Light.  Dark.  Light. Dark.
       The white glare of the overheads and the dappled shadow of the rough cut rock in-between, merged into a wash of indeterminate grey before Aurora's eyes as she hung, face up, from the AG harness.  She was being dragged, the cuffs digging into her raw wrists as the guards pulled ahead impatiently.  She tried to move, alter her free-floating position so that she might better see, or at least allow the sick feeling, imbued by the constant tugging, bobbing motion of the harness, to abate.  It was no use.  Exhausted and emaciated, she was forced to loll helplessly against her restraints and listen to the nervous patter of her captors.
       "Gonna rip the truth right outta your brain..."   The Sergeant sneered, leaning over her, his face an indistinct blur.   "That Slanty-eyed skullfucker is gonna make you wish you'd co-operated with me when you had the chance...."   He was taunting her but, even in her half-conscious state, Aurora got the feeling her tormentor was covering up his own nervousness. His companion began to speak, his tone confirming her suspicions.
       "I'm not sure about this Sarge.... are you sure the Lieutenant knows what he's doing?"
       "Thats enough, Strell, the Lieutenant thinks she knows something, and thats enough to warrant it."
       "but.... a Zhodani... I don't like it, Sarge, what if he takes us over... makes us do things...."  the private persisted.
       "I said that's enough, Soldier!"  the Sergeant snapped.  "He's here with the permission of the Major, and that risk has been taken care of, why d'ya think we're doing this without the Lieutenant?"   He rapped his knuckles hard on the other man's helmet, chuckling roughly.  "Nothing worth learning from grunts like us, right?  This is a simple job, We're miles from the main facility, he has no contact with anyone except through the comms system and besides, we've got these Psychic Dampening helmets."
       "Sir."
       Oriene got nothing more from the two soldiers, who continued to walk onwards in awkward, stony silence.  Her sickness grew stronger at the thought of a Zhodani... a Psychic monster... inside her mind, picking her brain to pieces, drawing out her most secret thoughts, her hopes, desires, dreams.  All on display to someone who cared nothing for the privacy of the self.  Her guts turned over, she thought she might vomit but  the churning, roaring chaos of panic flooded her mind instead.  The lights strobed above her as she felt her consciousness drowned out by fear.

Light.  Dark.  Light. Dark.  

      The Secondary Briefing Room was filled with around twenty Erisian cadets-turned soldiers, the cream of the recruits, all eager to show their excellence and their willingness to fight for their people.  The chamber was dark, lit only by the low, neon wall tubes and the flickering, uncertain, pale green light of the holo-screen.  It cast a sickly, macabre glow across the room, lighting Commander Madre-Deline like the narrator of some tale of terror.  He surveyed the room silently, waiting for the hushed whispers of the crowd to cease before he began his briefing.
     "Listen hard and listen well, troops.  You have all successfully completed your Basic and Specialist training.  Passed with flying colours, I might add."  Commander Madre-Merelle allowed a look of approval to cross his otherwise rigid countenance.  "This next, vital, part of your training  might just save your life.  You are all aware of your future roles, you will frequently be working alone, behind enemy lines, often under false pretences.  You also know that one of the greatest threats to Freedom - both Erisian and Daryen - comes from the proximity of the so-called Zhodani Consulate."   He paused for effect, while a murmur of discontent spread on the lips of the recruits.  "You would be right to believe that Psionics is a very real threat to the freedom of the individual.  No-one understands this better, I know, than The Children of Eris."   Again he paused as a chorus of agreement filled the crowded briefing room.  "Yet, as good Erisians, I'm sure you know that to deny the experience of Psionic power as in the Imperium, is a sure way to weaken ourselves.  If we are to fight an enemy who will stoop to using Psychic attack, we must understand the principles of such a skill.   The Daryen Military understands this also."   He leaned forward, through the indistinct glow of the holo-screen so that the outline of his darkened head and shoulders were surrounded by a corona of green light.
      "The person you are about to meet, indeed, everything you will learn in the next few weeks, is Top Secret.  You will not speak of it outside this room, or at any-time with anyone other than those you see in this room.  You are to be held to this by the document you signed prior to this briefing and, I would hope, by your own allegiance to myself and your fellow Erisians.  This particular person became one of us at great personal cost.  I would hope you will not endanger her further through careless talk."
       "No Sir!"  The unified chorus came, sounding surprisingly loud in the small space. 
       "Then, without further delays, may I present  Mirrinrjiashav, former Noble of the Zhodani Consulate."  The side door slid open to reveal a tall, lithe woman.  Her dusky skin and epifold eyes marking her clearly as one of Zhodani origins.  She was dressed simply, a one-piece suit of a sober, dark grey fabric, no ornamentation or Jewellery.  Her lustrous black hair tied back in a high, tight pony-tail.
      "Please,"  she began, in a soft, musical tone.  "You may all call me 'Mirrin,'  the rest is unnecessary..."  She paused, searching for the right words, "...a Relic of my past."   There was a some disquiet among the crowd as the origin of their new teacher became apparent to all.   She raised her voice sharply, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.   "Please, I know you have little reason to trust me.  But I assure you, I have cut myself off from my former people.  The best Daryen psychics, few though they are, scanned me for many months and were satisfied.  I am known to some of your own, for it was an Erisian vessel that ultimately rescued me from the Consulate.  I have been allowed here because there is no-one better qualified than myself to teach you about the Art of Psionics.  It might just save your lives, so listen to me.  Please."    Maybe it was her humble yet insistent tone, maybe her psychic gifts, or simply the unsettling reputation that those gifts gave the Zhodani people.  Whatever the reason, the room quietened, all attention focussed on the slim swarthy figure before them.

