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Season 8! Some new folks join, and get thrown into the fire immediately.

I told you this would make it longer than the 7 seasons allotted to Star Trek series. This is a clean chapter, but it sets up the general thrust of this season, which I have outlined and have started writing. Apologies for the delay, and the relative quiet this year. It has been... an unpleasant one. Patreon folk have had early access to these and the final chapters of Crucible. I will get those cleaned up and posted, now. I am still alive, is the critical thing. I guess that's good? Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute--as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

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Tales of the Dark Horse, by Rob Baird

S8E1, “A First Time for Everything"

Stardate 68030

Captain's log, stardate 68030

We've been ordered to rendezvous with TCS Polaris_, currently serving as Admiral Mercure's flagship. According to the recall transmission,_ the Dark Horse will be taking on new supplies, as well as some additional crew. I've been asked to speak with the admiral as soon as docking maneuvers are complete, and to bring Petty Officer Kimura with me.

Given that, the real purpose of this diversion from our mission is no doubt in response to our failure to acquire a working copy of the Pictor's hyperspace weapon. This is what Commander Bradley would refer to as “facing the music," I believe.

“I'll get right to business," Mercure said. “The team from RCL has expressed some concerns about the after-action report you submitted."

“Concerns, sir?" Kimura asked. “In what sense?"

“You understand, Kiko, that I'm… but an old man," Mercure began. “I don't follow their reasoning. But, according to them, there's no explanation for the catastrophic failure of the weapon's core."

Maddy scowled. “Permission to speak freely, sir?"

“You always have that, captain."

“What the fuck are they on about? I'm but an old woman, and maybe I've missed something. But nobody's seen, or built, a weapon like this before. My science officer tells me some of the physics are pulled straight from the latest best-selling novels. I'm not impressed that some RC eggheads don't like how their theories pan out in the real world. We're still patching up the damage from that test."

Kimura had not discussed with her captain the possibility of the 'eggheads' at Research Center Leonardo conveying their concerns to Admiral Mercure. And she had, particularly, not discussed the notion that now occurred to her: “I know what they're on about. They're wrong, sir, but I understand it."

Mercure listened patiently. “Where does that leave us, then, Ms. Kimura?"

“Does the Admiralty intend to continue researching hyperspace weaponry?"

The old lion shrugged, faintly, to add emphasis to the answer that followed. “Who can say? We still don't know if it's possible that the Pictor have more of them. Some of my colleagues view this as the greatest existential threat that we've faced."

By which he meant—and Kiko understood—that the Admiralty absolutely intended to continue their work at Leonardo. “They need someone with experience. Otherwise, next time, we might not be so lucky. Captain," she added, turning to the Akita. “With all due respect, I haven't been as useful to you as I would've liked. And I'm not going to be as useful here as I am there. I should return to my previous posting."

“I'd hate to lose you," Maddy said. The red panda had, if nothing else, brought a new and more academic perspective to the engineering department. And, she did not add, some powerful new tools in case we run up against the Pictor again. “But I did know this was always going to be temporary. Admiral?"

“We can send her back to Leonardo and transfer her to that project. Of course, your real-world knowledge would be invaluable there. If that's what you want, Kimura."

“It's the right thing to do, whether I want it or not. I'm putting myself in for a transfer, sir, yes."

“Consider it done. You can come back to find me whenever you're ready."

“I should finish up a couple of reports. Speak to some of the others here," she added. She had more than a few goodbyes to say, although—like May—she was not convinced they would be permanent by any means. “But I can be ready within the day, sir."

“Good. Can she be dismissed, captain?"

“I think so. Good luck, Petty Officer Kimura. I've appreciated having you aboard."

Kiko smiled, and nodded her agreement. “I've appreciated being here, ma'am."

Mercure waited for the red panda to leave, and then folded his paws on the table. “I have my doubts, too, Captain May. I'm not convinced the after-action you submitted was entirely… complete."

“You have the same data that I do, sir. I have to trust my people."

“So do I." He held her in a long, hard gaze. “Was it worth it, May?"

“Was what worth it?"

“Fabricating those reports."

“Yes."

“Do you know what actually happened?"

“Sort of."

“Enough to explain it to me?"

The Akita thought about that—not what she was comfortable telling him but what, truthfully, she could explain. “No. I don't think so, sir, to be honest. Really honest."

