"Incoming blaster fire," Ranth reported.

"Raise shields to maximum. Evasive tactics" Vax ordered. "Return fire at will."

Zical gestured to Dr. Laduna's body. "Place his body in a shroud and launch him out an airlock. I don't want his DNA aboard for the Sentinel to shoot at."

"Yes, sir."

Zical turned from the dead scientist to her, piercing Dora with a direct, hard gaze that revealed his determination. She knew he would never give up, no matter the high probability of failure.

And yet he didn't deceive himself or his crew either. "We can't outfight an entire fleet of Jarn."

Her gaze flashed to the vidscreen even as she linked with Ranth's sensor array. The Jarn were trying to prevent them docking with Guranu.

Zical fired rapid orders at her. "Infiltrate the Jarn computer systems. Help me get the Verazen to Guranu."

233.

"Understood," Dora replied, aware that Zical would do what he could to keep the ship flying. But against an entire fleet, the likelihood of success was close to zero. It was only a matter of time until the formidable opposition struck their ship, slowed their momentum, or hit a vital part of the Verazen. But failure meant that the Jarn's mission to turn off all the Sentinels would succeed, leaving the galaxy open for invasion.

Leaning against a wall, Dora took one last deep breath then left her body behind, applying her entire attention to her task. Forcing the psi link to pull all her mind into Ranth, she didn't hold back even a tiny fraction of her self. She'd merged many times, but never before had she linked every last particle of her consciousness. No longer could she feel her chest moving up and down with each breath.

No longer could she feel the bulkhead behind her back, the deck beneath her feet, taste the bitter fear in her mouth, or hear Vax and Zical devising strategy to keep them alive enough to survive until she and Ranth could help.

Energy from Dora's, body fed her psi. Ranth called upon his vast store of power and together they pushed forward the attacking fleet. With the shields of Jarn ships locked down tight, she and Ranth didn't try to push against the force fields or tug at the energy patterns, but searched for a crack.

Here.

Ranth led the way and together they wormed inside, through the hull, into the computer's heart. With a psi thought, Dora incapacitated weapons. Ranth disabled communications. Together they plunged into the core and fried the drive, withdrawing a nanosecond before the ship imploded, the hull squashed in h.e.l.lish heat and melting metal.

One by one, they found the key to infiltrate the Jarn ships, but since the Verazen was so outnumbered, they required swifter measures to accomplish their goal. They had to be more efficient, faster, deal with more of the enemy in one psi attack. Even as Dora and Ranth contemplated the problem, a laser burst targeted their ship. Only a brilliant and severe last-second course change saved them from instantaneous death.

Together Ranth and Dora repeated the procedure on ship after ship, searching for a more efficient means to cause ma.s.sive destruction. They took out a squad in nanoseconds but their efforts weren't fast enough.

Ranth we need to split up.

Your human mind cannot withstand part.i.tioning.

Dora understood. The link between her body and mind might detach under the stress. If she weakened, she might never be able to return to her body and she would die. Even as she worried for her unborn child, she made the necessary decision, the only decision, her soul wailing at the necessity.

If we don't save the ship, I won't have a brain to worry about.

Compliance.

234.

Ranth split their consciousness weakening them, but they'd doubled their productivity. Spilt again.

At four times their original speed, they tapped into ship after ship, becoming more efficient, deadlier, faster. And still the fleet closed in on the Verazen, ignoring their terrible losses, their Jarn will unbreakable as they flew into the death and destruction of Dora's and Ranth's lethal attacks.

a.n.a.lysis, Dora demanded, the connection to her body almost gone. She'd become lost in the cybers.p.a.ce of infiltrate, attack, disable.

We fail within thirty seconds.

Split again You cannot. You will die.

We have no other option.

Wake Kirek, Ranth suggested . He will lend his strength to ours.

No. he must be at full strength to get past the Sentinel's guard. Split again. Do it.

Dora's mind fractured into multistreaming ribbons. And each ribbon wormed through cracks to the Jarn shields, sought out command and control and altered the drive.

Disable. Destroy.

In the far recesses of her mind, she weakened, drew on last reserves of energy.

Single-mindedly she held one thought first and foremost. One goal.

Demolish the fleet.

Save Zical.

He must live. And as she used the final supply of her humanity, she finally understood what Zical had been trying to tell her. On the verge of losing her life, she'd never appreciated living more. On the edge of losing her future, she wanted to live to bear her child. She wanted to raise their child with the man she loved.

