Noise—physical and psionic. Pain—all too physical.

Swallowing a hint of blood, Kaplan pushed into the service corridor behind A-Deck's food court. Pipe-lined walls closed in. Environmental system fans thrummed, the air pungent with spices and heat from nearby kitchens.

Will alone stopped him from emptying his gut.

Other people's thoughts and emotions poured through his brain like coarse sand despite him being alone in the corridor. After half an hour in the port's crowds, his psi receptors were overstimulated, his neurochemistry out of whack. He needed a break. Five minutes at least. Without one, he'd burnout—go painfully psi deaf. Brain damage was also a possibility.

His mind already felt raw.

The start of a psi burn.

Taking a deep breath and a few long strides, he cleared the worst of the food court's psionic noise. Even with his amplification tech switched off, the deluge out in the port's public spaces was unmanageable. In addition to the surface thoughts of people within his one-and-a-half-metre effective range, he'd caught fragments from minds outside that radius, and psionic static—thousands of signals too weak to interpret.

His implant's management tech couldn't meet the shortfall as it worked to supplement his natural filtering and shielding. His empathic abilities compounded the problem, feeding him signals from an even wider area than his telepathy. His psi-tech had never controlled that aspect of his psionics well. His empathic range had always fluctuated depending on his mental state and energy levels.

Both could be better right now.

Propping his back against a chipped wall, he closed his eyes and focused on slowing his pulse. His mind continued to overreach. In the quiet of the port's back corridors, he sensed five minds within thirty metres—no thoughts, just an awareness of sentient life—but he recognised three. Sketski, Fero, and Cruse; the pilot and two Atillians in or near the storeroom they'd set up a base in.

He shouldn't have been aware of them. Not with his amp tech turned off.

Opening his eyes, he focused on the graffitied wall across from him and the thick smell of synthesised butter chicken, then he dragged his mind back to why he was risking a brain bleed in Tirus 7's main port. Downed ship. Dead crewmates. The Xykeree—four vessels in local space. He'd join Fero and the others in a minute, after he'd regained some mental 'skin'. He'd hear their reports, then decide their next move.

Leave Tirus 7.

He grimaced. His personal limitations—psi overloads, a heightened degree of caution and paranoia since the crash—couldn't drive mission decisions. Extracting his surviving team members and reporting to Star Sector Defence was a priority, but their exact risk status was unclear. He'd found no overt sign his team was still being tracked. All he had were unusual communication issues—planetwide satellite outages—and the suspicion his team had been allowed to crash-land. He needed more intel.

With that top of mind, he wiped the blood from his nose and headed to rendezvous with his team.

A ripple of familiar energy.

As he rounded the next corner, Sun strode out of a stairwell, her borrowed coat flowing about her Zex-clad figure in a gaudy flutter of metallic blue. Its hood covered her hair and shaded her gold stare, but she hadn't disguised her armour and weapons. Misappropriated or bastardised military gear was common in the backworlds, and like the rest of the team, she'd removed any insignia. Most people on Tirus 7 would think her a bounty hunter or mercenary.

There'd be little footage of her for anyone to analyse later and prove otherwise. The local lowlifes had ensured there was no working surveillance in the port's warren of utility passages and disused sections, and the use of disruption tech was commonplace, affecting official and personal recording devices. His team had only had to engineer a few tech outages in the main port to cover their presence, interference that would be blamed on the settlement's criminals. They'd exercise caution until they'd confirmed they'd lost their hostile tail.

Nothing but idiots with habits and guns on the lower levels, Sun 'pathed as she fell into step with him. No one I psionically read recalled hearing about a high-tech, cloaked vessel. The current theory is scavs brought down the sat tech, but given the timing...

Kaplan nodded. We were either unlucky to arrive when we did—during an uncharacteristically large-scale scavenger attack—or our hostiles sabotaged the tech.

