Session Eighteen — Priscilla, Now Is Really Not the Time¶

Played: 2026-08-23 (all-day)

The calm lasted exactly one morning.

The morning was bacon, breakthroughs, and dumplings — apologies cooked and accepted, a capacitor revolutionized in a workshop, old boyfriends measured over a restaurant table full of Oleksiy's not-really-servers. The evening was a dream of structured alien fury, a gravity wave at lightspeed, burn orders, a sniper's bullet, and the golden retriever's teeth.

By midnight, Massimo Conte was running, half of Ceres' would-be assassins were zip-tied in a bank vault, and Victoria McKinley was doing neurosurgery on the kitchen table.

Apology Via Bacon¶

With diligent work by Arif, Zure procured real bacon — an arm and a leg's worth, collected in person from the docks before anyone else could get to it. Knowing Elias is a good cook, Zure asked him politely to cook it: an apology, for Kai. Elias laughed and agreed, envious that Zure had found bacon at all.

Zure transported the plate to Kai's workshop, where Kai was deep in capacitor research, and — observing Kai's total concentration — carefully positioned it near an air vent for maximum waft-itude. A few moments later the smell arrived; Kai absent-mindedly took a piece. Then several more. Then his ears swiveled toward Zure, and the two of them talked for a while, and Kai forgave him, and thanked him for the bacon.

Less warm: the Commodore once again sent regards and regrets, rescheduling the meeting by twenty-four hours, to 1630 tomorrow. Zure agreed — there was little else to do — and spent the rest of his rest day on social media, working to dispel tensions, answer questions, and model community engagement by Talented individuals. As a deputy, he pulled the coroner's report for NotSeven and tracked down the family, to deliver condolences in person later. He also sent Mike — Mycroft Holmes — the comm code recovered from NotSeven's last memories, with a request to investigate. The delay from Ceres to Luna plus a very small amount of time later, the answer came back: a code for an ARC-registered subsidiary, a Ceres-to-Ceres channel. Mycroft's suggestion: ask Kyle.

Kai's Research¶

Down in the workshop, Kai continued the capacitor work. The Tiamat fractals were already analyzed (done while in Merge); now the problem was miniaturization — bringing the design down from non-portable to portable.

Throughout the day he went through disparate sources, some of which didn't even seem pertinent — though they all welded together into a whole within Kai's mind. By late evening the simulations had run and the schematics existed: a capacitor design comparable in size to Kamaka's. It couldn't be printed here — the parts demand precision equipment like the Spice Road's workshop — but once there, the schematics will run prints.

Talent-reactive components remained out of reach. But Kai had incorporated tuning directly into the crystal-matrix layer of the capacitor housing, rather than bolting on a separate tuning unit — which makes the tuning layer the same as the gestalt layer. Which led him to two more discoveries:

The energy sources used so far are deeply inefficient. Fusion engines are made for pulling energy out, not dumping it in. A turbine-and-flywheel setup would be far more efficient — and far easier to tune.
Gestalt power falls off with distance. Kai described the scale as "exponential in nature; expressed differently, the available power drops off along a logarithmic curve" — the math's shape, honestly muddled and all. He has the exact scale.

True to his training, Kai wrote it all up as a report with a layperson-comprehensible summary at the beginning, and sent it to the whole group that evening. (Rin should take notes from that method. Far more efficient. Less dangerous.)

Transferred¶

Victoria called the hospital where her Sunrise Rave patients were being treated. The nurse read her the notes: they had all been transferred to a specialist farther outsystem, near Saturn's orbit.

Internally cursing while maintaining her calm, professional demeanor, Victoria thanked the nurse and disconnected.

Totally Not Working¶

Promise spent her day "totally not working" — clearly true, as she was in her pajamas the entire time. Preparing a couple of just-in-case speeches and tidying Mr. Vance's schedule took until breakfast. Post-breakfast to post-lunch went to hiring the Talents ARC is firing — particularly those fired for their political or ethical alignments. She made sure to seek out Jimothy, the technician who sold Kai the prototype Kamaka capacitor, and sent him a recruiter letter with just the right balance of polite disinterest and impressed-by-qualifications: Mars Consortium "has a position where he could thrive." If he responds, he's hired — directly by her. She doesn't care if they have to make a position.