She loved Zical.

Even as she destroyed and killed and attacked, she pushed herself harder, longer, to save him, his ship, his mission. She loved him. She fed on that love, letting the strength of emotion push her past her last reserves, until the Jarn fleet was no more. She loved him. That's why she'd picked him out among the billions of ent.i.ties. She'd always loved him, she simply hadn't recognized the emotion.

Now she was certain of her love.

And then like a burst of energy that flashes too hot, she was done. Finished.

Goodbye, my love.

Zical held Dora in his arms, hugging her close. Tears streamed down his face. Stars.

He hadn't known that losing her would feel as if a part of him had been lost. Shattered.

235.

He hadn't known that his insides would churn like raw acid. That the agony would rip his heart to shreds.

She'd paid the ultimate price to take out the Jarn fleet and to save them all. And while her heart still beat and her lungs drew air, Ranth had informed him that it was only a matter of time before her body gave out.

She'd stretched her mind past the snapping point. Not even a healing circle could bring her back. There was nothing of her spirit left to gather.

He would lose her and it tore at him worse than any pain he'd ever suffered, worse than losing his first wife and unborn child, worse than losing his parents. He couldn't believe that once again he'd failed to protect his inborn child. What had he done to deserve such sorrow? No man should have to grieve over so many losses.

Even as be swallowed the lump in his throat be regretted that Dora would never that she'd embraced the totality of becoming human. Because nothing could be more human than to give one's life for others.

Yes, she'd risked her life to save Kirek on Kwadii, but, no matter how slim, they'd always had hope of success, but against the Jarn, Dora had known there was no chance her survival. None. Absolute zero. Yet she'd gone ahead, putting the mission first.

Arms shaking, feeling broken, Zical held her inert body, missing the beautiful spirit he loved, the life in her dancing eyes that flashed red when she laughed with happiness and glowed violet with deep emotions while they'd made love. Never again would she tease or argue or smile or advise. Never again would she chuckle and smile or catch his gaze from across a crowded room to share a moment.

The grief of losing her was a burden he would carry for all his days. Like a fool, he had wasted so much of their time together with his uncertainties and his doubts. Now, when it was too late, he wished he could have back all those days, to appreciate her as she should have been appreciated. As his tears fell unchecked onto her cheek, and he gently rubbed them away with the pad of his thumb, grief and sorrow clawed at him.

He wanted to rail at fate. He wanted to pound his fists until his knuckles bloodied and the outward pain distracted him from his anguish and heartache.

He didn't want to go on without her. He couldn't imagine going through his days...

or his nights... without knowing was close by. And now he'd never have the opportunity to change her mind about becoming his wife. Oh, how yearned to join her.

Depart this life. But then her sacrifice would be for nothing. To honor her death, he must live. He must complete this mission. Somehow he had to find the courage to go on alone.

But not yet. As Vax lew the Verazen toward Guranu, Zical held Dora close, her breathing in her womanly scent, running his fingers through her silky hair; wishing that there had been some other way to overcome the Jarn. But there had been none. Dora had known she was the only person standing between the destruction of their ship and the total failure of their mission. She'd done what had to he done.

As he must.

236.

He couldn't console himself with the complete victory over the Jarn. Not with what the victory had cost, taking from him the one woman so precious and dear to his heart.

Zical kept waiting for a measure of grief to subside and for her anger to sear through the agonizing pain of losing Dora, but as he cradled her in his arms, he marvelled at how she'd come to mean so much to him, capturing not just his heart, but his admiration and respect, in so short a time.

"Captain?" Shannon entered Dora's quarters, her voice hesitant and gentle. "Sir, Vax says we'll dock at Guranu within the hour."

Clearly, Vax had ordered Shannon to find the captain, but she was reluctant to interrupt his mourning. He nodded, hoping she'd go away.

Hesitantly, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "We all miss her, but we need you in charge, Captain."

"Thank you." He didn't need a reminder of his duty, yet her sympathy and kindness urged him to release Dora and shove to his feet. "Ranth, let me know when it's time to say a final good-bye."

Compliance."

The captain led by example. His crew might sympathize and mourn Dora's loss, but they expected him to go on as he always had-at least outwardly. But inside, he'd never be the same.

No one had told Kirek what had happened to Dora. He'd been with Avanti and Decker through the battle, and come back to their quarters to find Zical grieving over her body. At the sight of Zical's tears, Kirek had squeezed his own eyes tight, pretending he didn't see the captain's agony. Meanwhile, he'd contacted Ranth through privacy mode.

