All wasn’t well. Tennal’s skin felt too small, like the whole atmosphere of a planet forced into a bottle. On top of that, there were two of him where there should be one. But at least the other in his mind had power he could use to take out his enemy. He drained energy from Surit as he went. As he did so, he had something that wasn’t a memory, more an ancestral instinct: a flash of duels where one mind the size of a star would shatter another open. He didn’t have enough power for that, but he could try. He could try that.

“Tennal!”

The voice was irrelevant. Tennal’s eyes were fixed on Oma’s back.

Tennalhin Halkana! Withdraw!

The command went straight to his brain. Tennal’s body stopped, then flung itself abruptly backward.

In front of him, a stray burn shot that would have killed him seared into the opposite wall.

Now run.

Tennal ran.

He abandoned the legislator’s body. He abandoned his attempt to get to Oma. He dodged fighting soldiers and overturned chairs to get out of the room as fast as his body would let him. Everything narrowed to that single command: run.

Surit had backed up to a side door, his own capper out. His face was ashen. He didn’t have to speak; Tennal knew he would lay down covering fire as Tennal dived for the door, then he’d back out after Tennal, frantically closing the service door as he went.

Of course, Surit didn’t have to speak. It was his write command making Tennal run.

The command didn’t let up. Tennal grimly sprinted up two flights of stairs, his breath ripping from his lungs with every step. Surit ran silently, efficiently. They had to flatten themselves to the wall to avoid a line of rankers hurrying the other way, reinforcements for the chaotic fight in the docking bay. An alarm sounded over their head, and another farther up. More were shrilling all over the station. Archer Link Station was at war.

Tennal’s mind played, again and again, the legislator’s slow collapse to the floor. The awful loop wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t make himself turn around. He ran away because Surit was writing him through the sync, because Tennal couldn’t even start to defend against that. There was nothing foreign to defend against; it was like a decision from Tennal’s own brain. Tennal had been written many times before. Never like this.

They broke into a corridor, and the command emanating from Surit finally stopped.

Tennal collapsed against the wall, barely standing. “You absolute fucker.”

“You nearly got shot.”

“You wrote me.” It could barely be called writing. Surit’s intentions had tapped straight into Tennal’s spinal cord.