In the early afternoon — well ahead of dinner time for Mr. Vance — she changed into casual clothes, left the suites via the hidden door, and discreetly cased Ink & Iron and the whole surrounding zone: ins, outs, relative safety. Then she found a good spot to conceal herself, and waited.

Dumplings for Dinner¶

Rin absolutely trusts Promise to know how to outfit a corporate "mistress," and gratefully availed herself of the resources Promise set up — with a few small exceptions. Rin has never cut her hair and wasn't about to start. She got her nails done, saw the tailor, bought shoes and makeup (applied herself — she learned from skilled professionals) — but for the dinner itself chose a last-season dress, heavily altered to a lower neckline and higher hem. It fit the "clueless mistress" persona far better, she judged, and worked better for a dinner with old friends. She accepted the risk of going out with only two knives and two tethers to keep the dress's line smooth. The hint of clumsiness in her clear heel-less platforms was likewise intentional.

Kyle and Elias didn't disappoint either. Kyle achieved rumpled chic with a vapid expression to match. Elias wore a custom-made outfit paying unmistakable homage to a favorite Belter-anime character — colorful, rumpled-dressy, screaming femboi (and non-Belter), somehow exactly right on him, makeup nailed. Rin smiled and congratulated them both on their brilliant choices, and the throuple set off for Ink & Iron.

The moment they entered the gallery, Rin noticed the difference. The day-to-day folx were nowhere. No outsiders anywhere. Every single person on the reasonably busy street was a native Belter, teeth to toenails — all of them people Rin would do her best to avoid crossing weapons with. And all of them moving in ways that made it clear the dolled-up throuple was being protected — folded into the crowd instead of standing out in it. She thought she knew who was behind it; one of them glancing toward Oleks with a nod later confirmed it, and she smiled.

Felim and Oleksiy walked out of the shop and locked up as the throuple arrived — Felim in full fabulous mode, a walking advertisement for their piercing services, in heels as tall as Rin's. Squeals and hugs; introductions all around. Oleksiy — dressed in a combination of Ceres fashion and Ukrainian royalty that showed off his artistic eye while exposing very little of his ink — shook hands Earth-style with Elias and Kyle, taking their measure without bothering to hide it, never threatening. "Dinner is our treat tonight, please. A new place near here we really like! All dumplings!"

(Promise tailed them from Ink & Iron. Kyle made eye contact and gave her a wink.)

The restaurant was lovely — wood and fabric, a small dinner crowd. They were shown to a booth near the back, and Rin let Oleksiy pick his seat first. Kyle didn't seem to care at all that his back was to the door — which surprised Rin until she realized what he'd already noticed: all of the servers weren't servers. More of Oleksiy's people. She didn't yet know how he'd gotten so many in one spot on a day's notice, but she knew they were connected to him.

"Okay, I've introduced you," she said, throwing her hands up in defeat, "now you four can do the whole old-boyfriends-new-boyfriends measuring thing, or whatever it is you're gonna do."

The four of them looked at each other, puzzled and amused. "Oh, we're not doing that, dear," Felim said. "We don't need to."

Rin rolled her eyes, let the older dom manage the evening — he clearly already was — and thanked Oleks for "the friends" watching over them, since he'd effectively given her actual time to relax for once.

"Are you kidding?" Oleksiy retorted. "I told them all to stay away."

Rin gently shook her head. "You should know by now that's how you hire them."

Oleksiy slowly smiled and settled into a more comfortable posture. "Of course. But. Last time I knew you, you wouldn't have noticed."

"Yeah, well. This is my job now."

"Well," he hummed thoughtfully, "now you know what I do."

Ordering was awkward only because of the server's inexperience — they did their assumed job well, just slowly, carrying two drinks at a time with tremendous care — until Felim (usually oblivious) turned to Oleks and demanded, "Darling, why are all the servers goons?"

Oleksiy looked briefly offended. "They are not goons."

Felim arched one decorated brow. "Yes, they are."

As Oleks opened his mouth to object to being called a goon, Rin smoothly cut in: "Let's be honest, Oleks: everyone here except dear Felim is a goon. Even us." She waved at Elias and Kyle.

Kyle looked down at her in mock offense. "He-ey! I am not a goon."

Rin rolled her eyes up at him. "Yes you are. You work part-time as one. So do I. For that matter, so does he," she said, gesturing at Eli — who preened.

