The Plasma Master

  * * *

  Standing at his side was Mirana Kelar. She was invisible, of course; she did not yet feel ready to face her adopted family. But she needed to see Gerran and Rinel happy again, reunited and free to enjoy the rest of their lives in peace. If she had done nothing else, Mirana had given them that peace, and for them she could think of no greater gift.

  After the ceremony, Mirana returned to Nemesis and left orbit. She had many things to do in the months ahead; she had only scratched the surface of her agenda in her conversation with Ned. She felt a debt to both Gerran Marnax and to the Empire he had fought against, and she intended to find a way to repay it, to whatever extent that was possible. She also needed time for some serious self-reflection; she had gone to such a great effort to hide who she really was and what her motives were that she had to wonder how well she really knew herself.

  And the Plasma. Mirana’s few conversations with Ned had shown her that there was a great deal about the Plasma that she did not understand. Why was the Shadow Plasma so powerful? How did it make her invisible? How, exactly, was it transferred to the warp drive on Nemesis? Why were her Shadow Plasma blasts black instead of invisible? The questions intrigued her, and she intended to answer them all.

  She realized that all her questions might take years to answer, though, and there were matters that needed resolution before then. Eventually she would have to face Gerran and Rinel and explain herself to them. At some point she would have to attempt to discover what had happened to Dark Viper. In the back of her mind, she suspected that finding the answers she sought would require her to someday seek out Ned Simmons again. She was not sure yet how she felt about that, but the prospect was certainly interesting.