-BEN-

  The worst thing about Brawler Mode was the recoil. It hit Ben as soon as he deactivated the mode. Every single muscle and bone in his body squealed in pain. It felt like they were being squeezed simultaneously. The pain came in waves.

  "Every single time," Ben muttered.

  Fen had told him it would get better as he mastered the mode. That might have been true if Ben still had Nu Metal, but he didn’t, and the Dreglin Metal was proving to be a poor substitute.

  Ben was disappointed in his new Gladiator Mode. The point of the metal was to channel the Vector Force. Ben’s body was unable to handle the force without a conduit. He wasn’t like Fen. She was literally built for it. It was her power after all.

  Nu Metal had been an excellent conductor. It had allowed him to use the two variants of Gladiator Mode fairly effectively. In the sword variant, he had been able to use the Vector Force on both the sword and shield. And in the brawler variant, which he called Brawler Mode, he had experienced less recoil and outputted more power.

  Brawler Mode was supposed to be the culmination of Gladiator Mode. It was his finishing mode. The metal-tipped gloves were the focus through which he channeled the Vector Force across his body. Without them, the Vector Force would crush his body. Even with them, he felt the constant pressure of the Vector Force on him. The trade-off was that his blows were many times stronger and his resistance to physical blows improved.

  But the recoil was too high with the Dreglin Metal. Ben was worried. Vector Force was all he had left of Fen. He needed to master it. He would be failing Fen otherwise. He hoped the Dreglin Metal would perform better with time.

  Ben looked at his opponent’s dead body and, in the end, felt an ounce of pity for Nale. Whatever had driven the chintari man had been deeply personal. Nale had even cried a single tear just before Ben killed him.

  Pity turned to curiosity. What had driven Nale? Why did he hate the First Light so much?

  And what did that have to do with Silver?

  Ben gritted his teeth in frustration. He felt like a puppet with strings intertwined with those of hundreds of other puppets, while the puppet master, Silver, sat back and watched him struggle to untangle the mess.

  "I'll find you." Ben spoke his promise into empty air, as he had done many times in the past. "I’ll find you and kill you."

  The ship suddenly shook, nearly throwing Ben off his balance. It had been doing that more and more often.

  Ben needed to find his way to the deck, but first, he approached the dead body. Nale’s last blade, the one he had absorbed, had materialised after his death.

  Ben held it up. "Assimilate," he said.

  The blade shimmered and disappeared. The more things Ben assimilated at once, the longer the process took. It would take time for the two blades to be broken down.

  ‘Okay.’ Ben thought. ‘Time to make my way out of here.’

  The ship lurched again and this time he was sent stumbling. What on earth was going on? Had Kaja Khan been unable to fix whatever was wrong with the ship? Ben had intended to run to the deck, but he changed his mind. He needed to find a way to the control room.

  He scanned his surroundings. The fighting had distorted the internal architecture of the Freighter. A group of crewmen suddenly ran into the room, looking panicked and confused. One of them tripped on his own feet and fell with a resounding thud. When he looked up, his forehead was bleeding through a massive cut.

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  "Help!" he cried out to his colleagues, but they either didn't hear him or didn't care. They sped off, exiting the area through one of the many openings.

  Ben saw his opportunity. He leapt at the fallen crew member and grabbed him. The man yelped, and when he saw who had seized him, he began to cry.

  "I'm sorry," the man said. "It was the Captain's orders. And I didn't shoot you. I didn't even see you. I'm sorry!"

  "I don't care about that," Ben snapped. "What's going on? Why is the ship lurching all over the place? Where are you all running to?"

  The crewman's body shook as he sobbed. "We're all going to die. We're all going to die. We're all going to die."

  Ben slapped him across the face. "Get a hold of yourself. What are you saying?"

  The man fixed a doleful eye on him. "That's what the girl with the face tattoo said. She said the virus was going to throw us into a sun. We ran around and checked all our ships. They're not working. The escape pods are not working either. And even if they were, what can they do against a sun?"

