Save The Darkness

Silhouette stared at Toriares intently. "What happened to him?"

"I don't think I should tell you," Toriares said. "I don't even like to think about it, myself. Just . . .let me put it to you this way: If I had lived through what he had, I'd be mad at the galaxy too. He's got a damn good reason for all that rage in his heart."

Silhouette mulled that over for a long time, staring out the viewports and looking at the stars passing by them. Finally, she said what was on her mind.

"Toriares," she said. "I'm thinking of leaving him. I don't know how many more times I can look at someone asking me why again. I don't like the person I'm becoming."

Toriares looked down at the controls for a long time. "I don't know what to tell you do about that," he said. "You're too young and too low in the chain of command to ask for a release from the syndicate. Unless you could get Kienan to leave with you, you'd be a rogue, and they can't have you running free. You'd be marked."

"Toriares," Silhouette said, her hands starting to shake and a tear rolling down her cheek. "Do you think . . .Kienan would . . ."

"No," Toriares said. "No I don't. If you went rogue, he'd probably be the one sent after you. It serves two purposes--it gets rid of a rogue agent and proves his loyalty to the syndicate."

"Would he do it?"

Toriares didn't say a word. He looked away from her at a display on a readout panel on the other side of the chair. Silhouette looked at the deck. She knew the answer, even if she desperately wished she didn't.

* * *

The next day they arrived at the huge Kuran space colony. The freighter docked at the colony's orbital ring and after securing the ship and registering for dock time they made their way into the inner colony.

Kuran was one of the newest colonies on the Frontier, a neutral zone of space wedged between familiar races and unknown space about which the only things known were legends spoken in hushed whispers.

Kuran was designed to be the de facto capital of this region, a huge, almost earthlike colony, eight miles long, spinning in the darkness of space. It was a center of trade, of tourism, and of exploration.

It was also the seat of power for the Blue Dragon Tong, a Chinese crime syndicate that could trace its ancestry back to the early 18^{th century. Their presence had been established nearly two years ago on the Frontier, and nothing happened on the Frontier that did not have either their blessing or a cut of the profits sent to them.}

At his estate in the colony, Mao Xai Jan, the head of this branch of the syndicate, contemplated the stone garden before him. It had been one of the first things he had ordered put in. Gazing at the stones making ripples in the sand, static yet flowing, was oddly soothing. And occasionally, prophetic.

Mao's mind felt heavy as he rested on his ebony cane. For the past few months, Blue Dragon ships had been ambushed passing through a section of Frontier space. Millions of credits had been lost with the ships, and now something had to be done.

The Blue Dragons had controlled the Frontier, but beyond the Frontier was a rage of space called Tartarus. It was a graveyard, a place where ever since colonists had begun settling the Frontier they had dumped their ships, the colonies abandoned, and the other detritus that came with manifest destiny.