Chapter 81

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Admiral Lynette Devereux considers she might have to take steps to curtail John's influence in the future.
* Charles Harris is going to trade Kintark heatsink schematics for some of John's tech, and he'll let Devereux claim credit if she gets him into High Command.
* Tashana gets pyrokinesis (again). John explains everything that's happened to her, including the betrayals of Edraele and Irillith. Tashana decides not to tell them.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* Admiral Lynette Devereux considers she might have to take steps to curtail John's influence in the future.
* Charles Harris is going to trade Kintark heatsink schematics for some of John's tech, and he'll let Devereux claim credit if she gets him into High Command.
* Faye starts to obsess over how to protect the team.
* John's grandmother Eva and grandfather Don wanted him to take over the restaurant one day, running the family business that had been in Blake hands for several generations. He could still remember the look of shock on their faces when he informed them that he’d chosen to follow his mother’s footsteps and join the Terran Federation military instead. There had been heated words and impassioned arguments before they relented, but that fleeting look of despair they’d shared had always stayed with him - their fear that they might lose their grandson in the same way that they’d lost their daughter.
* **The Brimorian Annex:** There’s a strip of territory along the border of the Terran Federation and the Brimorian Enclave called the Callopean Shoals. It’s made up of nearly a dozen systems, all of which contain oceanic planets covered in small atolls. They’d make perfect worlds for Terran settlers, so when the Terran Federation first discovered them, there was a sudden rush to colonise these new planets. This was before initial contact had been made with the Brimorians and they didn’t take kindly to another empire trying to settle on worlds that they’d already colonised. It ended in a protracted skirmish. When the Terran colonists refused to evacuate those planets, hundreds of them were killed by the Brimorians. The Terran Federation was eager for revenge, but this was nearly a hundred years ago, during a Kirrix resurgence. The military was already fully engaged in a major war with the bugs and it would’ve been extremely reckless to start a second war against another empire. In the end, the Terrans backed down and let the Brimorians keep all the systems. Thirty years ago, the Terran military launched an assault on the Callopean Shoals and conquered a couple of systems. The Brimorians fought back, but both sides were fairly evenly matched and it ended in a stalemate. There’s been an uneasy truce for the last three decades.
* Tashana tried to have sex with John, but ended up hyperventilating. They had sex anyway and she gets pyrokinesis (again). John explained everything that's happened to her, including the betrayals of Edraele and Irillith. Tashana decided not to tell them.
* Tashana started calling John "**Baen'thelas**": The Righter of Wrongs.
* Faye goes over the final details of her plan as she watch over the sleeping crew.
* Mikaboshi is planning revenge on John Blake.

### Abilities

Tashana gets **pyrokinesis** (again).

* Suddenly flickering flames burst to life around her fingertips, both of them reeling back from them in shock.