Chapter 110

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* John has an epiphany: As long as they make sure they're always fighting for what’s right, the moral issues he's been struggling with no longer seem quite so important.
* Mason Newmont, furious over Lynette Devereux blaming his father, gets drunk and becomes violent. Admiral Morgan gives him a few days to decide if he wants to stay in the military.
* Suddenly realizing they have less time than they thought, the team decides to go to Brecken's World first to maximize the number of colonists they can rescue. However, it still means abandoning 32,000 colonists.
* Dana designs Pulsed Tachyon Lances.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* The Invictus is heading to ~~Menganus IV~~ Brecken's World.
* John feeds Helene and the new Nymphs. Jade tells John she's growing *very fond* of Helene, in a pairing-off sort of way.
* Alyssa discusses the Hive Mind in the debrief. The Kirrix seem to be under the impression that the Shroud is a vast psychic dampening field, so they use sentient hosts as a booster to compensate for its effects.
	+ The Shroud seems to cover Terran Space too. If the Kirrix discovered that its border ended inside Federation territory, they would have thrown everything they’ve got into a massive invasion. They’re desperate to escape from under the Shroud’s influence.
	+ The Hive Mind only showed Alyssa their recent attempts to re-establish their old symbiotic lifecycle with the Luphids. It ended in disaster; the drones couldn’t speak to the Hive Mind and went crazy, so they had to be put down.
	+ The team supports xenocide of the Kirrix. Although something messed the Kirrix up a long time ago that wasn’t their fault, they’ve behaved like dicks for thousands of years. While the Kirrix do feel remorse for using sentient creatures as hosts, they have no intention of stopping. John's instincts are that they're a blight on the galaxy and should be exterminated, but of course he's worried about where that path might lead. Irillith suggests staying the course: killing any that cross their path, but they're not worth the effort to wipe them out.
* John has an epiphany: As long as they make sure they're always fighting for what’s right, the moral issues he's been struggling with no longer seem quite so important.
	+ Sakura notes the girls aren't remorseless killing machines, but more like John's instruments of justice in an unjust galaxy.
* They weren't just fighting the Hive Queen. She was channelling the psychic might of the entire Kirrix Hive Mind.
* Alyssa was using runes on her fists to amplify the psychic strength of her attacks. John's going to teach her another set to reduce the amount of psychic energy required.
* Dana's gravity well worked on the guardians despite their hex-shields, because hex-shields are only designed to block direct physical attacks. The gravity well was simply an environmental effect, so the shields were unable to prevent the Kirrix being lifted into the air.
* The weird vane on the Kirrix dreadnought had psi amplifiers, a bit like the ones the Ashanath use, but designed for broadcasting and receiving signals, rather than focusing a psychic’s strength. Dana could incorporate an improved version of the psi-emitters to make it easier for a weaker psychic to use, someone like an Ashanath engineer.
* Alyssa doesn't know for sure if the Kirrix are retreating, but she scared the shit out of the Hive Mind when she threatened to blow up Kirr-Inax. While she was finishing off the Hive Queen, she said she'd do the same thing to any others she caught in friendly territory.
	+ The problem is that they probably took the captured colonists with them.
* The team faces a dilemma: The Kirrix have probably already left Valia Gate and Menganus IV, which have roughly 32,000 colonists combined. Brecken's World is the closest, and has 120,000 colonists. They decide to go with the latter.
* Mason Newmont, furious over Lynette Devereux blaming his father, gets drunk and becomes violent when security officers tried to take him to medical. He shouts numerous profanities, mostly casting aspersions as to the parentage of Devereux. When he's finally restrained, he delivered threats to High Command until he's sedated. Admiral Morgan gives him a few days to consider whether he wants to continue in the military. As Mason left, Morgan couldn’t help noticing the repressed anger in his stiff posture, or the way his hands were clenched into fists.
* Alyssa suggests a way to help the twins, but John is too horrified at first to even consider it. The idea was to have Tashana relive her rape by the Bolon but with a different ending. John makes her a collar as a reminder of the people who care for her, and what would happens if anyone tries to harm her. It works.
* Almari and Lilyana are now less than a day away from Trankara, and transmit the Brimorian shield and Kintark heatsink schematics to Niskera.
* Niskera can't reply directly to Alyssa, only having an empathetic connection to her, so when Alyssa seems flustered, Niskera focuses on feelings of confusion and concern, knowing that she would feel those emotions.
* Dana designs Pulsed Tachyon Lances.

### Minor Characters

* Flintlock: Captain.
* Paul Richards: Commander.
* Alexander Morgan: Admiral.
* Tom Walker: Commander.
* Mason Newmont: Commander.
* Thandrun: Fleet Warden.
* Niskera: Queen
* Almari
* Lilyana
* Jehanna Elani