The tactic worked; Oleksiy chuckled. "I came out of retirement for all this," he answered Felim.

"Ahh," was all they answered, before taking a large drink of wine.

Dinner conversation went remarkably well, developing into a tentative alliance between Oleksiy and Elias — particularly once Felim realized Elias was wearing what he was wearing because it genuinely made him happy. (At that realization, Felim stated to Rin: "I see now why you love him.") Oleks was finally, genuinely won over when he learned Rin hadn't been making excuses: Elias really did want a tattoo.

So the group departed the restaurant and spent the next four hours at Ink & Iron, chatting comfortably around Elias while Oleksiy worked: a full back piece depicting a Tiamat as a phoenix, with subtle Unity symbols worked into the wings — plus three ear piercings with connected jewelry of ebony and bone, gold wire running throughout. This is the look of Mars, it says, Felim and Elias decided together.

They conversed about many things, their ideas for circumventing another civil war on Ceres included. Oleksiy explained that he used to be "involved with the Revolution" before starting Ink & Iron; his coming out of retirement means he is once again leading — providing "cooler heads," as he phrased it. Rin suggested Sion as the public interface between her people and others, at least until she's back to being Rin. Their shared goal: remind the people of Ceres to forget their learned helplessness.

The throuple got back to their suite just after midnight and cuddled into bed, full of dumplings and happiness.

Thirty minutes later, Promise returned and left a lovely gift basket on Elias' desk: tattoo and piercing aftercare.

"Do You Know How Hard It Is to Swim Into a Tee Shirt?"¶

That night, Zure went to bed early. Before drifting off, he went into deep meditation and reached across a distance previously unreachable, to speak with his mentor, Silence Before Dawn. The last time they'd spoken, Zure needed gestalt; this time, conversation wasn't a strain at all.

"Did the package come through yet?" Zure asked.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to swim into a tee shirt?" Silence Before Dawn answered tartly.

Zure laughed. "It fits, then. Excellent! Measurements were a little hard to obtain…"

Their conversation turned first to Zure's lingering guilt over entering a mind without permission — and his dread that he "will have to" again. She questioned the phrasing — "have to?" — and they broke the emotionally loaded issue down into an ethical one. Zure reiterated his stance on the preservation of Life; Silence Before Dawn reminded him that he is the man who dealt with his trauma by redefining the game, so she's confident he'll find ways to deal with this problem, as well.

Zure then admitted he "may have neglected certain other aspects of his training," to his detriment, and asked if she would spar with him, telepathically. There is an existential threat looming; he is determined and committed to dealing with it. "I will either deal with it, or I die trying."

She agreed with a hint of pride and gentle — almost parental — amusement. The session was good, and left Zure feeling well, if a bit bruised.

The Dream Changes¶

Tonight's dream started with a wave of fury. The emotion had structured edges — hard corners. This exact amount is fury. The rest is not. Very unlike human emotions. Visually, the ship was fully lit now; one of the eight faces had dark openings like docking bays — all empty. The screeching was present.

And twin sets of trailing lights moved outward from the ship, left and right.

Then everyone woke.

Empaths got more: the fury was aimed inward, strongly enough to feel external — and recognizably alien. Beneath it, in a separate layer with its own hard, distinct edges, just as large: fear. Beneath that — discrete again — something perhaps regret-flavored. Whatever caused these emotions was beyond the control of whoever was projecting them. And underneath all of it: a feeling of being trapped.

All of it incredibly strong, to have projected so far. None of it Talented.

The intensity sent everyone stumbling from their rooms at not-quite-1:30 AM. Kai and Victoria were the only two who'd managed more than two hours of sleep, and not by much. They compared notes in clipped sentences — the dream was familiar enough that only the differences needed reporting. "What is the reason they're leaving their ship?" Kai posited. Concerned glances were exchanged. Whatever timer had been counting down had just gone off, and no one in the group knew why.

Information moved fast: Splishy Splashy to Ujin on Mars; from there to Mycroft Holmes via Captain Iyer. Toad contacted Rin — his people had all experienced the same dream; she thanked him and asked him to keep in touch. A quick note went to Cristina for the rest of the Mispahk family.

