“Like I said, this is just a routine check up as written in the agreement thing. I've got Ardjianis and scientists from Parare on board.” Lieutenant Taedua continued conversation with Kold Ring command via the local space intracore network of satellites. He wasn't used to the urgings of the voice in his mind, nor the thick heavy grip that voice had on his actions.

General Ngozi, Scythe of Ardji's Throne marveled at the Identic's bored tone. The communications officer now a blood slave, completely under his control, perfectly followed his instruction to raise no suspicions. “Just a little bit closer.” he called mentally to his team of telepathic hitmen. They were the best at subverting the target's mind and will at a significant distance. He could feel the alien minds at Kold Ring but he could not yet drown them with his ka. The journey from Taproot, begun once Lord Lightfall revealed that messages from both Ngozi's own brother son Jumoke and the Tattva Sanga female Maina were false, took eight anastomoses jumps. Too much time with no new information.

The comm officer gave over the channel to an Identic scientist who likewise obfuscated exactly what they were up to by expressing shock that there were no social scientists like her out here studying the primitive Ardjianis learning to build a technologically advanced achievement like the space station and asteroid mining facilities.

They were all under Ngozi's will and those of his men. Every Identic scientist he had taken to Taproot, every member of the ships' crews had been overwhelmed by his mental suasion, succumbed, and eventually knelt and offered blood and ka. He spent a lot of time with the officers of the three ships he led to Taproot: Bloody Skull Explorer, his command ship, Ardjia Miner Two, and Star Rise a medium sized pleasure yacht. General Mumuya oversaw the security of the Ardjiani workers at Kold Ring from Gentle Explorer. The workers had traveled weeks ago in Ardjia Miner One. Solar Thunder was the third ship sent to begin the agreed exchange of knowledge for travel rights between Ardjia and the Syndicate at this area of space known as Kold Ring.

The messages from Mumuya got stranger. Ngozi could not fall into sleep at night for wondering what the Syndicate people had done to takeover Mumuya and all his warriors. Were they all dead? Was this a colossal trap he led all his men toward? There was no trace of Mumuya. Normally his ka burned red in the godworld and he was, in all ways, Ngozi's second, trusted in everything. The PPI (Plot Position Indicator) Analyst confirmed that Ardjia Miner Two was nowhere nearby, which covered some billion miles, or eleven AU (Astronomical Units). There was however a blip in the asteroid field about half the size of Ardjia Miner Two.

The three ship flotilla came in hot and soon Ngozi and his telepathic hitmen began to contact unshielded ka blind minds in the godworld.

“Shields up. Prepare for war,” he said to the Bloody Skull Explorer's Captain.

“Raise the plasma barrier. Call the fighter pilots to the hangar. Arm bays One and Three. And,” she smiled as alarms began to sound and red lights began to wig wag, “sound General Quarters.” Internally Captain Raindsen knew her mind was subverted by the alien general, but this ship had never seen any real action. That this action was against the Syndicate and thus the Identic gave her conscience a twitch, but she was excited to put her ship through its paces all the same.

“This is not a drill,” she called on the shipwide comm. “This is not a drill!”

Gasps and growls sounded from the Ardjiani warriors grouped behind the Captain chair on the ship's bridge. Ngozi narrated in spurts. “They exploded Miner One. Killed them all. Tried to make it look like an accident.”

A chill down Captain Raindsen's spine made her shudder involuntarily.

“Why would they do such a treachery?” Ngozi pushed the thoughtbird into her mind.

She answered aloud. “I always follow the money. How does this benefit them?” Then she nodded to herself. It was startlingly obvious. “If you are discredited in building stations and mining, in space work in general, then the Syndic will have to do everything for you. And they maintain full control over all the jump points. I mean, the anastomoses.”