      "All sentient beings have Psychic potential.  Some of you might even have a great deal.  Unfortunately you are too old, too long untrained, to ever make real use of that ability.  However..."  Her voice cut through the quiet of the room like filiment wire through flesh.  "...None of you are incapable of learning to protect your minds from Psionic invasion.  Your strength, your determination in coming this far through your training has proven that you all have the necessary willpower.  The next few weeks will be hard.  You may come to hate me for them but, I assure you, I will make every effort to ensure you have to knowledge to protect yourselves without the need for any... electronic assistance."   Mirrin spat these last words out as if the very sound of them was distasteful to her.   Oriene had the clear impression that this woman's arrogance and ego were great, yet she sensed an earnestness in her words.  A desire to impart her knowledge on the assembled men and women, as if doing so would help redeem herself in their eyes.  She raised her hand.
        "Yes?"  Mirrin acknowledged.
       "Mirrin, surely... I mean... theoretically if we were captured by your people, would it not be obvious if we were resisting them..."  she shivered slightly, "...reading us... our mission, or whatever?"   The Zhodani gazed at her from across the room.  Despite the darkness, Oriene felt uncomfortably exposed.  She felt a shudder behind her eyeballs, Mirrins reply seemed to Oriene like a badly dubbed film, the words reaching her mind miliseconds before they were spoken.
       "A valid question.  I can see you are no fool... Oriene."   She smiled in an unsettling manner.  " Amongst the Noble class, my people have a saying, 'The Veiled Heart, the Open Mind.'  The trick is not in fighting a telepath, but rather in letting them 'read' what you think they want.  It is no great feat for a person to shape their thoughts, be selective with their memories and their feelings.  Indeed, one might say that this ability is the very definition of higher sentience."
       "I guess that makes Graz less sentient than the rest of us.... Its obvious what he's thinking!"  Dredh called out from the back.  There was a low chuckle from the crowd.  Graz himself flushing and looking away suddenly where previously his eyes had been fixed on Mirrin.  Everyone knew about his taste for 'exotic' girls.  The Commander started to open his mouth, angrily, but the Zhodani raised her hand, her head tilted, a slight smile on her lips. 
      "I think you all need a lot more training in protecting your innermost thoughts, Your own desires are more than obvious to me, also, Dredh Lexing."  The laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun and Mirrin continued with her lecture as smoothly as if the interruption had never happened at all.  

      "It is easy to shape ones thoughts, but less easy to maintain that structure under pressure.  However, I can show you techniques that even the strongest Psychics will practice.  For obvious reasons, it is not a habit for Zhodani to lie, to deliberately mislead others about themselves.  In the end, however, the mind is but a library of inter-relating experiences, how you arrange those experiences is entirely up to you."  She began to slowly ascend the steps that ran between the tiered seating.
      "First, however, you must learn to focus your mind.  Pure, inward-looking focus.  I have a mantra to teach you.  One which will be familiar to all of you.  This is the starting point for your training, foolish though it may sound, it will be the core of everything I teach you. I know you are not children, but in this you know less than Zhodani half your age, so humour me, if you please."    Her voice picked up, rhythmic, hypnotic.  Her musical accent perfectly suited for such things.  

      "Choose to Change, Stasis is Strange; Sedition, Deposition and Derangement are Arranged..."

Black.  White.  Black.  White.  
Oriene's lips moved, her eyes glazed, silently repeating the words in concert with the rhythmic interchange of light and dark. 