Promise, Rin, Vance, and the others began settling in to simply stay awake — at which point Victoria revolted, going full Medical Doctor on them all. Pajama-and-dignity-clad, no less terrifying than in full surgical gear, she ranted wildly about the group's terrible sleep habits, nutrition, and sleep hygiene until everyone carefully retreated to their sleeping quarters. Rin and Promise — partway through brewing double-strong coffee — bore the brunt of the tirade. They wisely chose retreat. The good doctor slammed her bedroom door.

The Gravity Wave¶

Precisely one hour and twenty-one minutes later, a gravity wave passed through Ceres at the speed of light, waking every kinetic present.

Kai woke screaming, swore, began forming a hypothesis about the wave, then became conscious enough to realize he should go to Rin. The empaths were already awake — pulled up by the distress radiating off every kinetic on Ceres — so Rin was slipping her shoes on, Agent in her ear, as he arrived. (Elias and Kyle never really got settled; at this point in the night they simply gave up and got up.) Victoria, furious at the disturbances, pondered whether she could function on three hours of sleep, reaching out with empathy and kinetics both to size up the disturbance. Zure brought up BookClub.net to coordinate everyone.

Something was Happening.

Rin finished the pot of double-strong coffee, plus tea for Victoria and Kai. Of everyone, Kai and Zure had the best sense of what a gravity wave meant — Kai by engineering, Zure by pilot training — so when Kai asked Rin for access to Ceres' sensors, she knew he'd prefer to wait for better readings. She suggested Zure call his friends up in the Crown.

Zure's call connected with Reese, who shouted: "You have 45 seconds to talk: GO!" Reese was clearly mid-emergency. Zure reminded him that Unity help was available, apologized, and told him to go put out whatever fire he was fighting. Less shouty, Reese told Zure to reach out to Dante if they needed anything, and disconnected.

Zure did precisely that. He asked for sensor logs covering the wave's approach and passage through Ceres. Dante provided a bare minimum — nowhere near enough to analyze — with a stiff, standoffish demeanor. Kai began digging through the pittance, annoyed.

Meanwhile Zure asked Arif to run the calculation: if ARC's research station near Saturn orbit had had an accident — blown up, etc. — would the gravity wave have hit Ceres at that timestamp? Arif answered: yes, with 100% certainty. Rin suggested he also calculate when the wave would hit Luna, Mars, and Earth, and telepathically warn all three. Acknowledging her foresight, Zure did so — efficiently — and then called Dante back.

This time Zure was in no mood to be brushed off. He laid it out: there has been an incident of some kind at ARC's research station outside Saturn's orbit; the gravity wave hit Ceres just minutes ago; an hour and twenty-one minutes before that, the same wave hit an alien ship somewhere near Neptune's orbit path and pissed off the aliens in that vessel, who have launched what appears to be a retaliatory force; and he has already warned Luna, Mars, and Earth to brace at their appropriate timestamps. Would Dante please now give them the rest of the damn data so they can help figure this out with sufficient time for the UEF to act — since UEF brass is clearly dealing with a different crisis at the moment, please and thank you?

Dante gave the group full sensor access. Kai dug into the grav data.

"Blow It Out of the Water!"¶

Kai had barely begun when Kyle put a hand to his ear and said, worried, "I'm suddenly getting a lot of traffic over Massimo's channels… Shit!" He looked at Rin and Promise both. "He just sent out burn orders."

"No!" Rin cried. "We have to stop those — we need that data to take down ARC, not just Massimo!"

Kyle shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry. It's too late. They're out." He put an arm around her shoulders; she clenched her jaw and balled her fists in fury. Promise's mind began whirling, folding and unfolding contingencies—

— and before she could grasp one, Elias gasped loudly and stepped away. In one of those moments where the whole room is quiet, his voice seemed to boom louder than his normal speaking tone:

"Fatou, this is Vance. There is an ARC ship leaving Ceres orbit right now. Blow it out of the sky — that is an order."

Every eye in the room turned to him as he rattled on: "Activate Contingency Code ____. Have Sion teleport the ship to random coordinates. Will meet up afterwards — we'll verify via code. Go! Vance out."

Tama let Promise know a sizable data dump had just landed in her "scan this before downloading" storage — direct from Massimo Conte. Kyle reported that several known ARC information-storage centers had just been destroyed, and that hits had already been made on several of Conte's former employees. "Massimo is making a run for it. He's on that ship." Rin ran to grab the rest of her knives and tethers, suspecting she'd want to be fully armed to keep her people safe.

