Jay tried to pay attention to the conversation as best he could. Cluster 2’s representative was arguing that someone named Gung Han didn’t have enough of a mind left to be held culpable for his actions in the attack. He glanced over at the man they were talking about. Sure, enough it was the mountain of muscle that had helped Li Wei in the attack before.
A scan revealed extraordinarily little thought in the man’s head. Which corresponded with this woman’s claims that Li Wei had obliterated most of the man’s mind. He also wasn’t holding any type of PSI skill at the ready. Jay was still conscious of the man’s strength, but his fuses could undoubtedly handle themselves.
Then another thought crossed his mind. He combo’d Hyper Accuracy with Precognition and Temporal Manipulation. Suddenly potential futures started to unfold before him. In three-quarters of the futures if he didn’t make himself known soon, a fight would break out. It was hard to tell the outcomes because the further ahead that he saw the more tangled the threads of time became and he didn’t know what to expect.
What he did know though was that if a fight broke out, many of the members of Cluster 2 were going to die, including some of the children caught in a crossfire. Some of the flickers of images that he caught also showed the potential that some of his fuses would be hurt. They were powerful but only a fool would disregard the possibility that some of these women had skills that could damage his other parts.
As his intention to intervene firmed up in his mind, new possibilities spun out. Still a full third of the time, the women all attacked his group. He needed to defuse this situation and if he couldn’t then he would have to act decisively to end the threat.
Jay first telepathically said, “They are holding onto powers and preparing to attack. Let me try to talk first but I need you to all be ready to fight. Focus on defending each other. If it comes to killing, I will handle that.”
Then he allowed himself to be seen and verbally said, “Everyone needs to calm down.”
The spokeswoman turned to see him appear as though from nowhere. She turned and glanced at the woman holding the field that was weakening PSI powers, but the woman simply shrugged. “I’m Jay, for better or worse, I am currently the leader of the remnants of humanity. We shouldn’t be fighting each other. So, who are you?”
“I’m Li Ming, and I speak for Cluster 2 now that Li Wei is dead,” she replied with a deadpan stare.
“That isn’t what we agreed to. I will be the leader now. Gung Han is too brainless to lead, and I was Li Wei’s second anyway,” said a man from the back of the cluster.
“Look, we should probably just lay our cards on the table,” Jay said even as he erected a PSI construct to protect him and the rest of his team. “I know that you are trying to dampen our ability to detect anything. I know that many of you are holding attacks ready and waiting for some signal. I’ve also seen the future play out before my eyes.
“It isn’t an exact science and there are many possibilities but in all of them your cluster loses many lives and ends up defeated. This is a certainty. So, we can either fight and you will die first, or we can talk. I have a proposition that I want to run by you.”
It was clear then that telepathic communication was going on between them, but Jay found that he wasn’t able to press into the stream of thought. At least not without pushing extremely hard. He didn’t want them to realize that he was invading their minds, so he contented himself with watching their faces and body language.
Whatever argument they were having came to an end and the man stepped forward. “You can call me Shu. We would like to hear your proposition.”
Jay paused for a moment and then sighed. “I will just lay it out for you. We can’t trust you or your cluster and it is going to take time to build trust. We need to because there are far too few humans left for us to not get along. But, right now, I am on a mission to save my son who was taken by one of the A’snkarnt. I won’t let anything stand in the way of that.”
Shu nodded and said, “Family is important, but what does this have to do with us.”
“Simply put, there can’t be people moving around on this ship that I don’t trust. So that leaves me with three options. We could find a way to put you off somewhere, but I don’t really have time to find a planet that you all could survive on,” Jay said.
At that point some of the women from Cluster 2 started shouting things like, “You can’t do that to us,” or “We have every bit as much right to be here as you do,” even, “Think about the children.”
Jay waited for Shu to regain control of the group although once again he identified the woman who had been speaking first as someone who wasn’t really under Shu’s control. She was definitely going to bear watching.
Then Jay continued, “I know that isn’t a desirable option, but you also need to know that I won’t let anything stand in the way of me saving my son. Although, honestly, I would also fight for any of your
