A/N: As usual, I don't own them, no money, yada yada.

WTF? He's still writing? I guess so. Magic, ain't it?

This one has more action and less angst, so it moves faster - almost too fast, so no one panic if I edit it tomorrow after thinking some more. And I simply adore stealth!Simon. Please sing the James Bond theme when you see him appear.

For everybody who's lost as all hell, here's a link to the previous chapter:

If that doesn't help (and it probably won't), feel free to re-read the whole thing. Come on. You know you want to.

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It wasn't often appreciated how hard it was to navigate in space. Unlike land navigation, where a simple two-dimensional map - with optional topographic information if one was feeling detail oriented - would suffice, interplanetary navigation required a lot more work. Not only was the area to cover much larger, but all the things in the system were constantly moving - planets orbited suns, moon orbited those orbiting planets, comets and asteroids zoomed about all over the place, and random space debris and derelict hulks floated wherever they had been abandoned. Not only did each of these things provide a hazard to navigation, but they made for a bigger dilemma: with no fixed landmarks, how the hell did you know where you were in the first place?

To help alleviate this problem, the Alliance had placed several "beacons" in their wake as the first wave of new colony ships had pushed out from the inner Core. Each terraformed planet had at least one - and usually several - in orbit around it, as well as lines of beacons marking the boundaries of standard trading lanes. The beacons themselves were marvels of technology: powered by a uranium core and stabilized by internal gyroscopes, the beacons could ensure they held their position in space almost indefinitely, accurate to within half a meter. They provided a time stamp, Cortex relay, and position to any ship's computer tha