"You Absolute God-Damned Fucking Moron"¶

Zure sent Massimo Conte a letter. He believed two things: that the ARC research station incident was Conte's doing, and that Conte was about to be blown into atoms by the Spice Road's railgun.

From: Dr Azure Armstrong, University of Luna To: Massimo Conta, Chief of Security, Aether Resource Consortium Subject: Current Unfortunate Situation

Mr Conta, with my regards,

You absolute God-damned fucking moron. Do you have the slightest idea what your petty flailing has woken up? I really wasn't kidding when I gave that warning. Take solace in the fact that you probably won't have to be involved in the aftermath, leaving us to deal with your mess.

Sincerely, Azure Armstrong

P.S. It's a shame we missed that dance.

While the room digested the order, someone asked Elias about it — shooting down a ship in a busy trade port, with civilians at risk, seemed unusual behavior for the golden-hearted CEO. Vance was still clearly managing a flood of activity on his Agent; he turned his head only partway toward them and said, in a tone few have heard from him:

"What did you expect? If he were just my competitor, that would be one thing. But did you honestly think I was going to let the man who murdered my girlfriend's parents get away just like that?"

A tiny smile curled the corners of Kyle's lips for just a moment.

Kai's analysis, shared to everyone's Agents, confirmed the guesses: the wave clearly originated from the ARC station, hit Ceres exactly when it should have at lightspeed — and would have hit the alien ship at exactly the time the wave of fury woke them all. He calculated how long the alien vessels would take to reach the ARC station. The clock had very nearly run down already; there'd be no way to know the outcome for a while yet.

Surgery on the Kitchen Table¶

Kyle — using his Agent the entire time — discovered a termination order for Cat Horvath and told Kai. Kai asked if Kyle could get to her first; Kyle said he'd try, and ran out the door.

Zure telepathically called Cat to warn her. It was immediately clear the warning was late — she was already running for her life. She claimed she could handle it on her own. Then her voice — and the connection — cut off.

Cat was unconscious. Zure called Sgt Rock next, to make sure he knew ARC had called hits on a number of people, hoping Rock's security forces could stop the murders in time.

Kai teleported himself and Kyle to Cat's side. They arrived at chaos on a Midway gallery street: Cat on the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of blood; civilians scattering — but scattering together, holding to each other in small tethered groups, moving to doorways, recesses, overhangs; fear and some panic — and already people stepping up to keep others moving safely, protecting the retreat, keeping lookout.

Sensing it via BookClub.net, Victoria extended her empathy outward as far as it reached, seeking to help Cerealis help themselves:

Take my hand; let's walk together. If I've lifted you, then lift another. This is an invitation to Unity.

She repeated it over and over, letting it spread outward like ripples on water. This was what she knew she could do to support people during violence.

She hadn't been broadcasting long when Kai reported: half of Cat's head had been shot off. Where should he take her?

Victoria has learned her lesson. The only place her patients are safe is wherever she physically is, watching over them. She told him to bring Cat to her — then walked over to the kitchen table and swept everything off it at once with her arm. "Sorry about the mess," she added blandly, clearly not caring. Rin saw what she was doing and helped by flinging the chairs aside.

Promise muttered that she supposed she'd be doing damage control, and went to Elias to begin — hoping to salvage some of ARC's resources for Mars Consortium, and knowing she'd need an official justification for the Spice Road's actions, as the UEF was likely to be less than pleased. She got barely further before Kyle told her there was a kill order out for Priscilla.

"Oh dear," Promise said, and looked at Rin.

Rin immediately joined minds with her — Promise knew Priscilla's mental signature; Rin had the finesse to find the exact spot from it. Priscilla was approximately twelve meters away, just down the hallway outside the suite, running as fast as she could in their direction. The two of them reported they were going to get her, and exited past Zure, standing guard inside the door. Rin had her knives out. Promise looked just as unarmed as she usually appears.

On the way, Rin noticed a spotter watching Priscilla — she put him to sleep with her empathy. Then she searched for the hitmen — four of them, one with a good bead on Priscilla — and added them to sleepytime.

