Perceive that which cannot be seen by the eye.

—Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi, AOEE

Blood burst forth, but not too much at the hands of a master at work. He struck quickly, powerfully, precisely cutting flesh from bone as the high-pitched scream ripped at his ears… as the carving knife took the first cut from the celebratory Cantus Day roast.

Ciro was about to tell his small son, Jason, not to scream at the dinner table, when his wife’s voice filled his head like music of the mind.

*This makes seven Cantus Days we’ve celebrated, my love,* Aloise sent to her husband Ciro.

’Hearing’ his wife’s voice with his mind, instead of his ears, was second nature to Ciro by now. Ten years had passed since he picked her up on Scorpio, and nearly as long since he had discovered that –far from just any other normal slave– he had purchased a Scorpian mind-dancer. Merely a legend to him up until then, certain bloodlines of the humans that had colonized Scorpio a thousand years ago had reacted to the alien environment by developing telepathic speech and manipulation. It had taken the Scorpian woman two years to repair the damage that two decades of upbringing by a single father who was a pirate, crime syndicate chief, and master manipulator had done to Ciro.

Seven years as normal, happy, even responsible Alarian citizens, Ciro recalled. When they had managed to get all their forged paperwork together, and finally landed on Alaria in the stealthy Shadowdragon shuttle, it just so happened to be the day before Cantus Day—the holiday when all Alarians celebrated the founding of Alaria by the ancient dreadnought Cantus Nocti—and so it instantly came to mean something more private to the newly minted “Andrews” Family... It became their family’s own secret Freedom Day.

Today, Master Andrews—as the kids knew Ciro Andronicus—was hosting several of the underprivileged kids from his downtown dojo to a Cantus Day dinner at the Andrews’ guiltily comfortable home in the Garden Sector of Atlantea.

Life on Alaria had been good to them, and Ciro had been working hard to pay the Universe back for all his good fortune.

A trilling beep sounded from the family com-vid. Aloise leaned over to check it, and said to Ciro, “It’s your ship.” Then, privately, *Oh this better be good.*

Ciro nodded an apology to the kids and got up to touch the com. A holographic face came up, a man with dark hair and a business-like demeanor. “I told you not to call me here, honey,” Ciro chided, in perfect imitation of a character from a famous holovid.

The kids laughed.

“Sorry, boss,” The com image of Andros spoke, carefully. “Some transport news you’ll wanna get right away on the Holo-Newsnet. Check story oh fourteen six.”

With a dawning sense of dread, he activated the holovid with a wave, and tuned to the story indicated. A news anchor presented a special report, which played from the beginning whenever one tuned in.

The reporter began, “An Alarian Sentinel station on one of Daedalus’ moons fell under a savage military-style attack, just hours ago.”

Ciro thought about where the big planets’ orbits placed them in relation to each other; at the moment, Daedalus was on the other side of the huge star system from Xerxes; the attackers had timed their assault well. Daedalus and Xerxes were the two large gas giants of the Solara System. Though the size of a planet, Alaria was technically a moon of Xerxes.

The reporter continued, “Sentinel warships now patrol the area around Daedalus. To reinforce the thinly spread Sentinel ships, Queen Valori has dispatched several of the Royal Knights of the Blood Red Roses. They are to take command of flagships belonging to Households carrying the Royal banner. Unconfirmed reports indicate Admiral Ariton Orionis, the famed Star Knight and husband to Alaria’s Prime Minister, was sent to lead the Knights. The Star Knight, who will turn ninety this cycle, was expected to announce his retirement later this fortnight.”

“Are we at war, Captain Andrews?” Derrick, Ciro’s eldest and most promising student asked. Of course he had no idea his patron’s real birth-name was Andronicus. He was the only one among them to call Ciro ’Captain.’ He was also being sent to Flight Academy on Ciro’s lucre, expecting to take a position on Captain Andrews’ crew soon.

Ciro waved for him to be quiet while he concentrated on the news.

“This marks the first time in history that the Sentinel force—primarily charged with space rescue and recovery as well as interdiction of contraband tech exports, and anti-piracy—has been specifically targeted for attack in a military fashion.