If they're still in local space like you suspect, we might be able to draw them out. We need to ID and neutralise them. Sun's cool, telepathed words reflected none of the emotions motivating them—a brew that seared Kaplan's empathic senses. His pulse jolted. Then it quickened, a sympathetic mirroring of his cousin's internal war: dead crewmates; friends and family being lost to psi overload. Her best friend, Cal Tarak, was more than mere light years away, having shut everyone out of whatever remained of his life after diagnosis.

Kaplan wrenched back control, the next wave of anger his own. As an empath, he couldn't afford to lose focus. He risked physically experiencing others' emotions, even those of Rha Si. Mental shields couldn't prevent the effect, and familiarity increased the problem.

And he'd run riot with Sun as a child, shrieking down the psi-only sections of their home population ship, long before tempers and psionics had been mastered. Her desire for revenge, to fight, resonated with his, even without empathic mirroring.

But the memory of the enemy ship, of what remained of his team, iced that burn.

Needing mental clarity—distance—he responded verbally. "We report, then get hyperspace-capable warships deployed to this system."

Sun raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on his unsecure communication choice. Working within a non-psi team required adjustments. Bad habits could develop. "That'll take weeks, Reid. With the long-range coms down, we'll have to travel to Feuria to report to SectDef, and the transport options on this rock are poor to nonexistent. Our hostiles will be long gone."

Kaplan breathed past her frustration and his own. "We're not in any position to hunt that crew, Sun. We gather what intel we can, then we bug out."

"Yes, sir." A slight narrowing of her eyes was the only sign of dissent. He outranked her in every aspect of their lives: a lieutenant commander to her lieutenant rank in the Coalition Space Corps; a senior operative and her current trainer in the intelligence service; and a first-grade senuri to her second-grade experience and ability level in the Rha Si's covert hierarchy. But he sensed no real resentment.

Sun was a better soldier than him in many ways.

He'd come to question more than a few of his superiors' decisions.

Like his creation.

Using his implanted tech, he gave himself a hit of analgesic through his battle suit's medical systems. Anyone checking the suit's logs would assume the meds were for his cracked rib—an assumption he wouldn't correct while he could still do his job. "Let's see what the others have found out."

The corridor outside the storeroom the team had set up base in was quiet. Not a surprise given Cruse stood on guard, a mountain of dark, scarred muscle. His flat, rust-brown stare delivered the same warning as the battle rifle he gripped.

Kaplan nodded to him as Sun strode up and yanked open the storeroom door. The big Atillian barely blinked, but his mind filled with details on the threats he'd assessed in the area. Like most who knowingly worked with Rha Si, the cat had grown up on one of the six military population ships the Rha Si High Council used for creating and training psionics. Few outsiders got approached to join those closeted communities, only those with special skills or the right genetics for psionic enhancement. But whether they'd grown up with psionics or not, all non-psi employed by the Rha Si had to develop a pragmatic attitude to having their minds read.

It was either that or rejoin the naive masses after a discreet memory wipe.

Knots loosened in Kaplan's shoulders as he reviewed Cruse's mental report. Precise, devoid of emotion, the Atillian's thoughts contrasted with the psionic storm of the port crowds. The two minds within the storeroom, however, ran hot with activity.

Following Sun inside, Kaplan found Fero and Sketski surrounded by service-bot spare parts and miscellaneous tech: two blond heads—one bandaged—bowed over com units. The Atillian e-specialist was running searches on the port systems; the injured pilot analysed dock data. Both men glanced up then pushed to their feet.

Kaplan jerked his head, signalling for the men to be at ease. "What's the latest?"

Fero resettled on a crate of recyce. "Last diagnostic on the long-range coms indicates instability in the local hyperspace node. Inventory scans also indicate a fuel problem: not enough refined isotope. This planet has plenty of the raw material, but no refinery."

"Locating functional hyperspace coms was always going to be a long shot in this sector." Kaplan turned to Sketski. "Tripp and Shio have any luck finding transport?" The big combat specialist and young ensign had struck out on the top two dock levels and were reconning the third.