“That's too bad. I can only wildly speculate, in that case. Hopefully Kimura will be able to cover your tracks. And hers. And mine, apparently. Here's my problem, Captain May: your name is becoming… known again. The Admiralty has finally realized just how off-leash they've left the Rewa-Tahi mission."

“And they don't like it?"

His eyes narrowed. “Consider it from their perspective. You destroyed that weapon despite the best minds in the Star Patrol believing the salvage was a safe idea. You've granted asylum to at least one alien and one… well, whatever 'civilian' that Abyssinian is, you're keeping her aboard, too."

“That's right…"

“Both of them have presumably been given access to highly classified information. You make a regular habit of meddling in the affairs of other cultures, and you never got the COD liaison you were supposed to ship out with."

Maddy shrugged, less subtly than was Mercure's habit. “That's also right. But look at our results, sir."

“I know. The Admiralty is aware of that, too. That's kept you in what passes for their good graces, considering your history. But they do want you kept close. We're installing a prototype long-range transmitter—an enhanced version of the holographic system your engineers developed. The Admiralty intends to receive regular reports from you."

“How complete do you expect them to be?"

“As complete as you can make them. My understanding is that the transmitter may not be fully compatible with this ship's systems, given how old they are. Your chief engineer will do the best she can, I'm sure."

The Akita sighed; it was, to some degree, inevitable. “Yes, sir."

“I'll do the best I can on my side. But, captain, I need two favors from you in exchange."

“What sort of favors?"

“First, keep the Dominion in the war. None of the admirals are so stupid as to be blind to the effect you have on the Uxzu. We need their help. You've inflicted two costly defeats on the Pictor—tactical victories that have cut off their ability to quickly bring the war to a close. But that means it'll need to be won conventionally, and they have even more advantages there. Our planners believe we need at least another year to bring production and training up to full speed. Until then…"

“Until then, I'll be the best friend the Uxzu have in the TC, sir."

“Good. That speaks volumes. It definitely speaks more than any report you could send us."

“What's the second favor?"

“I indicated that you'd be resupplied and receive additional crew." He passed her a computer across the table. “Here are the relevant personnel details you should be aware of."

Her biometric signature unlocked the computer automatically. A few of the names were those already on her crew. The rest were ones she'd never heard of before. One of the former, in particular, caught her attention. “Dr. Beltran is being recalled?"

“Dr. Beltran is being extended a new offer. The details are classified—to both of us—but I'm told it's a compelling one. The Ministry wants her back, captain. If she takes it, I'll have a new diplomat assigned from my flagship. Once they get up to speed, you'll be able to count on them."

She sighed again. “It'll be a loss, though. What about these others? Anything I should know?"

“They're the kind of people you'd expect. Solid performers who don't quite… fit in… on other ships, and could use a new home before they're bounced out of the Star Patrol. Do you follow?"

“You need them kept out of trouble."

“No. I don't care what trouble they, or you, get into—as long as it's in service of the mission. But I need to not hear about it for a while. Can you do that?"

“Sure. Well…" the Akita thought it over a second time. “How am I supposed to do that if I'm also supposed to be in regular contact with you and the Admiralty? They'll want detailed reports."

“I know, captain."

“You want me to… what? Lie?"

“I am not going to tell a captain in the Star Patrol to lie, Madison. I want you to be as clear and as forthcoming as you possibly can. You'll figure out a way to make it happen."

This brooked a final, deeper sigh. “Yes, sir."

“I told the Admiralty I would give you my frank assessment. Here it is, May: keep up the good work."

***

“I get a new friend. That's what Commander Bradley said." That was Mitch's take. She grinned when she said it, although her good mood was helped by the fact that, at the moment, nothing required her attention. “I like new friends. I like seeing how they figure out this ship's hardware. Siraj was a quick study, at least. What about you?"

Eli shook her head. Everyone had heard rumors that the Dark Horse was having her crew augmented, along with gaining some new equipment. None of the new equipment was for the engines, though, and she hadn't been on shift with Dave Bradley, who was responsible for the ship's personnel. “Nothing so far. Dr. Schatz?"

“Yeah, doc. We have new scientists?"