Ranth filled him in and Kirek cried his own tears. Dora could never replace his biological mother, Miri, but nevertheless he and Dora had shared a special bond that was more than friendship. She'd held him when he'd needed comfort, but understood that his four-year-old body housed an adult intellect in a way most of the crew couldn't comprehend, and she risked her life to save him. Twice.

"Why didn't you inform me?" Kirek demanded of Ranth. "I could have added my psi to hers."

"Dora refused. She said you needed your full strength to deal with the Sentinel."

Had she believed her own words? Or had she wanted to protect Kirek from the battle? From causing death?

He shuddered and tried to contain the sobs welling inside him. Ever since he'd sneaked aboard, he'd known he would face danger, but he hadn't expected anyone to die in an attempt to protect him, especially not Dora.

He should have been there, fighting with her. Yet he suspected she'd known how much Kirek detested the idea of killing. Of fighting. Of violence. While he understood 237.

the necessity, he preferred to aid in other ways. Not because he'd feared injury to himself, but because taking a life seemed an abomination, a permanent blackness on the soul.

Kirek stared out the vidscreen for a long time, gathering his thoughts. And as the giant s.p.a.ce station slowly filled the view, he felt fate pressing on his slender shoulders with a heavy weight. Guranu spun between the galaxies, shaped like a barbell with two rounded poles connected by a central axle where giant conical machines docked-the Sentinels. And there must be thousands of Sentinels attached to Guranu, all of them staring outward, their triangular bottoms like violet yolks in gray eggs.

Kirek's stomach tightened. Especially once he noted the dimensions of scale. In the vastness of black s.p.a.ce with no planet or stars to use as comparison, he had no idea of the immensity of Guranu. But according to Ranth's precision sensors, each Sentinel was ten times as large as their ship. And Guranu was planet-sized.

The sheer immensity of the project was amazing. Guranu might be the largest man- made structure in the universe. And it boggled the mind to think that the Perceptive Ones had built Guranu eons ago and that the s.p.a.ce station still functioned.

Despite his sadness over Dora, Kirek's pulse quickened. He'd always sensed that the Sentinels and he were linked by fate. But as the Verazen drew closer, that connection strengthened. It was as if the Sentinels were living ent.i.ties. Collectively wise. All- knowing.

Yet the Sentinels were not perfect. A Sentinel had wrongly judged them as the enemy because of the Jarn aboard. And he reminded himself that the Sentinels might conclude Kirek was an enemy too.

Not only must Zical and his crew work past the Sentinels' sophisticated defenses, they had to reprogram the machines. And to reach the delicate computer systems that ran these machines, the task had to be done from inside. Yet if the Sentinels could destroy two planets from halfway across the galaxy, he couldn't even imagine what kind of powers would focus on anyone who tried to board.

Clearly, the Perceptive Ones would have taken all kinds of precautions, using technologies far beyond their understanding. But, Kirek's special gift was that he simply didn't register on machinery. He would have to go in alone.

And the idea chilled him, to his bones.

Everyone was counting on Kirek. That'- why Dora had protected him. For this moment.

But suppose he failed?

Chapter Twenty-three.

After Kirek departed the Verazen through the docking port to Guranu, he couldn't maintain a link with Ranth, which meant he remained out of contact with Zical and the ship. Zical fretted over the boy going alone into Guranu and hoped for the best. He didn't doubt Kirek's courage, intelligence, or ingenuity, but the boy lacked strength, and Zical feared that he couldn't overcome any physical boundaries placed in his way.

Waiting for Kirek's news on the bridge, Zical didn't allow himself to pace, although he couldn't hide the tension in his eyes. And his crew knew him to well to bother him with inconsequential details. Time pa.s.sed slowly. There was no talk. No action. The tension thickened as minutes ticked by, and it seemed like days, but it was only a few hours before Kirek finally contacted them through Ranth.

"I'm in," Kirek reported "Ranth?"

"Linking." Ranth tapped into the psi communication and gave Zical an update.

"Kirek climbed aboard a repair bot and crawled from Guranu into a Sentinel without registering on the machine's sensors. He's turned off all offensive weapons. You're free to join him, Captain."

Zical broke into a smile of relief. "Kirek, great job. We're on the way."

"Captain, the Sentinel is monitoring our verbal communications," Kirek informed him.

"I understand." However, Zical didn't like it. Alien machines that had already proved hostile kept him wary and alert.