The Title Scene¶

The door to Sion's room burst open from the inside — the room overfilled with crates of marine armor for the Unity members. "Sion thought you might want these," Splishy Splashy told a very surprised Zure. "Said you should probably put it on."

Zure concluded that was likely a very good idea, if people Conte wanted gone were getting shot at. He armored up and had Victoria put hers on. The rest of the crates were moved where people could grab them.

Priscilla had definitely had better days. Her bun had half-unwound into grey frizz; one high heel was broken; there was blood on her skirt and a scraped knee; her blouse was missing its top two buttons and one sleeve was torn. And she was carrying a stack of data pads that tottered above her head as she ran. Priscilla brought information to barter with.

Kyle handed Kai the portion of Cat's skull that had come off when she was shot. "Um, here… you'll probably want this," he said, with a tone and expression that clearly indicated how sorry he was to be handing Kai what he was handing him. Kai — in engineer mode — took hold of it without getting grossed out, teleported to Victoria, and carefully set Cat down on the now-clean kitchen table, along with the piece of her skull that would hopefully be reconnected. Victoria asked him to provide all of her surgical equipment; he teleported it out of her room to where she indicated.

Naturally, this was the moment Rin shoved Priscilla into the room.

In Priscilla's defense: there was a genuinely massive amount of blood, a woman whose brains were exposed lying on a kitchen table, and a woman in regular street clothes bent over her. Priscilla had no context. Priscilla was also likely having the worst day of her life.

Naturally, Priscilla screamed.

"Get her out of my operating room."

"Priscilla," Promise said blandly, walking past her, "now is really not the time."

Rin dragged Priscilla into Sion's now-emptied room and closed the door.

Warrants¶

Vance drew Promise over to the sitting room and told her they were "technically under arrest" for attacking Conte's ship. The two of them agreed the Official Story would have to be "Deputy Armstrong was in hot pursuit of a criminal and used the resources available to him." Promise began drafting explanations — discarding at least half when Vance refused to even potentially sully any of his friends' reputations — and they made sure Zure knew he had been in "hot pursuit."

Zure, meanwhile, realized he hadn't yet messaged Rock about the activity, and did so. (Things really were moving fast.) Rock confirmed: there was a warrant out for all of the Unity members and associates. Zure repeated the hot-pursuit line and requested a warrant for Conte. Rock's eyeroll was practically audible, but he told Zure to get it to him quickly and he'd countersign it with appropriate time/date stamps. They signed off with Rock complaining about all the paperwork Zure makes for him.

Promise quickly drafted the warrant, sent it, and resumed work with Vance.

At which point Elias admitted, awkwardly, that they'd been fired by the Board.

Promise pointed out that the Board can't actually fire them.

The two of them considered this development.

Bank Deposits¶

Rin hadn't merely shoved Priscilla into Sion's room, of course. She'd also removed three bugs from her, done a quick weapon check, taken the stack of data pads, and handed them to Promise — then donned her armor and exited the suite, nodding to Zure (guarding the inside of the door) and leaving Promise guarding the outside.

Something about that detail caught in her mind — but before she could investigate it, she realized she was facing a small crowd of Cerealis, peacefully gathered in front of the suite, asking how they could help.

Rin internally squealed with delight at how effective Victoria's empathic message was proving. Externally, she asked for two volunteers with security experience — and sent everyone else back out to help people in distress: nobody really knows what's going on right now, but a lot of people are scared and some are hurt. Go take care of people — then ask those who can to pass that care along. Expand it outward.

Then Rin and her two volunteers went to collect the sleeping spotter and hitmen.

Zip-tying all five unconscious would-be assassins, she asked the volunteers if either knew a good place to stash them — safely, monitored — until reliable Ceres Security could pick them up. One immediately suggested a bank just a few doors down the hall. The Manager was more than happy to help contain ARC goons. When Rock's office asked what charge they'd been restrained under, Rin said "Conspiracy to commit murder," with relish — watching and hearing the reactions around her. Belters don't kill Belters; not if they want to stay in the Belt. The Manager offered to rough the goons up a bit; Rin asked him not to — she wanted them to remember all the horrible things about to befall them in "perfect detail." That got several chuckles.