“They don't tell me anything," Barry said, looking up briefly from the captain's chair he was occupying for the duration of a quiet watch, with their ship still docked to the Polaris. He was, unlike Mitch, at least taking advantage of that to catch up on his work. “I wouldn't mind some help, but I'm pretty sure they're sending us more soldiers. None of the new equipment is scientific, either, unless you count upgraded probes."

“What is it, anyway?" Mitch asked. “We have a scheduled computer shutdown two shifts from now. I have to get up early to make sure everything restarts successfully. Ask me how happy I am about that."

“Um. Upgraded tactical scanners, and replacement power couplings that are supposed to be better than the old stuff we have that keeps frying. From what I can remember, anyhow. A long-range holo-transmitter. Oh, and some new fabrication machinery."

“Ooh. Ooh," the Abyssinian repeated, a gleam beginning to take root in her eyes. “Like a PNA synthesizer? A Fujitsu M30? That'd fit in the machining bay. You think they'll let me play with that?"

“I have no idea. The engineering department will be responsible. Ask Spaceman Wallace."

Her tail was beginning to lash back and forth. “Mm. I bet I could design some new sensors for you, doc. They'd have to let me use it then, right?"

“Probably."

Detailed, dangerous thoughts had already crept into the Abyssinian's head, ready to be nurtured. She was still grinning, several minutes later, when the bridge door opened and a new face appeared. “Hello? Are you lost?"

The new person was another feline, a clouded leopard with sharp teeth and a long tail that put Mitch's own to shame. “I doubt it. There's only one bridge, right? Are you the officer of the deck?"

Mitch pointed to Dr. Schatz, who stood to greet the woman. “That's me. Barry—ah, doctor—Lieutenant. Lieutenant Schatz."

“Mei Parizeau, reporting for duty." She stepped forward, and gave Barry/Dr./Lt. Schatz a data chip to inspect.

The Border Collie tapped it against his computer, and read the results aloud. “Chief Warrant Officer Parizeau. From the… Carrol Equinox?"

“Sort of. TCS Kennedy, really. 16th Fleet, reserve. It's a long story, sir. I'm a pilot. When I came aboard, they told me I should head to the bridge for orientation and training."

“Well, I… wait, who's 'they'? Commander Bradley?"

“I think so, sir. Another dog. Floppy ears," she said, pantomiming them with her fingers. “David?"

“Commander Bradley," Barry said, nodding. “Well, um… the helm is there, where Elissa is sitting. She can help you. Probably."

“Elissa… Parnell?" Mei asked.

Mitch's tail, which she'd kept still out of some sense of decorum, returned to its excited waving. “Oh, look at that. You do get a new friend."

Eli Parnell was, like Maddy, aware that her name did not exactly come with positive connotations. There were few good reasons for anyone unfamiliar to know it. She stood, cautiously, and waited for the clouded leopard to approach. “Lieutenant Parnell, that's right."

“You're the one who crashed a Star Patrol corvette into an orbital supply depot?"

The wolf twitched an ear, and tried to block Mitch Alexander's fanged grin out of her peripheral vision. “It was a communications relay."

“I rammed a transport ship! But we knew your name in the auxiliaries, anyhow. Nice to meet you—Lieutenant Parnell? Ma'am? How do you folks do this?"

Elissa was not at the stage of her life where she was comfortable being saluted at all, let alone by someone who introduced herself by saying I rammed a transport ship. “Eli, I guess. Eli's fine. Do you have any familiarity with these old controls?"

“Shit, yeah. How else do you think I rammed that transport?" She leaned down, looking at the throttles, and briefly licked one of her fangs. “Roland! I knew it. You can still see the logo engraved on the plate, right here. Titan M320s, right?"

“Yes. Well, 322-Es."

“Even better. The up-rated ones. Wright-Carrol is still keeping their Titans around. You don't get sublight performance like that these days. Nobody cares, that's the real problem—honestly, that's the only regret I have about destroying the Carrol—"

“Y…es," Eli interrupted. She was keeping herself positioned between Parizeau and the woman's ability to actually occupy the pilot's station. “You've mentioned ramming a ship several times now. What… happened?"

“Kind of a long story. Like I said."

“Can we get… you know, a summary?"

“Uh… yeah, okay," Mei said, as though the thought had not previously occurred to her but she now saw the wisdom. “I was an officer for Wright-Carrol—they're a freight company based out of Delta Carrolia, with some CMM commitments. Star Patrol chartered the Carrol Equinox as a supply tender about nine months ago when this shit all kicked off. I was first mate. But it was basically a KDY Majestic, and I came up as a pilot on early KDYs. So I took the helm a lot, too."

