* Sorran stepped away from the engine controls, his job done. [i]This is madness,[/i] he thought. [i]But I can see no other way to rescue Savara and honour Restraint's last wishes, not with the blockade[/i] He pressed his fingers to his temples and prepared himself for the jolt that was to come. It turned out to be more than a jolt. * A thunderclap of sound destroyed all other noise in the district, and Ahkrin felt sick as he felt the space around him contort and pull. It was a feeling he knew well, but not one he'd ever expected to feel now. A white blinding light flashed across his eyes, and all his senses were overloaded as the void spilled into reality, and a numb pain gripped him in its vice. Suddenly, all sensation returned in a violent lurch. Ahkrin found himself on his knees, blood dripping from his nose and head feeling as though it had been battered about for hours. He checked the time on his augmented display; it [i]had[/i] been hours. He'd been out cold a long time. He looked to his left and saw Jeann'ee sprawled on his back, coughing. "A void jump," Ahkrin wheezed out, struggling to recover the wind that had been knocked out of him. He looked up, and realised what had happened. "No impulse shield. This wasn't planned." [i]Someone must have sabotaged the station's impulse drives. Why?[/i] "Ahkrin," was all he heard from Jeann'ee, who had managed to rise to his feet and was shakily pointing somewhere up in the skies, far behind him. "Look." Ahkrin scrambled to his feet, and followed Jeann'ee finger; his head tilted, and he saw it just as the screams and panicking broke out across the district. Sanghelios was gone. Another planet hung in the sky, one he knew well. One he had not seen in many cycles. "Harvest," he breathed, but that wasn't what Jeann'ee was gaping at. It was the human fleet hanging in the sky before it. "There are dozens of them... why are they here? I thought they abandoned this planet long ago." "We have no fleet," Jeann'ee gasped, and he was right. When High Charity had jumped, it had not brought Zharn's fleet with it. They were defenceless aside from the meagre mounted defences of the station, and unless they jumped again the entire holy city would be wiped out. "We need to move," Ahkrin decided. "Double time." "What good will the dreadnought do us if we die?" Jeann'ee demanded, grabbing Ahkrin's shoulders and looking at him as if he were insane. "We need to find a way off this station, before it takes us with it." "Not before we've spoken to the Oracle. If you want to abandon me now, then do so. I thought you made of sterner stuff," Ahkrin jeered, knowing full well the effect the taunt would have on him. "You've never met anyone sterner," Jeann'ee pouted resolutely, hurrying behind him. "But don't think I'll be saving you when the demons come raining down in their meteors." "Where's your faith?" Ahkrin retorted ironically. "The Oracle will protect us all."