Contents
Seventeen
Overview
Jessyn and Garral shelter with tutors Manta and Omco, a group of orphaned children, and Corvall, a human soldier in living armor from an anti-Carryx faction. Corvall proposes signaling rescue and using a device to briefly disable Carryx ships. Realizing rescuers might obliterate the helpless targets—with her aboard—Jessyn forces a condition: Garral must ensure the rescuers spare the disabled ships. The plan proceeds under this fraught caveat.
Summary
In a cave refuge, Jessyn waits with tutors Manta and Omco and their students while Garral and Omco labor through translation with Corvall, a black, armored soldier. The teachers manage the traumatized children as Garral explains his progress; the family of every child was killed in the Carryx assault, and Corvall has been protecting them.
Garral reports that Corvall is human—part of a coalition fighting the Carryx—and that his living armor is sustaining a grievously injured body with dwindling resources. The Carryx usually torture prisoners; domesticating Anjiin’s survivors is news to them. Corvall’s squad crashed; he is the only survivor.
As night falls, the group eats and settles. Jessyn and Garral share quiet intimacy and grief; Garral admits fear for his sons left on Anjiin. Jessyn wrestles with her own medical vulnerability and exhaustion.
At dawn, Corvall presents a plan: Manta will lead the children to a fallback campsite; Jessyn, Garral, Omco, and Corvall will reach the crash site to activate an emergency beacon that should draw Corvall’s allies. Corvall expects to die. He will also give Jessyn and Garral a device to infiltrate and briefly disable Carryx ships so a rescue can extract the children during the power window.
Jessyn realizes a critical flaw: if rescuers arrive expecting Corvall but find only civilians and disabled enemy ships, they will likely destroy the grounded Carryx craft—killing Jessyn if she is still aboard. She demands Garral ensure the rescuers spare any ship she is in and argues he must go with the children to communicate the condition. Garral resists, then concedes to deliver the warning; the group prepares to move under this tense condition.
Who Appears
- JessynPragmatic survivor; protects children, shares intimacy and grief with Garral, identifies the rescue plan’s fatal flaw and imposes conditions.
- GarralLinguist-turned-mediator; translates with Omco, confirms Corvall’s origins, mourns his sons, and agrees to warn rescuers not to attack disabled ships.
- CorvallHuman soldier in living armor; sole crash survivor, protects orphans, proposes beacon rescue and provides a device to disable Carryx ships, expecting to die.
- OmcoLanguage tutor; bridges communication with Garral, helps manage children, slated to travel with the strike group to the crash site.
- MantaTutor and caretaker; organizes and soothes the children, leads them to a fallback campsite for safety.
- ChildrenOrphaned students from the captured city; traumatized, reliant on Manta and Omco for stability and evacuation.