“Didn't they stop making Majestics in, like, 2700? There's one on Clearwater as a museum ship, I think." In point of fact, having broken into it once or twice as a kid, Mitch Alexander knew its disposition for certain, but not all of her youthful indiscretions were—or needed to be—public. “Is Wright-Carrol one of, uh, those kind of companies?"

Mei winked at Mitch. And, then, gave her the kind of smile that told the Abyssinian she, at least, was going to have a new friend irrespective of how things worked out with Eli. “They are definitely 'one of those companies.' Our flotilla got jumped by a Pictor attack squadron; we lost the hyperdrive and all our defensive systems in the first ten minutes. Captain said to abandon ship. I agreed to stay behind until everyone else was off, 'cause I could fly the crate. Y'know?"

“And you're CMM?" Mitch asked, failing to hide her surprise.

“Yep! Anyway, one of the Pictor transports started launching those little boarding ships they like using. I figured, hell: if we were getting boarded anyway, fuck it, right? I shut down life support, put everything we had left into the structural integrity systems, and gunned it. The Carrol Equinox had… Titans, for sure, but I don't know the model. Either way, didn't matter, they maneuvered just fine. Nailed that transport, like… bam," she said, striking one paw against the other to hint at the impact. “I remember shutting down our reactor, and then a lot of alarms, and then nothing. I woke up on the Merlin, one of the destroyers in the flotilla."

Spaceman Alexander was already looking forward to hearing the full version of the story. “Okay. But. You're CMM?" she asked again, trying to emphasize her incredulity. The Civilian Merchant Marine did not have a great reputation.

“We're not all useless. I guess it's safer to say that I was CMM, though. Wright-Carrol fired me for losing the ship. If you're licensed and at least second mate in the Merchant Marine, they'll convert that into a Star Patrol rank if you want. Given how I've been treated, I'm pretty sure nobody really asks."

“Am I supposed to salute you?" Mitch asked. “I don't know how those ranks work."

“I think you're supposed to. I wouldn't know. I bounced around 16th Fleet for a while and didn't get saluted once. Last two months I've been the junior helmsbitch on the Kennedy. But they wouldn't let me actually fly, y'know? And I was going crazy, so…"

“So you're here," Parnell finished. “I guess the controls must look pretty familiar, if you were licensed for Majestics."

“Oh, yeah. A lot of the little switches, now, I don't have the first clue—they must be for combat stuff, I guess. But the big girls?" She gave the port throttle control a pat. “Those are my friends. You betcha. What do I need to get trained on?"

“Well…" Eli looked around her station, and tried to recall how much had been unfamiliar to her on the wolf's own first day. “The tactical equipment, yes. These are emission controls here… this bank is for the power subsystems. Everything on the secondary console is for the FTL—how's your astrogation?"

“Wright-Carrol mostly operated on fixed routes. I passed my exam, for what that's worth, but I'm sure I'm pretty rusty. You have to do it by hand?"

“Not if I can help it. We have a navigation computer. It's not always possible, if we're under combat conditions. Brush up on the test material, at least, yeah?"

“Sure thing. Until you're comfy, I won't do any hyperdrive shit without you sittin' on my shoulder."

“I'd like to see how you get on with sublight maneuvering, too. It's similar to flying those old freighters, but… not exactly. I know that firsthand."

“Well, I'm eager to learn. Oh, and combat tactics and whatever. I got a guide with attack patterns listed, but it's all just holographic vids. Fuck-all for practical knowledge, and I'm guessing you don't ram too much, on your day-to-day."

“I try to avoid it," Eli said.

“Fair. Kinda thing I think you only do once. Twice, and you become someone with 'a reputation.'"

“If you're here, it's too late for that," Mitch teased. She liked the new girl already. “But I'm sure you'll fit in."

***

First officer's log, stardate 68034.5

News of a promotion doesn't seem to have calmed Lieutenant Commander Hazelton down any, although I guess out here we don't have much to spend the extra pay on. Maybe she's daunted by the added responsibility, but Hazelton has never seemed like the daunted type.

We've already taken aboard nearly 1500 tons of new supplies and hardware, almost all of it destined for the engineering department. In theory, we can now begin preparations for departure and get back to our real mission.