“Following a short naval-canon type bombardment from a cruiser sized craft, the station was boarded and most of the Sentinel workers were allegedly hunted down and killed.”

*Honey, what’s this about?* Aloise asked.

*Don’t know yet. Let me listen!*

“Only two of the workers survived. They were maintaining computer terminals deep in the stations’ sub-structure when the attack occurred. Once they were rescued, they told a tale of Black Dragon Clan pirates attacking and murdering their co-workers on the station as they helplessly watched via surveillance vid.”

*Ciro-*

*Shush, dear! I’m thinking!*

Ciro was thinking about what it might take to erase his birth-family from existence once and for all. If the Black Dragon Clan were becoming aggressive enough to attack Alaria’s military assets, that would lead to a much more paranoid security stance on Alaria itself, an environment that could all too easily lead to the authorities discovering that the “Andrews” were actually Andronicus’, and that must not be allowed to happen.

The reporters broke for some establishing video, then continued, “There have been reports of pirate attacks, and ‘tolls’ being forced from shipping corporations, and even mysterious deaths and disappearances from time to time, but never anything this explicit. Since the two Dragon clans were exiled and a March declared by the King forty years back, no hostile actions have been committed on official state forces until this raid on an Alarian Sentinel outpost.

“What are the exiled members of these former Alarian clans thinking? Are they declaring war on Alarian forces? How will the Queen and new Prime Minister respond to what many are calling the first real threat to Alarian sovereignty since the death of King Duncan? What will be the Black Dragons’ next target?”

A station security camera caught a single good frame of the pirate leader’s face, just before he turned it to slag it with his plasma pistol. The man had long white hair and a hideously scarred face.

*Oh gods! Ciro! It’s Malicious!* Aloise screamed in Ciro’s mind. But of course, he knew that instantly. The news editors left the grainy image up, as menacing looking a character as any holovid villain. Decades of bad memories rushed back to Ciro, like a tsunami threatening the sea-wall he had carefully built around his heart and mind to keep that violent past at bay.

“I have to go,” Ciro stated, hiding a sadness from his voice. Sadness for his wife, and for his son. He had failed to create a place of safety and peace for them. He knew he had to act quickly.

“But honey! It’s Cantus Day!” Ciro could tell from her tone, Aloise was beside herself. *Ciro! Can’t this wait until tomorrow morning? Or better still, let the authorities handle this!*

*Honey, I know what Mal was after—*

*What! What could possibly be so important—?*

*Us, dear! He’s after us!* Ciro telepathically blurted. Through their link, he felt the spike of fear shoot through his wife, and instantly regretted it.

"What?!" She mistakenly blurted out-loud, grabbing her mouth as she realized what she’d done. *What do you mean, us? Why—*

*Because we got away.* Ciro looked at his wife. *We got away from them, and created new lives here on Alaria.

*That attack.... The Clan would not sanction Mal to do such a thing. My father would never send him after me, his eldest son. So he is acting on his own, risking not only the wrath of Alaria, but the punishment of the Black Dragon Coil, and my father... Why? So he could get what information was in that database. He’s trying to track us down. Finding me, finding us, is the only thing he would risk his future for. We were part of his team. We were his people; for him, it’s personal.*

“Are you two all right?” Derrick asked, disturbed by their apparent silence.

They came out of their shared funk. “Fine, dear,” Aloise said. “I was just upset that your Master, here, was placing the interests of his shipping company above the happiness of his family, on Cantus Day.”

“I am concerned that increasingly bold pirate activity could be a threat... To my ship,” Ciro said, to cover.

“Yes, well you can wait until after dinner to take any...measures you may need to take, dear.”

*Honey!*

“And that’s final, now sit and enjoy dinner, dear.” She smiled at him again, *What, exactly, were you planning on doing, anyway?*

Aloise had served the kids first, and twelve-year-old Rainelle bowed to Ciro, seemingly as if his wife were not even present, “Danka origato, sensei-san!” Bowing her little blond head almost to the tabletop.

