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the overall data flow. Zai looked at the schematic with frustration. He didn't have the expertise truly to understand it, but he knew the clock was ticking. Every minute the rescue was delayed, the harder the compound mind would be to pound back into unconsciousness.
    Captain Zai canceled the eyescreen view, Legis's infostructure fading from his sight like an afterimage of the sun, and turned back to the bridge's main airscreen. At least he would have some progress to show the politicals. The palace wireframe had been replaced by a schematic of the council chamber, where the hostages were being held.
    The Child Empress's position was known with a high degree of precision. Fortunately, she was sitting quite close to the single Intelligencer that had made it into the chamber. The Empress had an AI confidant piggybacking on her nervous system, a device whose radiations were detectable and distinct. The airscreen marked Her Majesty's exact body position with a red dummy figure, detailed enough to show the direction she was facing, even that her legs were crossed. The Rix soldiers, cobalt blue figures in the schematic, were also easy to differentiate. The servomotors in their biomechanical upgrades whined ultrasonically when they moved, a sound well within the natural hearing of the intelligence microship. The Rix were also talking to each other, apparently believing the room to be secure. The audio signal from the room was excellent, the harsh Rix accents easily discernible. Translation AI was currently working through the complexities of Rix battle language to construct a transform grammar. This last would take a while, however. Rix Cult languages evolved very quickly. Encounters even a year apart revealed major changes. The decades since the Incursion would be equivalent to a millennium of linguistic drift in any normal human tongue.
    Four of the Rix commandos were in the room. The other three were presumably on guard duty nearby.
    The four Rix present were already targeted. Rail projectiles fired from orbit were accurate enough to hit a human-sized target, and fast enough deliver their payloads before a warning system could sound. The missiles were structured smartalloy slugs, which could penetrate the palace's walls like a monofilament whip through paper. Two dozen marines were already prepped for insertion, to finish off the targeted Rix (who were notoriously hard to kill) and mop up their remaining comrades. The ship's marine doctor would go down with the force, in case the worst happened, and the Child Empress was injured.
    The thought made Captain Zai swallow. He realized that his throat was painfully dry. The rescue plan was too complex for something not to go wrong.
    Perhaps the politicals would have a better idea.

    INITIATE

    Just before the courier ship docked, Initiate Viran Farre of the Imperial Political Apparatus tried one last time to dissuade the adept.
    "Please reconsider, Adept Trevim." She whispered the words, as if the sound might carry through the dozen meters of thermosphere between the courier ship and the Lynx. Not that there was any need to shout. The adept's face was, as it had been for the last four hours, only centimeters from her own. "I should be the one to accompany the rescue effort."
    The third person in the courier ship passenger tube (which was designed to hold a single occupant, and not in luxury) made a snorting sound, which propelled him a few centimeters bowward in the zero-gee.
    "Don't you trust me, Initiate Farre?" Barris sniffed. His crude emphasis on her rank was typical of Barris. He too was an initiate, but had reached that status at a far younger age.
    "No, I don't." Farre turned back to the adept. "This young fool is as likely to kill the Child Empress as assist in her rescue."
    The Adept managed to stare into the middle distance, which, even for a dead woman, was certainly a feat in the two cubic meters they shared.
    "What you don't seem to understand, Farre," Adept Harper Trevim