On the other hand, when I asked for an ETA, she hung up on me.

“What do you want me to tell the captain? You're asking for another two shifts to get the new equipment installed. Is that reasonable?"

Shannon didn't like her estimates being questioned, even if she understood intellectually that Dave was trying to insulate her from the consequences of those estimates. “It's reasonable. I am having to spend more time than I was expecting bringing the new hires on board…"

The retriever raised an eyebrow. “You want me to tell Mercure to take them back?"

“I didn't say that. We can always use the help. It's just a new variable, that's all."

As if on cue, the door to the engine room opened, and a ruddy-furred, big-eared canine made their way inside. Dave wasn't entirely certain they were Terran, at first: fox-shaped and colored, but oddly angular, the creature just barely fit without ducking. “I was told to look for Commander Bradley? Is that you, sir?"

“That's me. You're joining us?"

“Yes, sir."

Dave took the new sailor's orders and gave them a quick read. “Chief Warrant Officer Liron Rocha, formerly of the Lexington?"

“Yes, sir. I'm supposed to be in engineering, so… I guess this is the right place, anyway."

“Guess so. What are you?" Shannon asked.

Liron blinked, and their dark ears swiveled. “Uh. A maned wolf, ma'am."

“That's not what I meant." And, with the two of them together, the identification was more obvious—she was shorter than the canine by fifty centimeters. “What do you do? Why are you here? Your rating? C'mon."

“We've been trying to on-board a number of engineering personnel who were transferred along with you," Dave explained, for Liron's benefit. They—the correct pronoun, according to their personnel records—were already looking rather wary. “We haven't learned all the new faces yet. Nor what their assignments are."

“Oh. Of course. Ah, I'm a mechanic. I ran one of the plane captain teams on the Lexington before—"

“A scout technician? You work on Riverjacks?"

Her demeanor had changed completely, although Liron's ears stayed flat. “Yes?"

“Oh, I could kiss you. Why didn't you start with that?" She paused, though, running through the list of tasks her crew had yet to complete before they could get back underway. “But I can't use you right now."

“You can't use a mechanic?" Dave asked.

“Two shifts. I can't train new people on a goddamn Sovvy in two shifts. We have to start from scratch. Take 'em to the coyote, that's my advice."

By Maddy's convention, engineering was Hazelton's domain, and he knew that the Akita would back up whatever Shannon wanted to do in her own realm. “Two shifts," he reminded her, and turned back towards the door. “Let's head over to the flight bay, then."

In the corridor outside, Liron cleared their throat. “Is she, ah… you outrank her, right, sir?"

Dave chuckled. “Outside the engine room, I do. She's an interworlder, you know? A lot of it is really just… she doesn't use the universal translator so often—there's a lot of spacer pidgin in her dialect. And her mood. Don't think anything about it. What brings you here from the Lexington, anyway? That must've been a nice ship."

“It was, sir. I'm not here for a very good reason, I'm afraid. She's been dry-docked, and the crew got reassigned. I was supposed to be headed for the Herakles, but I'm old friends with Marian—he was already there. When he transferred here, he said it would be like an adventure and suggested I come along."

The retriever had to smile at that. “Well. It definitely is an adventure. As Hazelton said, it's an old Sovremenny-class ship. Quirky, for sure. And you'll find we don't stand on protocol as much here, either. Expect a lot of first names, if you don't mind that."

“No, sir. I don't."

“'Warrant' is fine for you? Liron?"

“Either, sir."

“Alright. Captain Jack Ford is our… well, he's technically 'CAG' but we only have two scout ships. And he's definitely not a protocol kind of coyote. Fair warning."

“Got it."

The panel next to the flight bay entrance confirmed both that the bay was occupied, and that it was currently pressurized. Dave opened the door, and discovered Jack Ford sitting behind an equipment bench he'd turned into an ersatz desk.

The coyote, in turn, looked up from the parts inventory he'd been given to find Commander Bradley standing next to a peculiarly elongated foxlike creature. “New blood?" he asked. Nothing had been communicated to him on that front, except that their machine shop was being upgraded and that they'd received a new shipment of spare parts for the scout ships.

“Maybe. This is Chief Warrant Officer Liron Rocha. Warrant Rocha is technically in the engineering section, but I suspect we'll dotted-line them into your group."