Ciro automatically returned Raini’s traditional bow –fist in palm– releasing the child to eat. Ciro sat, started dishing up, *I have to stop him. Whatever he’s planning... I have to go out there and stop him.*

Years ago, they had discovered the act of eating was a perfect cover for their private conversations, no-one expected you to talk while eating, but whole mental conversations could take place between the psychically-linked pair over a meal.

*He is trying to find any clues to what route I’m running and what ship name and I.D. I am using in the Sentinel database. I know it!*

And once he does find it, Ciro thought, he doesn’t even have to come after us himself. All he needs to do is leak that information to the Alarian authorities. When they confirm we used to be Dragon Clan, they will take Jason away, and we’ll be publicly executed on broadcast vid.

Aloise blanched, “Spicier that I intended. Too many garlions, I’d say!” she said, to cover.

*I’m sorry, Honey,* Ciro sent back to his wife, *I should have realized you’d pick that up, even though I wasn’t intending to send it your way.*

“Oh no! I love it; it’s terrific,” Derrick argued. “Everything’s great, and this meat is fantastic, can I have another slice?”

*I didn’t mean to overhear, either, but hard to miss that image from your mind.* Aloise sent back to her husband. *What must we do? Don’t tell me we have to run...again?*

“Of course, dear,” Aloise answered Derrick aloud, dishing up another piece for him. “Yes, the diner’s lovely, but we should not forget what Cantus Day is all about, right kids?”

*I hope not,* Ciro sent her back. *Let me think about it—privately, please.*

Aloise reddened with embarrassment over her telepathic faux pas.

“Fireworks!” their seven-year-old son Jason shouted, and started emulating pops and whistling rockets.

“The Founding.” Derrick summed up from his history classes, as everyone else laughed at Jason. “The Terran Titan the Cantus Nocti…”

“Latin for Night Song; the Song of the Night, more exactly,” Ciro chimed in, trying to remain calm, appear composed.

“Yes, kids, that’s right,” Aloise continued, “The Cantus Nocti was sent here from Terra—Old Mother Earth. But, do you know why?”

“Monsters!” Jason was on about space creatures now, “Monster Draks eating whole planets!”

“That’s good, Jason,” His mother said. “The Draklamar Life-Eaters were threatening all of humanity, and it was a war we might not have won. We feared the loss of our only real Homeworld, so the Emperor sent out his new Titan ships to populate alternate homeworlds. Alaria was chosen due to its hidden location in the Solara Nebulae.”

“Yeah,” Derrick got on a conspiratorial bent, “But have you ever considered where those first six Titans came from?”

“Whada-ya mean?” Ciro said while chewing, distracted. “Old Empire Terrans made ’em, human engineers built the superstructures around black holes, just outside their event horizons, and then activated magnetic-field generators to contain the singularities, which were basically engines of unlimited power. We finally had the power needed for jump engines to work… folding space.”

“...But after the war,” Derrick chimed in again, “the Darkening, the fall of the Empire, and we lost all that technical stuff, and also a lot of the histories.”

Ciro had to fight the urge to jump from the table, join his crew aboard his Star Raven, find Mal, and blow a hole through his cold dead heart. Then cut off his head, and bring it back with him as insurance. However, Aloise insisted on playing Normal-family Good-parents tonight, so he forced himself to play father-educator, before he tried to re-learn how to be an assassin. “That basic technology inspired the creation of the Pin-drive FTL by Alarians, a couple of centuries later,” Ciro continued. “Now our ships—our smaller ones at least—create pinhole-sized singularities which they hold in magnetic fields suspended at a point a few feet ahead of the ship, taking them into the quantum-string we call Pin-space.”

“Thank you for the science lesson, Captain,” Aloise mocked.

Ciro shrugged, “It’s what I do… literally.” As he thought about what he used to do.

“No-one knows where they came from…” Derrick was on again. “No-one knows where they went, or why. Think about it, just because the Draks were gone, why wouldn’t we use the Titans that survived the Battle of Convergence for other things? Like transportation. We had no other ships with instant travel capabilities. And, until Alarians came up with the Pin-drive, all of Humanity was cast back to the Quantum-gate age. Quantum gate travel was a god-send, but it would still take weeks to cross the galaxy in Q-space.”