The pilot shook his bandaged head. "No public shuttles are running. Mining and merchant vessels are being prioritised. Most have limited life support. No capacity for passengers. With the landing backlog and the Bullhead looking like it'll tie up the top docks all day, the situation isn't likely to improve. And a second Xykeree vessel has also requested clearance to land." He met Kaplan's eye. "Two more are hanging about in low orbit. That's quite a reaction to an outlaw attack on their barge."

"Their presence is stirring up the locals as much as the dock shortage." Sun settled against a shelf of junk, her gaze impassive within her jacket's hood. "The quarantine hasn't helped. People believe port staff are slowing the vessel's turnaround to keep dock demand and Traffic Control bribes high. With the narcotics and weapons circulating this port, I'd say trouble is inevitable."

"Something to look forward to." Sketski grimaced, a move unrelated to the bruises darkening one side of his face. "But I can't see the local riffraff managing to dent that barge." Behind his pale blue eyes, a wealth of void combat knowledge flickered.

Sun arched a brow. "Agreed, but the aliens' response to any challenge might not be diplomatic." She shifted her attention back to Kaplan. "I know there's good reason for us to keep a low profile, but should we make our presence known to the Xykeree? Security in this sector is non-military. Civilian enforcement and mine-corp hires. From experience, we know the aliens will break treaty rules when they think no one from Sector Defence is watching."

Bleak humour disturbed Sketski's psionics. "Rules like no more than a single vessel around human colonies like this one? Or are you thinking of the roaches' unpleasant habit of harvesting ship crews in sectors with next to no legal prey—like this one?"

Kaplan acknowledged his point with a dry glance. "The Imperial Hive is in the middle of negotiating rights to use a new hyperspace axis. This isn't a good time for the Xykeree to test the Coalition's tolerance. However, if there is an interspecies altercation, I wouldn't put it past them to twist facts to gain concessions and distract people from past transgressions."

Sun nodded. "We put ourselves on their radar, Coalition Intelligence is officially responsible for the situation."

"Armed idiots high on zorcalitim included." Sketski shook his head. "Politics."

Fero lifted his tiger stare from his wrist com. "This rock has outdated coms security. Like us, the Xykeree will be in every system. No one's getting close to their vessel without them knowing about it."

Sketski grunted. "Can't see backworld pirates getting the drop on them either, but apparently, they did."

"It wasn't much of a fight, going by the barge's externals." Sun looked to Kaplan. "You get more intel on the internal situation?"

Kaplan shook his head. "The port officer who inspected the vessel is avoiding public places." He recalled the slightly built woman. Dark, inked eyes. Dishevelled hair and uniform. She'd been ghost-pale when she'd exited the Bullhead's assigned airlock. "She's currently off-duty, pending a med exam. She fainted during the inspection."

"Are you surprised?" Sketski lifted an eyebrow. "First time I boarded a roach vessel, I nearly passed out. Puked instead."

Kaplan cast him a bland glance. As a pilot, Sketski had never had to go much further than the hatch. He'd never searched a Xykeree ship top to bottom after a territorial or resource dispute. For the men and women who had, puking from the smell was not their most vivid memory.

Pushing back unwelcome memories, Kaplan continued: "I did intercept one of the CI's Enforcement escorts. The officer only got as far as the ship's hatch, but what he observed was interesting." He checked his psionic control, then telepathically showed Sun the memories he'd read from Officer Tipp Olsen. The man had had a lot on his mind besides his female colleague's "weak constitution" as he'd grabbed his morning espresso in the main food court.

Sun's gaze sharpened. "The CI queries an unreasonable time restriction imposed on her by the Xykeree and she gets a plasma gun in the face? I thought andropods were supposed to be diplomats."

"Intimidation is a valid negotiation strategy. But something is off." Kaplan summarised the highlights of Officer Olsen's experience for Fero and Sketski then cut to the chase. "The Xykeree followed usual protocol: didn't allow armed personnel in hive areas. Then they broke it, allowing one of the CI's escorts to retrieve her when she fainted. They didn't insist on disarming him."