Jack got up, put the inventory computer away, and crossed over to join the two. “Hey, I'll take it. Call me Shamrock. You're a pilot?"

The maned wolf looked down at their feet, and then back up again, accenting the length of their body. “I don't fit, sir. I'm a maintenance specialist—formerly team leader for the 602nd. Before that, FMRS Montgomery and TCS Kaga."

“The Lexington, huh? They got Block 19s, didn't they? Lucky bastards. We're still on Block 16s here. I stole these from the Agamemnon. You can do shuttles, too? Light-vehicle maintenance qualified? ACS-II or -III?"

Dave cleared his throat. “I'll let you two get on with it, if that's alright?" He had not really finished up in engineering, at least not to his satisfaction—Hazelton's version of a straight answer was occasionally rather wanting. Neither Liron nor Jack objected, and the retriever made his exit without further ceremony.

“The normal protocols, yes," Liron answered. “I have basic certifications in auxiliary craft technology. I took ACS-II when I was Montgomery, before being warranted. Anything more specialized…"

“Doesn't matter. Better than we got now, for sure. Been having to do it ourselves, and some of this we don't exactly have manuals for. I'll show you," he offered—double-checking inventory hadn't exactly been thrilling to the coyote, after all. “We have the two Type 7s, a pair of shuttles, an old Vostok, and then…"

“A Vostok?"

His dramatic reveal having been interrupted, the coyote stopped to explain. “That's right. Ah… this ship was in storage for a couple hundred years, is what they tell me. The Vostok didn't get put in a museum, somehow. We have an Ulver unit to fly it, too—yeah, I can see that look, Rocha. Don't ask. Besides that…"

The two rounded a Type 4 shuttle, and Liron came to a sudden halt. “What?"

The flatness of the question, and the recognition it implied, was everything Jack hoped for. “Behold: a Tempest-class reconnaissance ship. Or should I say: the Tempest-class reconnaissance ship. And a Kahil-type bomber. And Cash. Hey, Cash."

Ciara had been listening to music while she worked on replacing a few burnt-out components, and missed most of the conversation—it was the sight of the two, reflected in the Tempest's skin, that clued her in to their approach. “Shamrock," she acknowledged, and tilted her head at his companion. “Chief Warrant Officer…"

“Liron Rocha," Liron said. “I thought this was an urban legend… it looks just like the models I've seen. Absolutely beautiful—is it like that on the inside, too?"

“It's real," the vixen promised. “As for the inside… well, do you want to tell them, captain, or should I?"

“I was trying to make a good first impression. They could still run, after all. You've got the legs for it," he pointed out, addressing the wolf directly. Liron's gaze flicked warily between the other two. “Maybe we should find out. Hit 'em, Cash."

“The internals are parts from across every ship the Star Patrol ever built, prototyped, or got drunk and dreamed up. The main reactor is a WS50." She saw Liron's expression become puzzled; the model had been designed for use on corvettes. “Are you wondering how that fits?"

“I don't see how it would," the maned wolf admitted. “Is it a special version?"

She shook her head. “Nope. Normal WS50G. It fits because they didn't install any of the regulating equipment, just the core. Most of the power subsystems are completely bespoke. We've been trying to swap them out for newer and more standardized parts when we have the chance. That's what I'm doing with these stabilizers."

“Cash hasn't gotten shot at for a while," Jack explained. “And when she has, it's been in, uh… that thing." He pointed towards the Kahil, and was pleased to see that Liron's enthusiasm seemed just as keen for the Uxzu bomber. Even if, similarly, he thought the maned wolf would sober up in an identical fashion when he saw its innards.

It was as close to being the Tempest's polar opposite as possible. Where the spy ship was glossy, sleek, and with nothing to break her curvy form, the Kahil was squat, angular, and bristling with odd protuberances and tumors. “Did you make this," Liron asked, “out of spare parts?"

“No, it's an older strike craft used by the Uxzu Dominion. We acquired it under… circumstances," Ciara allowed, carefully—she had no idea how much the maned wolf might have been told about the Dark Horse and her mission. “I guess you haven't met them yet."

“No, ma'am. I've heard of them, from the strategic briefings we get, but the Lexington has been on the antispinward side of the front. Never met one."

“You will, soon enough. All you really need to know is that they're the kind of people who would put a 130-megajoule railgun on an attack ship this size."