“The next question is how did they do it?” Ngozi's thought was absent, as though he spoke to himself. She had no idea, so she did not answer and instead watched the progress of her weapons personnel. Of the three ships, the Explorer, being a survey ship had a few weapons, but not much. The Miner had impressive mining technology that could be converted into wicked weaponry.

“New staff wearing nullstone bracelets and necklaces!” an Imperial guardsman exclaimed loudly in the godworld. He shared out publicly his reading of a memory of how the three ships received new crew. Some wore the nullstone and the Ardjiani warriors respected their obvious desire for mental privacy.

“Ion Beam Fusion ready!” Bridge Security Officer Warren called out what was blinking green on everyone's board.

More gasps, followed by words from the Ardjianis, “My brother!” “My mother sister son!” “How evil!”

“They poisoned them.“ Ngozi's public mental tone was firm and incontrovertible. “Have the unfettered remove the nullstone of the fettered ones,” he advised his warriors. One by one Ngozi and his men attached to a ka blind mind, overwhelmed it with ka, and demanded, willed that it surrender and obey. He was stunned at the Syndicate's idiocy. What did they think the Ardjianis would do once this was found out? Meekly accept their impotence and turn tail and go back down the gravity well? For the rest of eternity? He would show them this day what Ardjia would do! He would show the universe and thousands of worlds what Ardjia would do!

First they had the ka blind subdue the bridge crew of Star Rise and Gentle Explorer. Then they had those comm officers report to the four other ships stationed in and around the training facility that this visit was scheduled and perfectly normal, nothing to worry about; all the while speeding closer to those ships. Thankfully Ngozi contacted Jumoke who had holed up with Maina in the secondary bridge of Star Rise after their guards all died of poisoned food made by the new kitchen crew. The bridge was little more than a room with four bolted down seats in front of an endless bank of monitors and controls with a wash closet behind. With Maina's Tattva Sanga backdoor code they were able to monitor communications and research information, but they were quickly locked out of anything else. Maina knew very little about coercing another's will what to speak of completely enslaving another's mind. Without General Mumuya's support, and in the wake of his and his warriors' murders, Jumoke did not feel confident to push forth an attack of his own.

The godworld of a thousand minds around the barely begun station in the Kold Ring asteroid field appeared as bumps and bulges of ka blind lifeforms in General Ngozi's godmind. The dark rich ka of his ka blessed warriors glowed red around his mind engaging and dominating the lesser minds across huge physical distances in space that meant little to nothing in the godworld. He could not help but see the bright white of the alien girl's ka, shakti they called it, steadily supporting the dull yellow of his brother's son, Jumoke's ka, so like his own mother's, Goddess Hhhhatshepsut's ka. Different minds and spirits, filled with thoughts and cunning, not so much the blood ka of servants and slaves, like his own.

“We have the bridge crew of Star Rise,” Ngozi heard Jumoke's mental voice just as Captain Raindsen announced, ”All Ardjiani ships coordinating and shielded!”

“Get behind me,” Ngozi ordered Jumoke. “Away from them.” He referred of course to the four Identic military ships; the brig Vadentin which held the Commander of the Task Force and three cutters: Ekard, Slippich, and Ttoirramm.

“Small ships with big weapons,” Captain Raindsen thought unhelpfully. “They don't have planet busters or anything like that, but a nuke or other missile through our shield kills us dead.”

“That will not happen!” Ngozi snapped. His three ships continued toward the Star Rise and Gentle Explorer where a ten of guardsmen had been asleep when the mass poisoning took place and been holed up in one corridor against the nullstone wearers ever since.

Ngozi spoke to them, “Attarra, we are here for you now. You may engage the enemy in close combat. Get their collars off at all cost. We will take their minds from the godworld, so that you may be fully in the material world.”

