to reach the transmatter chamber. Aiu had been gone for a long time. Jan tried not to think what might have happened to her friend.

Jan passed by two corridor junctions. The enemy was still hidden. She skipped over the ugly remains of more victims of the time twister while looking away from them.

More yellow dots appeared. They were both in front of her and behind her. The dots turned red; then they began to blink. She had to act if she was to survive. She moved the Brandon away from her side. The mental commands were brief. The weapon twisted her hand around as it fired PREXL beams fore and aft. The characteristics snaps overlapped each other, reverberating up and down the corridor. Lastly, a one silvery, cylindrical explosive torpedo launched in each direction. At the key moment, the weapon fired two more PREXL beams, which detonated the torpedoes at the precise time and distance. Ear protectors in Jan's helmet prevented the sound of the explosions from damaging her hearing.

The corridor was clear, and the enemy no longer registered.

'Destroyed! Utterly obliterated! How could I do such a thing?' she asked herself with a sense of wonder.

Jan reached the staircase. Telemetry in her hazard suit warned that there was radioactivity ahead. As she passed by the charred remains of her attackers, even the rad organ in her chest began to send low level radiation warning to her brain. She had no time to ponder their composition or appearance as she opened the door and ran down the staircase.

She emerged from the staircase. An arrow on the wall pointed the way to transmatter chamber twenty-seven. Jan changed direction without a pause. She checked for the enemy while on the move, but the area appeared to be clear.

Jan finally reached the transmatter chamber. Aiu was no where to be seen; the chamber was empty inside. Scorch marks covered the walls. There was a trail of blood, a spot here and there. Jan followed that trail.

Soon the corridor was littered with some kind of dead beings. They looked more like blobs than living creatures. When they died, they apparently lost their form.

"Aiu!" yelled Jan. "I've found you!"

Aiu was sprawled in a chair, barely able to move. She bled from many wounds. Next to her lay her staff, which had been disassembled and cleverly reassembled to make a bullet-firing airgun. It was a weapon that could pass through security checkpoints without being detected.

Aiu weakly turned to toward Jan. "I will soon cross to the other shore. Please, destroy their ship! And do not forget to make our males monogamous!"

"I'm sorry, Aiu! I'm so sorry that this had to happen. You have to return to the Tangent with me! I can't let you die here!" yelled Jan as she desperately tried to comfort Aiu.

"No time! No hazard suit available. No transmatter; they finished disabling the transmatter chambers just after I arrived. They were shocked when I stepped out! They were not prepared, but there were too many for Aiu....

"Aiu will die," continued the felimorph, "but you must not die! Look at the viewer."

Jan looked into the viewer toward which Aiu pointed. "It's empty space. I don't see anything."

"The Andromeda galaxy is supposed to be there. There is a large, heavily-cloaked ship there instead. Some of these creatures will make it back to warn them. Their weapon should almost be recharged, so they'll be able to fire the twister again. Jan, do not let the twister get me. Destroy them first. Hurry!"

Jan held up Aiu's head and embraced her for the last time. Death was just minutes away; her body was starting to get chilled. "Goodbye, my friend. I will carry on the work for you people, I promise!" 'If I get home alive!'

"The staircase back there," groaned Aiu as she strained to point to a far corner, "leads to an airlock at its top."

"I'll always remember you, and I will not forget my promise to your people." Jan hesitated for a moment, but she refused to look back. She had to return to the Tangent.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going over the station?" protested Rig as Jan reboarded the Tangent.

"Sorry, but it necessary to do!" she said as she removed her helmet. "You don't know how great it is to see someone alive and well!" she yelled as she kissed him and tried to hug him while wearing the hazard suit. She nearly collapsed as her body finally released all the pent up tensions. Rig helped her steady herself.

"I think you had better get out of that suit and come to lie down," Rig urged.

"i can't take it off," Jan explained with as a twinge of pain struck her. "If I take it off, I'll bleed to death!"

"I see," replied Rig as he grimaced and turned his gaze to the Brandon. "That weapon: did you use it?"

"I would like to say no, but that would be a lie. I willingly used it to kill!"

"And the people on the station?" he asked, knowing what her answer would be.

"Dead, everyone is dead! Thorran, Elenna, their children: everyone! I've never seen anything so ghastly in all my life!

"Hurry! We have to get back to the command chamber."

"And what happened to Aiu?" asked Rig as he followed her.

"She's dying; there is no hope to save her. We can only prevent her death from being excruciatingly painful."

"Painful?"

"Have you ever heard of the time twister?" Jan inquired.

"A banned weapon. A immoral weapon so deadly that no one dares to use it!" Rig said with a sense of foreboding.

"It has been used already...on the station. They may be getting ready to use it again. They won't want us to escape!" Jan warned.

When they entered the command chamber, Jan ordered the Tangent to scan for a hidden ship. She also ordered the ship to be on guard for evidence of temporal distortion.

"There is something else you should know!" said Jan loudly as she summoned up the will power to talk.

"It's about Gianna and Tendzin?"

"I think they were casualties!"

"Perhaps," said Rig doubtfully. "But we can't help them at the moment. How can I help you now?" he asked as Jan sat down at the command console. He did not like being left out.

"I have to reprogram the matrix myself," she explained as she placed the matrix link onto her head. 'It is still fresh in my mind from the memory trace. Grandmom thought of everything, just so long as I get it right!'

"Temporal disturbances increasing!" warned the Tangent.

Jan threw the switch console. The command chamber was replaced by a complex, multi-colored panorama. Jan's mind was in the hyperdrive matrix, in the fifth dimension. Nothing she saw was as it seemed. The matrix, which defined the control interface of the hyperdrive, had the appearance of a room filled with objects. Only two changes were necessary. Jan mentally picked up a statue from a small corner table. She moved it across the room, through a picture, and then set it on another table. Next was a mirror on the wall. Jan spun it through one half turn; then she pulled on it until it turned it inside out.

"Temporal distortion becoming critical!" warned the Tangent.

Jan turned off the switch. Her mind was back in the command chamber.

"Tangent!" she ordered. "Wait until the distortion becomes nearly life-threatening; then in-warp for ten seconds away from Betelgeuse. Out-warp when the count is up."

"My skin is starting to crawl!" warned Rig. "I sincerely hope this is going to...."

The Tangent's hyperdrive groaned for a moment in an uncharacteristically strained manner. Space in front of them sped away and vanished in the curve of the warp field. Ten seconds later, the Tangent returned to normal space.

The mainscreen switched to the aft view. Betelgeuse filled the center of the screen. Its apparent size was slightly smaller from this vantage point than that near the station. Minutes passed with no change. Then a light appeared. It grew in radiance; then it vanished from sight.

"Our warp field was unbalanced," Jan explained. "When it touched the enemy ship while it was preparing to fire the time twister, it caused a convulsion in time. Everything around it was destroyed. We escaped the effects by entering the hyper-void."

"Even Betelgeuse Station," stated Rig softly.

Jan nodded in affirmation. "Betelgeuse Station, the enemy ship, and Aiu: they're all gone," sighed Jan. "I thought the days of senseless killings were gone."

Jan nearly fell over, but Rig caught her. "You're wounded! You need immediate care!"

"An energy beam sliced right through the skin of my abdomen. We have to go to Columbia. I'll be all right until we get there. As soon as I restore the matrix, we'll be able to get under way. Then it will be my turn to meditate upon the first mantra: the Mantra of Absolution."