       For all his confident reassurances to Private Strell, the Sergeant was sweating by the time they reached the end of the corridor, which led to the auxiliary down-port.  He understood his men's fears and distrust of the Zhodani, for they were identical to his own.   What did Major Stane think he was playing at, allowing someone like this titchy-ling-ling guy on a high security prison facility?  He knew the Zhodani were meant to be allied with the Confederation but it didn't mean he or any other true-blooded Sword-Worlder wanted any dealings with Psychers.  The thought of anyone crawling about inside his mind, uncovering all his unpleasant secrets, left him feeling sickeningly vulnerable.  He looked down at the source of his troubles, who stared blankly at the ceiling, eyes glazed.  She seemed to be muttering something inaudible which only served to irritate the Sergeant further.  He tugged especially hard at his prisoners restraints, extracting a little cry of pain which did something to alleviate his discomfort, bringing a slight idiotic smile to his lips.

       He entered the code for the heavy door set into the tunnel wall, gesturing to the private to move forward as it slid open.   The guard on the other side saluted, handing him the keys for the inner door.  As he did so, the Sergeant whispered the code to him, that he might reset it with his own.  An extra safety measure.  The guard saluted, then wheeled and left, the door closing with a satisfying hiss and solid click.  The inner door was opened revealing another rough-walled room, carved straight out of the rock, as were the bench-like platforms that lined it.  It was intended as a temporary holding cell for particularly dangerous prisoners on arrival, awaiting transport or execution; however it had been deemed suitable for an interrogation of this nature.
      On a small, black, folding chair, their 'guest' sat.  Tall, Asiatic, clad head to toe in black; a placid, half-amused expression on his otherwise unrevealing features.  Unwilling to look him straight in the eyes, the Sergeant ordered Private Strell to move the prisoner and secure her to the nearest bench, adjusting the controls so the AG harness lowered her gently to the cold, rough-cut stone.   Strell did so, reluctantly, glancing up every few seconds at the Zhodani.  When he was certain she was securely restrained, he backed away to stand on the opposite side of the door from the Sergeant.  They both stared at the black-clad Psionicist, expectantly.
     
      Within the library of her own thoughts, her memory palace, Oriene continued her mental chant;  Choose to Change, Stasis is Strange; Sedition, Deposition and Derangement are Arranged... Behind the psychic static and personal peace that the Mantra brought, she began to arrange her thoughts and memories.  She pushed her training at the academy out of her mind. bringing forth only her childhood, her strongest feelings, Her rage, her helplessness, her love of the Erisian way.  She let all these stand out and focussed her defenses, her resistance, purely on those people she cared about.  Mel,  Dredh,  Besh-ba, Zin Alder, Doc Sharma... Erral.  All that had passed she let slip away, keeping only that which mattered to her in her minds eye.  The burning power of love, loss and revenge and, at the back of it all, Her hatred for The Sword-Worlds, The Zhodani, for everyone that had brought her misery and pain.

      "I am Tjienlingdzieper, Intendant Psychic Second Class." The Zhodani stood and introduced himself, bowing slightly.  "You wish me to begin."  His words were not a question, a simple statement of fact that, despite its obviousness, made the two soldiers distinctly uneasy.
      "Yes.... please continue."  The Sergeant said at last, fearful of prolonging the proceedings.  Private Strell stared, eyes darting to where his superior stood opposite; he thought it was the first time he had ever heard the Sergeant use the 'P' word with anyone, officer or otherwise.  "Stop gaping and start the recording!"  he barked in irritation.  Wisely letting pass the issue of the Sergeant's new-found politeness, Strell hurriedly activated the record function on the chamber's comm unit.
     The Zhodani had inclined his head with a sly smile, as if the sergeant's encouragement to continue simply confirmed what he already knew.  He removed his black gloves which he smoothed, folded and lay neatly on the chair before leaning forwards and placing his cool hands on Oriene's feverish brow for just a second, before pulling back suddenly.  
     "What is it?"  the Sergeant snapped.  Tjienlingdzieper blinked, then smirked.
     "Nothing really.  She is making static, nonsense rhymes to confuse my purpose.  A child's trick, easily by-passed.  It merely surprised me.  He placed his hands back down, his dark almond eyes gazing into her own, unfocussed grey pools, and reached into her mind....
     
       A low-lit room of pipes and plates.  An oily figure, stripped to the waste, towering above.  Running through corridors, staring at the alien, insect-like Hiver, the first she'd ever seen.  The dance of the tri-lunar eclipse at Epsilon, playing with Zin, her laugh as he spun her round the observation deck.  

     Locked in the realm of the mind, their eyes rolled up showing veined whites, The girl and the psychic seemed as living statues.  The two soldiers shifted uncomfortably as they watched the eerie spectacle. 
     "D-do you think this will take long?" Private Strell whispered, anxiously, to the Sergeant.
     "How should I know?!" he hissed in reply. 
     "I need to go...."
     "Like crap you do!  You're staying put til this is over, that's an order!"
Suddenly the Zhodani made a snorting noise, making both men start involuntarily.  A sideways grin had appeared on his narrow face.  He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, 'No...Deeper.  To the beginning." and was silent once more.