  The man resumed his pitiful sobbing. Ben dropped him and considered what he had just heard.

  A virus. It must have been Enko, Silver's servant. Perhaps the virus was a failsafe, or maybe it was the original plan. Whatever it was, it didn't matter to Ben.

  He had to find a way to stop it. He kicked the crying man on the ground.

  "Where's the control room?" Ben asked.

  The man pointed down one hallway. Ben sprinted for it, but again his attention was caught by someone running into the room.

  It was the Priestess. Ben slowed to a halt and threw his hands out in exasperation.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked her. "And where's Blaze?"

  The Priestess leaned over to catch her breath. "I came for you," she said between deep breaths. "And Agent Kuto is fine. He's safe on your ship with your people."

  ‘My people?’ Ben wondered. As far as Ben knew, 'his people' consisted solely of Blaze. Maybe Kaja Khan could be added to that number, but it was a maybe.

  The Priestess stood up straight. "Agent Wilson, we need to get out of here. If what the boy called Ramis said is true, then this ship is about to become an uninhabitable space."

  "Does it have anything to do with being hurled into a sun?"

  She looked at him in surprise.

  "He told me," Ben said and jerked his thumb towards the crewman who still lay on the floor crying.

  "So you didn't need to come all the way here," Ben said. "Go back." He turned to continue towards the control room but she caught his hand.

  "The deck is this way," she said pointing in the direction she had come.

  Ben calmly removed his hand from her grip. "I'm not going to the deck right now," he said. "I have to get to the control room."

  "Kaja Khan isn't there," the Priestess said.

  That made Ben stop.

  "She fixed the...sun thing," the Priestess said. "But the Freighter is still going to become a death trap. Hanzo is getting her to safety. I'm here to make sure you do the same."

  ‘I see.’ Ben thought. ‘Well done Kaja Khan.’ "Okay," Ben said out loud.

  The Priestess looked surprised at his response. "I expected you to argue," she said.

  Ben shrugged. "There's no reason to."

  He froze. The crying crewman was no longer on the floor, and he wasn't crying anymore. Instead he was on his feet, and he was pointing his pistol directly at Ben.

  "You caused all this," the man said. "All of you. We've flown around the galaxy with no problem. The captain agrees to pick up a bunch of Stellar Authority agents, and look what happened."

  His rifle was shaking, maybe from rage, maybe from fury, likely a mixture.

  "If I'm going to die, I might as well take you first."

  Ben positioned himself in front of the Priestess, and gauged the distance between himself and the crewman. He would not be able to close the distance without risking harm to the Priestess. And with his Brawler Mode recoil and low mana, he could not readily summon his reflector shield.

  Ben held out a steadying hand. "Don't be rash," he said. "We can get out of here together."

  The man laughed dryly. "Liar," he said. He raised the gun to fire. Suddenly his head snapped back in a way that was very familiar to Ben. He dropped the gun, eyes misting over then he fell to the ground, a lone throwing star in the side of his head.

  The star disappeared. Ben glanced over, expecting to see Hanzo walk into the room. Instead a young woman stumbled inside. She wore the same black gi as Hanzo, but the front had been badly burned.

  If she had been wearing that when it burned then she would have sustained serious injuries. Ben wasn't certain how she was walking. He heard the Priestess gasp.

  "Saya!" the Priestess cried. She rushed over to the ninja girl, who tried to wave her off, but when the Priestess refused, the ninja girl gladly rested her weight on her.

  Ben walked over to meet them.

  "There are men coming," Saya croaked. "They want to kill us."

  "We need to get back to the ships then," Ben said.

  The ship lurched again. Ben reached over and picked Saya up piggyback style.

  "I will guide you through the safe passages," the ninja girl said.

  Ben nodded. Saya didn't get the chance. The ship lurched again. Then it shook, groaned, and began to vibrate.

  "Let's take it one step at a time," Ben said.

  He took one step forward, then the ground wrenched open and they fell through.