“Yes! My General!” a chorus of mental voices answered him and aboard the Gentle Explorer, they boiled out of their corridor and toward the bridge. Ardjian military black leather flashed and flitted as Warriors leapt and landed, slashing at hands and thighs for distraction, then reaching and unlocking bracelets and collars of stone. After the initial surprise attack, the band of ten had to defend against blaster fire, but that was no match for the ka of Ardjia's Warriors! Without a care to the ka blind behind, they charged forward. Attara went down but his killer's mind was freed to the godworld then captured by the mental power of Ngozi and the Warriors on the Bloody Skull.

Quickly the Gentle Explorer came under Ngozi's control. Two of the Ten were lost, but they had died in the God Emperor's service and so would await him in the golden world of the ascended Gods and Goddesses. Now he had five ships to the Identic's four, but theirs were fighting ships filled with armament and ammunition while the two Explorer class ships had fusion weapons and the Miner had tools powerful enough to cut and explode asteroids, the two yachts bore only pop guns of no real utility.

Waiting for the Gentle Explorer to join his group allowed the Identic ships to form a line such that any fire from Ngozi's ships could only hit the first ship, the cutter Thoirram. Ngozi let Captain Raindsen retreat from them and accelerate his group toward the far side of the skeleton of the station. Once they grouped behind that bit of shelter, they could head for the nearest large asteroid.

Ngozi and his men next turned their mental assault in the godworld toward the minds they could reach aboard the command ship Vadentin, third in the line. The unfettered minds, they found entirely sympathetic toward the Ardjiani cause. They had served for weeks with the dark skinned, black haired people of Ardjia without any mental attack at all. The Ardjianis eagerly soaked up any and all knowledge the Identic scientists, miners, and ship crew shared. They had been excited to be part of this tremendous undertaking that would lead to more exchange and a huge leap in anastomosis travel between all the planets of the Identic. Then, they had witnessed the arrival of the 'relief' ships. Not a miner or technical ship among them. No huge influx of materials nor educators came from them, just crew ordering them relieved of duty and to transfer off ship. There weren't enough nullstone pieces to go around. Then rumors spread of the disappearance of Ardjia Miner One and they were no longer able to communicate friendly messages to their former ships. There was no need for such barbaric behavior. Surely it was all a terrible mistake?

“No,” the General Ngozi's voice filled their minds. “No mistake. The Identic has betrayed the Agreement. We will take retribution. You will obey.”

“We will obey,” the unfettered ka blind Identics chorused.

“Use subterfuge to get close to them. Take off their nullstone adornments.”

“We will obey.”

Shots of ship-safe slug throwers and blasts of blasters sounded in the real world as death screams rang out in the godworld of the Vadentin.

“To me!” Zitin cried into the godworld from the Gentle Explorer and a hundred Ardjia Warrior minds joined to reflect the energy pulse from the Ttoirramm back to its source.

A white flash drew eyes to the PPI aboard the Bloody Skull. The Ttoirramm pip next turned black, followed quickly by the other three Identic ships turning from enemy red to a dull brown indicating they had struck their engines and weapons and lowered their shields. The Ttoirramm was dead. There might be survivors in isolated pockets or aboard escape pods.

Minute after minute ticked by and Ngozi, sweat flowing freely from his temples, gained more and more mental control over the Identics. Commander Antern of Task Force Ringmaster ordered the ceasefire and surrender. Internally he screamed in defiance, but Ngozi had full control over him. Soon he and all his ka blind soldiers would give their blood and lifelong loyalty to General Ngozi and his Warriors.

While he transferred to the Vadentin and called Jumoke to do the same he allowed shuttles out to rescue survivors on the Ttoirramm. He let his men loose on the bridge crew and their computers while he picked apart the orders and thoughts of the Commander. Fresh anger quickly ran around the minds on the bridge, then out to the whole ship, and eventually all the ships.

“Lies! Lies! All lies!” Ngozi intoned in disgust roaring through the godworld. He found that these ships had traveled only two jumps from Parare, not the ten they should have. At least their journey back to Ardjia would be shorter if they chose to go through Parare space, which Ngozi freely dared!