Alex slowly came to. He was still in his chair, and the bridge was hushed. Some of the people were looking at him, a stunned expression on their face, the rest was watching the main screen, something was burning in space.

    A hand clamped on his shoulder. Alex looked up to see the captain.

    "You know," the man said, "for someone who keeps saying you don't want to kill anyone, you're racking up quite the body count."

    Alex stared at him. The words didn't make any sense. 

    "Victor, what's the crew on a ship like that?"

    "Got to be sixty." The slim man answered.

    "You've been with us what? Four, five months? An you already have sixty-two kills. That's impressive."

    That couldn't be right, Alex thought. He hadn't killed anyone. He stood and walked closer to the screen.

    "It isn't like anyone's going to know he caused this," Anders said.

    "Shut up Anders," someone said.

    Alex looked at the screen, trying to understand what was on it. Debris, that was clear. Twisted metal, composites, and some smaller things he couldn't seem to make out. Large pieces were burning, which meant...he had no idea what it could mean. What was it? What had that been? Where had it been?

    "Hey Crimson, what did you do?"

    Alex turned away from the screen, but he couldn't tell who had asked the question. "I had to get them to stop." Alex's voice sounded flat to him, He didn't understand why. "I found myself inside the propulsion systems, so I shut down everything in there."

    "Everything?" It was the captain's second, who'd asked.

    Alex nodded. The man looked thoughtful. "That could have caused it. If the safeties went down before the rest of the system, stuff that has no business mixing would end up in the same place. If the fuel reserves ignited, you'd get the kind of explosion we saw."

    Explosion? Alex hadn't seen any explosion. What was he talking about?

    "Crimson," the captain said, "you look like you need to lie down. Go to your cabin, you're done for now."

    Alex stared at the captain. How could his work be done? Wasn't it just a question of time before the law ship started after them again? The captain stared back at him, looking like he expected Alex to do something.

    "I'll take him," someone said, and after a moment Alex recognized the voice as Terry. "With them in that state, you don't need me here."

    The captain nodded.

    Terry placed a hand on Alex's shoulder and gently pushed him forward. Alex moved. He thought he should stay, but if the captain wanted him off the bridge, Alex wasn't going to argue.

    They made it to the lift in silence. "Are you okay?" Terry asked.

    Alex looked at him, unsure how to answer. Was he okay? He might be, but he had a sense that things weren't quite right. Something he'd seen or heard, but hadn't understood.

    "I am," he answered. He wasn't panicking, so he had to be, right?

    Terry looked dubious, but he didn't comment.

    Down to his level, they were half way to Alex's room when Asyr came bounding down the corridor. She was grinning ear to ear.

    "I did it! I did like you said, I looked for patterns in what he was doing and I was able to get through his defenses and kick him off the ship."

    "That's good," Alex said, his voice monotone. From what she said he gathered that someone from the law ship had managed to get in their systems, and she'd gotten rid of him while Alex was busy stopping the ship. That was indeed good. He thought he should be as excited about it as Asyr was, but he couldn't manage it.

    She looked about to say something, but Terry shook his head. She remained behind as Terry continued to guide Alex to his room.

    Will wasn't there, for which Alex was happy. He thought that being alone for a while would be good.

    "Are you sure you're okay?" Terry asked again.

    Alex nodded. "I'm just going to lie down for a while." Which he did.

    He thought he might sleep, but his mind kept going over the last moments of his coercion. He'd sent the command to shut everything down, the other coercionist hadn't like that. No, that wasn't right, he'd sounded scared. Moments later the connection had cut with loud static.

    Alex frowned.

    Why had he been thrown out? He hadn't seen any attacks coming. And if he'd missed it, all he would have seen was everything go black, not static. Had it been a type of attack he'd never seen before? A shadow of a thought appeared at the back of his mind. The coercionist had been very good, but what was the point of disorienting Alex so much? Keep him from reconnecting? But why? By then they would be monitoring all access points, they'd know where he reconnected and be able to deal with him quickly.

    What if the coercionist wasn't the one who'd caused the disconnection? The shadow asked.

    That made no sense. If not him, then who had caused it?

    He saw the debris again, the fires, the small things floating in the void.

    What had those things been? Alex wondered. They'd hadn't been so small he couldn't see them, so why hadn't he been able to make out what they were?

    Where was the law ship?

    You did it, the shadow said.

    Did what? He'd been kicked out, he hadn't stopped them.

    Then where were they? It wouldn't have taken long for the other coercionist to undo the damage Alex had done.

    Why weren't they after them already?

    They can't.

    The debris came back to him. What were those small things? He focused on the memory, trying to remember more details. Chunks of metal? No, they didn't look right for that, actually, they'd looked familiar. Colored central points with extremities in set tones.

    He felt he should know what they were. They went from pale to dark, but muted, nothing very bright, unlike the central points, some of which were of loud colors.

    Had they been star shaped? That didn't feel right either. If he unfocused they might look like that, but when his vision cleared he could see it was more of a central bar, and the extremities didn't all originate from the same point.

    Alex cursed, what were they? Why was he obsessing over what would turn out to be some pieces of junk someone had kept in his cabin. He snorted, imagining some guy with a collection of dolls filling his room, but now that he thought about it, that's what the things reminded him of, dolls. Small people thrown into space by an explosion.

    You're almost there, the shadow said.

    Alex frowned. He almost had it, didn't he? He'd almost worked it out, so why was he starting to feel sick? He wouldn't be sick. Not again. He took the time he needed to gain control of his stomach. He was done getting sick just because-

    Go on.

    No...he couldn't have.

    Just a little more.

    Dear god, he'd killed them.

    The static had been caused by the explosion, the sound that had knocked him out had been the ship blowing up. The screen had shown the result. Those small things, they had been bodies. The crew.

    His victims.

    Alex hadn't wanted to kill them.

    That doesn't seem to stop you.

    The shadow's voice was recognizable now. It was cold, calculating, alien. It sounded like Tristan, on that one time he'd met him.

    Alex curled up in a ball, trying to get the voice to shut up. He hadn't meant to kill anyone. He wasn't a killer.

    If you aren't, the alien voice in his head said, how can you hope to beat me?