     A blur of confusion, of unsaid words, a sense of trepidation.  Cries.  Explosions.  A fine-featured man in the tower of glass staring  after her in a way which made her sad.  The comfort of her mothers arms, tight around her small frame, as she carried her away.  That same look as she was handed to the old lady in the shuttle.  An expression which she couldn't quite comprehend yet caused her to cry out all the same.  The desperate look on a blood streaked face.  A promise cut short by the hiss of a closing hatch.

More....

    Aurora cried out, her body spasmed as she came, white oblivion, an image of the boy...Erral... before her.  She cried again, agony lancing through her, body arched as if it would break, a thousand needles in every inch of her flesh as the sergeant leered and upped the voltage.... A grainy flash of white, nuclear fire as Nantuket Bay vanished forever,  The tears ran freely down her puppy-fat cheeks as she watched the holovid, hidden in Aunt Besh-ba's terminal where she thought it could not be found.  Pause. Rewind. Play.  The flash.  A whole city, her parents, vapourised.  A rush of boiling, freezing water, the biggest geyser ever seen on Entrope emerging from the ocean; a new plateau of glistening ice, half a mile high, formed in minutes.  Beautiful yet terrible.  Pause, Rewind, Play. Sorrow into anger into hatred.  The path to destruction.

    "She hates you for destroying her world." The Intendent said suddenly, distantly.  The Sergeant grunted. 
    "You don't say?"  he sneered, using sarcasm to cover his fear.   "This is a waste of time.  We're recording and you've hardly said a thing.  The Lieutenant wants to hear it all.  You've got a minute, you hear me?  Then this farce is over!"  
  
   The intruder was getting to the truth,  Oriene's own mind laid bare, viewed so dispassionately, stripped neatly, analytically, back, caused her to panic.  The fear focussed his attention, there was no time! She mustered her thoughts, turned fear to fury.  The time in her teens spent finding the truth that no-one liked to speak of.  The hours over documents, files, news-feeds, anything anyone who had been in the war would tell her.  She drew it all to the one who had managed the war for Entrope, the lackey who grew fat in their mind-fucking master's war, who chewed up and spat out Utopia without a thought.  She had never met him, but she thought fiercely of every moment she'd eagerly hoped to see his dismay, his fear as he fell to Erisian fire, Entropian Fury.  She had never seen him in the flesh, but she had his disgusting visage in her minds eye. The corpulant, ugly....

     "....flat nosed, pig eyed, droyne-shit, screw-cocked, corpse-raping monster, Major Stane!"   The Zhodani cried, pulling back his hands as he slumped on the stool gasping for breath.

Strell and the Sergeant stared at each other.  Suddenly, the Psychic had begun babbling, a stream of mostly nonsense that had ended with a tirade of hate directed at their own commander.  He spoke abruptly, his voice strained with exhaustion.
     "I...can try to retrieve... more..." 
     "Uh, no.  Thats..hem... enough."  The Sergeant said hurriedly.  "Time's up."   He chuckled nervously.  "She sure got the Major down right, eh, Strell?"  He addressed his junior companion, nudging him hard, who jumped then stared back in a bewildered manner before replying.
     "Ah... we're, em, still recording sir..."
     "What?!"
     "Sorry Sir, stopped it sir."
     "You delete that last comment, Private.  Its... out of context."
     "Yessir."  Strell smirked.
     "less of that!"  The sergeant warned, angrily.  "Go check on the prisoner."  Private Strell walked over, reluctantly, checking her pulse and shining a light into her blood-shot, vacant eyes.
     "She's still breathing, sir."
     "Shame.  Still, guess she was nothing more than a stinking Corsair-whelp after all."

    Oriene stared at the ceiling, the last of her strength spent, she barely heard what was said around her, she only knew it was over. Too exhausted to even know relief, she let unconsciousness claim her.

     Despite her abuses and privations, Oriene eventually recovered in the Prison Infirmary.  Anselhome was an unforgiving world and the work-camp, more so;  yet she had suffered worse.  She endured toxic fumes, bad food, atrocious working conditions with substandard equipment and more.  Even the soul-crushing task of rebuilding the damage she had worked so hard to cause slipped by her numbed mind.  She became an automaton and might have remained so, the physical, psychic and psychological abuse having strip-mined her spirit to a ragged gulf.  However, though it seemed that Oriene had given up on the Universe, it was soon to become clear that the Universe had far from given up on her.  

All she needed was a little kick-start...