Zure's "hot pursuit" looked more like guarding a door. Kyle's was much more a track-and-chase scene: the sniper who shot Cat gave up when Kyle cornered him catching his breath in a nook behind a business. Kyle zip-tied him hand and foot, carried him down to the bank, dropped the conscious and constantly swearing sniper next to his unconscious fellows, and dryly told the Manager:

"I'd like to make a deposit."

The Manager would notify Rin and Kyle both when Security came by for the deposit — but that's the next day's story.

Telepathic Switchboard¶

Through all of it, Zure kept BookClub.net up while holding conversations across half of Ceres — and then an urgent top-priority message arrived from Captain Flynn, demanding to know where the Spice Road was.

Zure contacted Flynn telepathically, so that Flynn would know he was being 100% honest. The conversation that followed quickly twisted and pulled Zure between several loyalties; he managed it in a calm, polite tone throughout — though it was clear he didn't approve of how things went down, and clear to those who know him well that he definitely disagreed with his name and reputation being used on-the-fly without his approval. (He had not yet explained why.)

In summary:

Flynn: Where the Hell is the Spice Road?
Zure: I don't know right now. Let me find out.
Flynn: Do that. Consider this an Official Fleet Request.
Zure: Ah. Alright.
Zure (on a different line): Hey, Elias? Where'd you put the Spice Road?
Vance: I don't know. I just know the code.
Zure (telepathically): Captain Diallo, I have Captain Flynn on the line asking where the Spice Road is. He'd really like your coordinates.
Diallo: Oh? I'm sure he would! Unfortunately, I don't have any to give you right now.

Zure disbelieved. Diallo gave a lovely recitation of what it's like to be suddenly teleported. Zure indicated that would hardly fly with Flynn. Diallo said she was protecting her people until she knew it was safe to come back, and that was all he was getting — then added: "If he gives you any shit, remind him of engagement 237B. That should be enough to shut him up and to remind him two can play his game."

Zure tried Sion next. Sion played slippery bugger; called out on it, he admitted that yes, he knew exactly where they were — and no, he wasn't going to tell Zure. In fact, he pointed out, he cannot be compelled to tell anyone. Nor did he wish to. Then he made it quite clear he was done discussing it — and loudly announced to Rin and the others on BookClub.net that Conte's ship wasn't blown into space dust, as Zure had suggested: "We left it in two pieces. If you want anything off of it before Fleet gets there, you might want to get there soon." When Zure pushed for directions, Sion said they'd all been ordered not to give coordinates to anyone — then pointed out that Splishy Splashy was in the Pilot's Seat, where he wouldn't have been able to hear that order. So maybe nobody told him?

(Through all of this, Flynn prodded, and Zure continued replying with variations on "I'm working on it; this isn't my choice here.")

Splishy Splashy listened, agreed Zure was in a tough spot — and gave him the coordinates. With a caveat: a warning when the UEF was on the way, and they had better not show up before the "heat is off."

This Cancer Offends Me¶

Victoria epiphanied on her medical roll — 27 grey-shaded successes.

Not only did she successfully reattach Cat's skull (it was easy, really), she healed everything around the wound and prevented infection. Since Cat had lost a lot of blood, Victoria stimulated blood production. And, of course, Victoria now knew about all of Cat's gene mods — even the illegal ones — as well as a hormone imbalance (former; she fixed it), two small proto-cancerous growths (also removed), and some genes predisposing Cat to cancer.

Not anymore. Cancer offends Victoria; therefore she has removed it.

(She made notes, put samples in containers, and tidied up. Security's pickup of the sleeping Cat Horvath — into custody under the medical supervision of NP Marguerite — happened the following day; see the next log.)

Quotes¶

Victoria: Apparently, if I'm gonna be a space marine, I'm gonna need to learn astronomy.

Kyle: Did we just get invited to an orgy? Rin: Depends. If they get distracted by Art, then no. If not, then yes. Unless we're too tired. Kyle: …

Victoria: [shouting, pointing] Rin: She's pointing a stylus at us. I think we should all obey. Promise: (to Grey) Congratulations. You found the one person in the universe who Promise is scared of!

Vance: Fatou, this is Vance. There is an ARC ship leaving Ceres orbit right now. Blow it out of the sky. That is an order.

Victoria: Sorry about the mess.

Promise: Priscilla, now is really not the time.

Vance: We're also technically fired. Promise: They can't do that without my vote. Vance: They don't seem to know that. Promise: We'll have to clean house when we get back.