“And most of Humanity is still in the Q-gate age,” Ciro agreed. “The loss of technology was sad, but no real mystery. We all learned how the Emperor back then hated and feared advanced technology, thought it would get out of control and destroy us, just as the Draks almost did. That caused the Darkening…”

“The Second Dark Age…” Derrick added. “But what happened to all the remaining Titans?”

Ciro wasn’t really engaged with Derrick’s crazy theory, where-ever he was going with it, but just sort of argued on an auto-pilot. “He ordered them destroyed, or sent into Q-space, or some such; most of the records from that time…”

Derrick had his big reveal, “So where’s the Cantus?”

“What do you mean?” Ciro finally took his mind off what might be for a moment, and concentrated on what Derrick was saying.

“Captain Damien Stark wasn’t exactly known for obeying the orders of the Emperor, right?” Derrick was completely focused on his conspiracy theory. “He broke ranks, and we celebrate his refusal to return, under direct orders from the Emperor. The fact that he stayed to protect us is the only reason the Alarian colonists survived those first twenty years here. He headed off six separate assaults by Drak scouts after he was supposed to return to Earth. Terra. So why would he suddenly obey a directive to scuttle his beloved ship?”

“Well,” Ciro conceded, “when you look at it that way…”

“Most of our histories were lost,” Aloise interjected. “But Cantus Day is about celebrating Earth’s decision to create new Homeworlds… particularly this one right here.

“My beloved Scorpius fell to Terran re-expansion thirty years ago. Believe me, kids, you would not want to be living under Terran rule right now… or ever!”

“How did you get away?” Derrick inquired. Ciro could see Derrick was intrigued now.

“Captain Ciro here had some dealings on Scorpius, and bought...hired me to help… take care of the books for his shipping enterprise. That’s how we met, and then we ended up getting married.”

“I wasn’t really hiring her for books, kids.”

*Ciro!* Aloise laughed in his mind.

“I knew the moment I laid eyes on Aloise that I wanted to marry her. I put her on my ship so she couldn’t run away from me,” Ciro said playfully.

*

Dinner had gone well enough after that, but once all the visiting kids were returned home, Ciro packed a ship-bag.

It wasn’t as if the Star Raven, his domain in this universe, wasn’t fully outfitted for his comfort: Ciro had a whole Sanctorum of comforts any pirate-king would find familiar onboard his ship. But there always seemed to be a few things he felt the need to pack. He’d been raised on the axiom ‘assume each parting will the last one,’ meaning to always leave a planet assuming you’d never return. The life of a space pirate was not a stable one.

Based on his upbringing, Ciro had a superstitious habit of taking a few favored items whenever he left home—and bringing them back multiplied by new presents upon his successful return. Along with his favorite duster (useless onboard a ship), Ciro packed a slip his wife had worn the night before and not yet washed, and a small model of the Cantus Nocti Jason liked to play with. The toy had a zinc battery 5 powered a tiny anti-G generator.

“Let me go with you,” Aloise insisted after Jason was down.

“No.” Ciro tried to sound as if he would brook no argument. However, he knew his wife could easily pick up his lack of mental conviction. “We have been over this, seven years ago. Stay here on Alaria; I fought to give my family a life on Alaria because it was the safest place in the universe, I don’t want you exposed to the dangers of that life again. I don’t want Jason ever exposed to them. Stay here and take care of him, and give me a reason to return.”

“Make sure you dooo…” Aloise intoned a famous line from a popular action holovid, in parody of a character voice.

Ciro smiled, “I love you sooo much… I didn’t know what life was about until I saw your purple eyes..."

"Violet!" Aloise responded in their ages-old lovers’ quarrel. “Honey, remember one thing: you don’t know him anymore...just as he wouldn’t know the man you’ve become.”

Ciro stopped being playful, "I don’t think that man is capable of change. But you are right about one thing: I certainly did. I was a monster until you rescued me.”