Mari spun her hatchet to catch the attacker’s blade on the haft and push it away. Her assailant spun and kicked up toward her face. She fell back on the sand and rolled with the momentum, bringing her short sword up just in time to catch the follow up stroke. She did not see the punch thrown at her head until it was too late. Her temple exploded in agony and she fell back. “Goddesses blood!”

  “You have two weapons, for stars sake. Try using one to defend!” A gravely voice barked out as Mari lay on her back in the training ring, soaked in sweat and sore all over. Sergeant E’jal stood scowling down at her. To be fair, E’jal scowled at everyone. “That is enough for today LT, go get some rest.”

  Mari grinned and spit out blood, “Finally had enough? There is still plenty of day cycles left.”

  That frown quirked a little towards something resembling a smile, or at least a smirk, “We’re an hour into the night cycle, ma’am.”

  “Are we?” She checked the time on the wall, “Huh, so that’s why it feels like you’ve been kicking me around all day” She stood up and walked to the wall, placing her practice gear in the racks.

  “ As fun as this has been,” said the Sergeant, who seemed to have barely broken a sweat, “Maybe you should find more activities to occupy your down time.”

  Mari gave him a flat look, “Like what?”

  E’jal stood there for a moment, thinking, until finally giving up, “Who knew the downtime prospects on a prison ship that flies in the most desolate and uninhabited parts of the universe would be so limited.”

  Mari rolled her eyes and threw a rude gesture behind her as she walked out of the training room towards her quarters. Her footsteps echoed in the empty corridor- the prison ship only had a half complement of crew, including the guards, so foot traffic was never very high. Still, tonight it seemed as if the halls were abandoned. The bridge crew(besides her anyway) were all in their beds; they had pulled a triple shift over the last two days in order to plot a safe course through this Stars forsaken asteroid field. The original flight plan had been through the Kalston system, but they had been pulled out of Ether space by a new gravitational well. Apparently the Kalston star had decided to go nova without checking in with the Imperial Navy. She was not sure who was in charge of keeping track of these things, but whatever rank they had been a week ago they were most likely a lot lower now- stars did not go nova overnight, after all.

  She hadn’t been able to sleep however, a nervous energy had been tickling the back of her brain. She knew from her days at the Hidden Academy that this was the Ether, and unfortunately exercise and a walk down near deserted hallways was doing nothing to help her figure out what it was trying to tell her.

  She ran her fingers over the metal wall of the Justice, wishing it was alive like the walls of the Academy. Thousands of years ago, Elven ships, (like their building) were alive and vibrant, every support and bulkhead teaming with life. As the Empire expanded, however, the Groves were ill equipped to meet the demand of having to control and defend a much larger portion of space. And once Dwarven space had been annexed the superiority of their ships could not be ignored. And so the Groves were all retired, put into a dreamless sleep, and their charges eventually all died out.

  For the first time that day, Mari felt exhausted. She had never been a Dreamer, but maybe if the Ether was this insistent that she know something then it could make an exception.

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  She had just made it to her room when an asteroid struck her section, making the bulkheads shudder and the lights flash yellow. “Medronis to bridge, you might want to get a calibration team down to the level 3 sensor tower. That was a pretty big one that it missed” They had been experiencing strikes since entering the field, but only very small asteroids should have been able to escape their sensors. Unless of course the actual sensors had been damaged. Which had only happened twice today.

  “Copy that Lieutenant.”

  Her father had always blamed her mage training at Academy for her “backwards ways” and grumbled at the amount of water that her showers used up, but for Mari there was no comparison between the quick efficiency of a sonic shower and the warm, slow cleanse of her body and soul that water gave her. She could feel her muscles and mind relaxing as the water washed over her.

  She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry, walking back into her room. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe the warm shower had lulled her mind into complacency, but her senses did not register the intruder until she was two or three steps in. The armored figure was crouched by the door and had the lock panel off the wall, and was speaking very angrily to someone that was not there, “Well maybe if the plaking blue prints were up to date I would have dropped into the cells and not some random bedroom! Yes I am using the standard code! Plake, gotta go” She jerked up to full height and turned.

  Mari struck, Ether fire bursting out of her hand to strike the pirate in the head. She sprinted forward, wrapping the towel around her off hand and Calling her hatchet across the room into her hand. She didn't have much of a chance against an armored opponent, but if she could knock out their helmet sensors and blind them she could escape into the hall, raise the alarm.

  She got one good strike in before a hit to her gut and her head put her down. Firm hands grabbed her “Stone above, calm down!” the intruder moved with quick, efficient purpose, swiftly clamping a restrictor band on Mari’s wrist. Her own magic instantly turned on her, immobilizing her.

  She snarled, “May the goddess flay the flesh from your bones, traitor. If ransom is what you want, my mother will show you the error of your ways as she pulls you apart in the Shining Halls!”

  “Ugh, mages. You all think you're so important. What would I want with some random caster who can't even get an assignment on a functioning Naval vessel,” the assailant cursed and took her helmet off, “fried my electronics, thanks very much for that.”

  Mari’s satisfaction at doing Something fled as she took in the other woman’s face. Shining, golden, FORBIDDEN tattoos glowed softly in the low light of her room. No, not tattoos, RUNES. “RUNELING” she hissed and shrank back, or would have, if she could move. This was impossible. Runelings had been cut out of the human genome millennia ago.

  For her part the Runeling cocked her head to the side in confusion “A what now?” She knelt down. She had short cropped silver hair and intense, piercing blue eyes that locked onto Mari’s “what the plake is a Runeling.”

  “Hey!” Another armored head popped out of the hole in the ceiling, “Answer your damn coms” they took in the scene “Is now really the time? I thought you had it bad for that bartender?”

  “What, no! Shut up.” The Runeling protested, “She fried my helmet. Here”

  The other mercenary dropped into the room and caught the helmet in one fluid motion, “Oh yeah she got you good. I'll fix this, you get us out of here. The cells are three levels down but there is a maintenance tube 5 meters down the hall”

  “Wait, she recognized something. Something about my runes….I think she knows what they mean” there was an undercurrent in her tone. Desperation?

  “ I already know what they mean. That you're a pain in the ass. Get the plaking door open. We have maybe half a span before they notice something.”

  “There is no way you'll escape alive!” Mari snarled, “The Empire will hunt you down and dismember you.”

  “Holy Armorer, what is with you and pulling people apart,” the first one shot over her shoulder as she turned back to the control panel, “you got some real issues, Elf.”

  Mari opened her mouth to respond but a needle stabbing into her neck stopped her. The second one's helmet came into view, “ Goodnight, angry naked lady.”