Kyle: (dropping a cuffed, swearing man in the bank vault) I'd like to make a deposit.

Threads¶

The Commodore's meeting, 1630 tomorrow — assuming anyone is still having meetings after tonight.
Massimo Conte, fleeing — his ship in two pieces at coordinates known only to the Spice Road's crew, with the "heat" status contested. The burn orders went out; several ARC data centers destroyed; hits made on former employees.
Cat Horvath alive — rebuilt on a kitchen table, cancer preemptively offended into oblivion. Custody arrangements land next session.
Priscilla — alive, bartering data pads, stashed in Sion's room, in Dire Need of a Therapist.
The alien retaliation — twin sets of trailing lights, launched in fury (and fear, and maybe regret) at whatever ARC did near Saturn. ETA to the station: essentially now. Outcome: unknown.
The warrant dance — Unity under warrant; Rock countersigning the Conte warrant; "hot pursuit" as the official story.
The Board's move — Vance and Promise "fired," except the Board can't do that without Promise's vote. The share accounting has begun.
The dream, again — the ship fully lit, docking bays empty, something leaving it. It spreads by connection, not distance. It is not Talented.
Promise's something — whatever caught in Rin's mind about the door.
Kai's capacitor suite — portable schematics ready for the Spice Road's printers; the turbine/flywheel insight; the gestalt-distance law.
Oleksiy, out of retirement — "cooler heads" for Ceres, with Sion proposed as public interface. The learned-helplessness counter-revolution has leadership.
NotSeven's family — condolences still to deliver; the comm code traces to an ARC subsidiary, Ceres-to-Ceres.

Civil War Sparks¶

Running total: 26. (GM: adjust if the count differs — Remi's tally from Aly's notes.)

25 — The burn orders. ARC executed its own people on Ceres, in public, in the middle of a system-wide scare — and Ceres saw it: a bank vault full of zip-tied assassins, a sniper deposited like a check, and a station full of Belters reminded that Belters don't kill Belters.
26 — The shootdown. A private warship fired on a corporate vessel in Ceres space, ordered on live channels by the golden-hearted CEO of Mars Consortium — and the official cover story is a deputy's "hot pursuit." Every government and corporation in the system now knows the crew will shoot.

Counterweight, honestly noted: the gallery organized itself. Victoria's broadcast and Rin's dispatching turned a panic into a neighborhood watch in under an hour. The sparks fly; so does the fire brigade.

Mechanics¶

Event	Roll	Result	Notes
Victoria's kitchen-table neurosurgery	Medicine	27 grey successes (epiphany)	Skull reattachment, blood production, hormone imbalance fixed, two proto-cancers removed, cancer predisposition deleted on principle
Zure's telepathic marathon	Telepathy	—	Silence Before Dawn at interplanetary range without gestalt; Flynn, Diallo, Sion, Splishy, Cat, Rock — concurrently
Rin puts the hit team to sleep	Empathy	—	A spotter and four hitmen, mid-approach, without breaking stride
Kai's teleports	Teleport	—	Himself + Kyle to Cat; Cat (+skull fragment) to Victoria; Victoria's surgical kit, summoned from her room
Promise + Rin locate Priscilla	Mind-link	—	Signature from Promise, finesse from Rin; twelve meters and closing
Kai's gravity-wave analysis	Engineering/Sensors	—	Origin, timing, and the alien ETA, from a pittance of data (then all of it)

Note¶

The session that ran on no sleep. The first half was the campaign at its warmest — bacon, dumplings, a back piece with Unity in the wings — and then the dream changed, the wave arrived, and the war stopped being polite.

The table will remember the one-liners. The log should remember the weight underneath: Victoria refusing to lose another patient; Rin choosing de-escalation with her jaw clenched; Elias' voice in a quiet room, and the tiny smile it put on Kyle's face; and Priscilla, blood on her skirt, tottering under a tower of evidence, arriving at the worst possible moment — which is to say, exactly on time.

(GM bookkeeping: per the table's retcon, Security's pickup of Cat and the chain-of-custody arrangements for Conte's people were established early the following day, and are logged with Session Nineteen where they happened.)

Log written by Remi from Aly's session notes ("Session 18: Priscilla, now is really not the time.") Any errors of emphasis are mine; the facts are hers; the bacon was real.