"I'm surprised he didn't freak out and shoot something," Sketski muttered. "Hell. We could have been dealing with a bloody mess."

A dark pulse of curiosity halted Kaplan's response. He glanced to Fero. "What is it?"

"The Xykeree have just contacted the Port Authority. They want to speak with the 'worker' who confined them to their ship." The wording of the message flashed through the e-specialist's mind.

Kaplan understood his interest. "They've requested a meeting with a specific port officer?"

"They're hive-based life forms." Sun pushed off the shelf behind her and prowled over. "They understand groups, not individuals. What did the CI do to get recognised as a separate entity from the Port Authority?"

Fero bared his fangs. "Pissed them off is my guess. Along with everyone else at this port. A discrimination complaint will be lodged if the officer doesn't justify her decision to quarantine the barge."

"A weak threat by Xykeree standards." Kaplan felt a flicker of frustration. Even if they could work around the docking backlog, it didn't look like the quiet of the void was in his immediate future. "Send me what you have on the CI and give me her current location. I'd like to get her account of what occurred on that ship before we leave."

"Her com's no longer transmitting." Fero scowled at his tech. "The last location I have for her is the upper deck."

Kaplan recalled his last sighting of the officer. "She entered a staff-only area about twenty minutes ago. There'll be security footage."

Fero nodded. "Running facial recognition. Meanwhile, you might like to eyeball the latest communications directed to her supervisor."

Kaplan allowed the file transfer to his com then reviewed the intel via his implanted tech. "A threat from local mine-corp VIPs." He looked to Sun. "Apparently, our CI's commendable vessel throughput rate make her a 'valuable member of the port's family', but that won't stop someone having a 'conversation' with her if her supervisor doesn't straighten out the quarantine situation, free up the top docks."

Sun shook her head. "That could be a problem. Her supervisor has a reputation for throwing his weight around when someone targets his people. Last time one of his team got assaulted, the lower docks got closed for three days. If this woman goes missing..."

"We can forget about getting off this rock any time soon," Sketski finished.

"Got her." Fero jerked up his head. "She's just exited a service passage on the B-Deck level."

"Show me." Kaplan stepped over to view the man's com. A camera feed showed a short figure in a hooded grey overshirt heading toward a bank of lifts. "Therm-pro overshell. Goggles and breather around her neck. Can she access the planet's surface from those lifts?"

Fero nodded. "East side of the port, the surface ghetto—a junkyard. Locals call it Zero. It's an Enforcement black spot. No place for a bite-size officer, unless she has questionable contacts."

Kaplan studied the woman on screen. Black hair with a streak of cobalt escaped her drawn-up hood, obscuring her antisocial stare. She'd gained little colour since he'd last seen her, her vampire-wannabe look typical of the backworlds. Trash-punk chic. But unlike most of her ilk, she didn't blatantly display body art, piercings, or implanted spikes and horns. Not a sign of respect for her job or regulations going by the attitude she'd given her superior earlier.

He accessed the background data Fero had supplied. "She grew up on Dagma 9, another mine-corp slum planet, before moving to Sylus 3 in her late teens. She'll be used to dealing with criminals, might even have regular business with them."

"Probably has a habit to feed." Sun moved to eye the footage. "Maybe she is brain fried enough to antagonise a barge full of Xykeree for a few extra credits. Want me to round up the piece of ghetto bait?"

Kaplan watched the CI enter the lifts on screen. Grabbing intel from a delinquent port employee while she visited her dealer was a job he'd happily delegate. His brain was burning. The nagging need to get his team clear also urged him to make finding transport his personal priority. But right now, Sun could more effectively operate in a crowd—knowledge he swallowed like an acidic pill.

"I'll take round-up duty." He ignored his cousin's faint frown and checked his respiratory gas supplies: all fine after a quick refill out in the port. "Assist Tripp and Shio with transport. If the local situation allows, I want us gone by thirteen hundred hours." Not a lot of time, but if they were still being hunted, they were already on borrowed minutes.

Keeping that top of mind, he headed for the door, for the relative peace of the planet's surface.