“And you'd fit in it, too. Even better than me or Commander Munro," the coyote added. “The Uxzu are taller than you are. Anyhow, these two machines are both Cash's responsibility. She'll be able to tell you all you need to know about maintaining them, and maybe you can take 'em on, instead."

“Whatever I can do to help with that," Ciara promised; routine maintenance on the temperamental ships was far from her favorite part of the job. “You're not scared off, huh?"

“Commander Bradley said it would be an adventure."

“You know, Cash, I take back what I said. Details later, maybe." Jack saw that Ciara was considering some kind of affirmative reply to that; he was also all too aware of how much time she'd spent fixing the Tempest after their latest mission.

“Later?"

“Wait until we're out of EVA range."

***

The nice thing about Terrans, Ayenni thought, was that they were all fairly similar. The Terran Confederation, as an institution, was quite diverse. She was given to understand that there were some Star Patrol vessels crewed entirely by residents of other worlds—planets with exotic atmospheres, or where the inhabitants were aquatic, or under a meter in height.

The Dark Horse, though, was crewed by actual Terrans. And, while they could look different—the color of their pelts, or the shape of their ears, or what-have-you—their skeletal structure was almost identical, they all breathed oxygen, and they all had the same kind of blood. Reviewing the medical records of a dozen new crew members wasn't as challenging as it could've been.

Still, she wanted to commit at least the basic details to memory—and there were a lot of basic details. She was, thusly, not surprised when she didn't immediately recognize the dark-furred man who poked his head through the open doors and into the medical bay.

The rest of him followed. He was a canine, shaped somewhat like a cross between Leon Bader and Leon's boyfriend Sabel: pointy ears, a thick, black fur coat, and keen, golden eyes. “This is the sickbay?" he asked.

Ayenni looked around at the medical equipment, and the sterility she enforced that was all but unique on the cruiser. “Yes," she said. “Can I help you?"

“Probably. Wolf," he said, and held out his paw for her to shake.

She'd been practicing; when she took the offered paw, barely more than a flicker of the man's emotions crossed over into her own thoughts. They were boyishly enthusiastic, and deceptively untroubled. “Uh. Yara," she said. “You're Terran?"

“Yes. You're not, you're—Yara is your species?" he realized aloud, evidently somewhat slow on the uptake. “I read about that. You're supposed to be telepaths?"

“Yes," she allowed, carefully. She could already see a grim future where he said you knew I was going to say that, didn't you? and, as it was their first meeting, she would be obliged to smile. “Are you joining the crew?"

“I am! They said the ship needed a doctor."

“You're a doctor?"

“Wolf," he confirmed. “I've mostly been a combat surgeon for the last few deployments. Star Patrol Medical said this might be a little quieter, and also more exciting from a research point of view. My background is in xenobiology."

She was trying to process quite a number of pieces of new information. She knew what wolves were; Francisco Vasquez was a wolf. The man did look like him—somewhat—but taller, more muscular, and with the kinds of nicks and scars on his paws that made her wonder if, by 'xenobiology,' he really meant 'boxing new aliens.' “Were your orders, um… are you part of the medical team here, or part of the science team?"

“Those are both 'teams' of one, right? You and Lieutenant Schatz?"

“Well… yes."

“Probably you, then. I'm excited to learn what you've been up to. If I'd known about this mission a year ago, I might've applied. I definitely did now, learning the ship had alien crew aboard—that's not too common, not on ships designed for Terrans."

“No, I guess not," she said. “I'm the only one."

“And an Ulver unit! Their biology must be fascinating, too. Do we have an office?"

“It's where I'm sitting." Ayenni had been allowed to remake the ship's medical facilities in her own image. Notably, there was only one desk, and only one chair for it. “I… can make room, I suppose. Your orders are…"

“Helping you out? Patching up the crew. Do they need patching?"

“Less than you'd expect, thankfully." She paused, and considered how copious her files had become. You can use the help. Maybe he's supposed to be an assistant, after all. Ask Dave when you get the chance. Be friendly. “More than they really ought to, considering the size of the crew. I can go over their records with you…"

The wolf powered on one of the other computers, and then cocked his head. “You might have to. I don't understand any of this."

“It's not Star Patrol software. Captain May agreed that it would be easier if I just set things up with systems I was familiar with, since we didn't have any other medical personnel at the time. I'm officially a civilian."

