Bialar sat absently tapping his stylus on the console before him. His tapping grew faster and more forceful until the console bleeped an error, interrupting his wandering thoughts. Talyn chirped a mild query, and Bialar shrugged. "Just bored, Talyn, that's all."

Bored and, yes, lonely. At this precise moment in time, in the mood he was in, Bialar would almost have welcomed the presence of that wrong-headedly stubborn human, Crichton. Almost. If only Aeryn Sun had agreed to join him on Talyn...

Bialar sat back in his chair, thoughts running over the same old ground again. Monens had passed since Talyn's rash and dangerous action against the Plokavian arms dealers. The result had been that he and the young leviathan were now persona non grata with all but the most desperate traders and arms merchants. There were few places they could safely go, few places to take on cargo, trade, or purchase needed items. Oh, to be sure there were countless beings who might consider Talyn's destruction of the Plokavian ship a just act. But these were not likely to consider this one act as cancellation or mitigation of their deeply rooted feelings toward PeaceKeepers, and toward Command Captain Crais, in particular. He would not trust himself to the compassion of others toward a PeaceKeeper renegade.

Bialar had thrown himself on the mercy of Moya's crew a number of times, and hadn't liked the feeling. They had rewarded his efforts with cynicism, suspicion, even outright hostility at times. On a good day he understood all of this, and the reasons for it. This was not one of his better days. He rose and paced a little, checked the readout again to see how far they were from the black hole of a commerce planet they were making for, and sat down again with a sigh. He was so bored it was becoming a physical tic of sorts, this pacing and sighing.

Over the last several weekens, Bialar had been training Talyn rigorously in all manner of warcraft. Aside from the benefits to Talyn, it also helped to relieve the weariness of space travel. Bialar had called up historical files on even the most ancient of space battles involving the PeaceKeepers. He had drilled Talyn in tactics, strategy, maneuvers. But, most importantly, he had chosen for his instruction those generals and commanders who had managed to find ways to win conflicts without weapons of mass destruction, without reducing rebelling colonies to dust, without blasting enemy ships to particles. He drove home again and again the point that a destroyed enemy could not be a potential future ally, or potential resource. Actions which recklessly endangered allied powers could result in the loss of those allies, either as a direct result of the battle or later, when they'd had time to think Talyn might not be such a good thing to have around, after all.

Ordinarily, Bialar wouldn't have considered looking outside the ranks of the PeaceKeepers for examples for Talyn. But it was true that those who had been most successful against PeaceKeeper Command throughout its history had been those who used guile, strategy and wits to prevail against the might of the PeaceKeeper armada. Almost anyone coming up against the PeaceKeepers was automatically outgunned. But PK Command could be outwitted, and had been on a number of occasions. He even found himself, much to his dismay, relating stories to Talyn of how Moya - unarmed - had outwitted or outrun his pursuit for over a cycle, and continued to elude Scorpius and the rest of the PK Command Carrier Group.

He hoped that, if nothing else, Talyn would absorb from his examples an understanding of how to rationally think out a problem, create a tactical advantage, and avoid wholesale destruction if at all possible, preserving options for the future. For now, that was all he could do. Unless or until he could disarm Talyn and install a dampening net, these lessons were his best chance at preventing another situation such as the Plokavian incident. Of course, if his teachings took root and grew as Talyn matured, the rest would be unnecessary. He sincerely hoped so.

*****

Still a weeken away from their destination, Talyn and Bialar pressed onward in a kind of bleary daze. The view changed hardly at all from day to day. There was no contact with other ships. Their course took them past most planetary systems without the suns becoming more than bright discs in the distance, and the planets remained invisible.

Bialar's thoughts continued to run over the same ground, again and again. Lately, however, thoughts of Aeryn Sun kept resurfacing. And his faithful, doomed lieutenant, Teeg. And Tauvo! He hated to admit it, even to himself, but Bialar was incredibly lonely. In his life he had always remained separate from others, self-contained and needing no one. Only Tauvo had been really close to him. It had been by choice. But even in his aloneness, he had never been this alone.

Talyn was as close and dear to him as Tauvo had ever been. But Talyn was, and always would be, different. There was no physical closeness, no true sense of camaraderie gained from experiences shared, although that part was changing. Actually, Bialar thought, while the lack of physical contact was a large part of his unease and boredom, Talyn's alienness was no barrier to emotional and mental closeness. The true problem was Talyn's age. He was a youngster, a child. He could interact with the young leviathan on a parent-child basis, but not as an equal, a peer. He missed association with an intellectual equal quite as much as he missed physical communion with other sebaceans, including female companionship.

He was in the cargo bay, simply standing there, his thoughts rambling idly through his head. He was considering whether he should run himself through yet another round of calisthenics or weight-training exercises to keep him occupied, when Talyn's proximity tocsin suddenly went off, shrieking through the living ship like a strangled Trelkez. Instantly he knew that another ship had appeared from nowhere, taking the dozing leviathan unawares. He snapped mental and vocal commands and he took off for the command deck, racing up the gangways and down corridors. The fleeting mental image he had was of a PeaceKeeper ship - a command carrier! He didn't stop to wonder why a command carrier was out here in the furthest backwaters of the Uncharted Territories, but immediately began considering options to keep himself and Talyn unharmed and free.

There was no time for fancy tactics, for the elusive guile he'd been trying to teach Talyn. Now was the time for action and force. But as soon as he'd issued the order to prime and fire the main cannon, he knew it was too late. Talyn was confused, unable to respond. His weapons systems were down, and he was unable to fire. During Talyn's few microts of hesitation - dictated by the cautious strategies Bialar had been drilling into him - the PeaceKeeper ship had deployed a dampening net. It was exactly the maneuver Bialar had hoped to use with Talyn, once they'd secured the defensive weapon for themselves.

By the time he had reached his position at the command console and taken in the situation in detail, Bialar knew he was finished. Talyn, at least, would live. PK Command would want him very badly for the fleet. But that was his own former carrier out there. Commanding it, he knew, was Scorpius. With the few microts left to him, Bialar destroyed the spare neural transponder - twin to that implanted in his own brain - and emptied the weapons locker of anything he could use to take a few of his former comrades with him. Fully armed, he began transmitting a short, rapid message and data stream. The chances were slim that the call might find Moya, but even a slim chance was better than leaving Talyn in Scorpius' hands. If Moya heard the call and came, Aeryn Sun might find a way to use the neural transponder she still possessed after the Plokavian disaster.....

To be Continued...