“Ah. Well. No ranks here, in that case! Just call me 'Lukas,' if you want."

She looked at the console he was using, and into which he'd logged in. Oh. “Your name is Wolf. I thought you were telling me you were a wolf."

“Was and am. But it's also my name."

“Mine is Ayenni." She composed herself, and decided to start from scratch. “Yara don't really have surnames in the conventional sense. Not in a way that you'd understand them."

“Because you're telepaths?" he guessed. “You have other ways of communicating family relationships when you're amongst yourselves. I guess you must just… know those things intuitively, talking to one of your own, right?"

“More or less, that's right. And when we're traveling, it's generally by ourselves. Most people won't see more than one of us at a time." She was not detecting anything disagreeable in the wolf's demeanor. “I didn't realize information about us had gotten back to the Star Patrol."

“I read all the reports we had when I knew I was being transferred," Wolf explained. “It was all still pretty surface level. But, you know: an opportunity to encounter it firsthand? Seeking out new life and new civilizations? Irresistible."

“Is that what they told you?"

“That's what I told myself," he said. His tail was wagging. “My speciality is actually xenobotany, but I can't imagine you encounter many mysterious new plants. Nobody pays attention to those."

Ayenni allowed herself to relax. For his benefit—though, having spent so long on the ship, it was becoming second-nature to the Yara—she also smiled. “You'd be surprised."

***

Captain's log, stardate 68036.2

Replenishment operations having been complete, we are now ready to break contact with the Polaris and resume our mission in the Rewa-Tahi sector. Fourteen new crew have come aboard, most of them in the engineering section—where there is plenty for them to do, given the new equipment that's also been installed.

Personal addendum:

We have also lost one person: Petty Officer Kimura, who is choosing to return to her previous assignment at Research Center Leonardo. I was told, shortly before receiving clearance to depart, that Dr. Beltran will remain tasked to us. After what Admiral Mercure said, I'm a little surprised, although definitely pleased.

I hope Dr. Beltran is pleased. She was cagier than usual when I spoke with her, and said she didn't want to talk about it. But with the stakes higher than ever, I'm thankful that I'll still have her to rely on. And I'm definitely thankful to be heading back into the frontier, even if we're expected to call home more often now…

“Back one-quarter to negative eight."

“Negative eight, aye." Mei's touch on the antiquated throttle controls was firm and purposeful. The clouded leopard watched their relative velocity cue carefully.

So did Eli Parnell. “We've picked up a lateral component," she noted. “Starboard, 1.4 meters per second."

“I want to be well clear of the aft sensor array, in case they decide to turn on us."

“They shouldn't do that. Star Patrol regs say they don't move until we give the signal."

“Ten years in the merchant marine says it's better to be safe than sorry," Mei countered. “You want me to zero it out anyway?"

“No, that's fine." Eli kept an eye on the situation display; the new pilot definitely had a good handle on how the Dark Horse moved. “Captain, we're clear of the Polaris."

“Thank you. Lay in a course for Dominion space and engage the hyperdrive when you're ready."

Eli called up the navigation computer and, while Mei watched, she plotted a trajectory that would take them towards Garakhav, homeworld of the Kolash Pride. “Ready. Hyperdrive is at full power. Uh, but first… permission to test the engines, ma'am?"

“Granted. Unlock special restrictions on my authority." Maddy understood what Eli was really asking—they were, in that sense, cut from the same cloth. “This is the captain. We are now underway. Prepare for high-g maneuvers." She unkeyed the intercom, and waited to see if anyone—Hazelton, probably—objected. Nobody did. “Hit it."

“That means you," Eli said.

Since childhood, Mei had been quite aware of how her most sincere grins bared the greatest extent of her long fangs. She grinned sincerely anyway, flipped the 'restriction override' switches, and pushed the throttles forward.

The Dark Horse did not move like the freighters Mei was used to. She moved like enthusiastic children playing with model starships imagined they might move. The deceptively old, gratuitously overpowered sublight engines shoved her along her new trajectory with such intensity that Mei almost had difficulty keeping them on course.

Almost. Eli kept her desire to intervene in check. “We're aligned. You ready for the gateway?"

“Yeah. That was fun." Still grinning, Mei backed off the throttles, and triggered the ship's hyperdrive. There was a reassuring flash; the display switched over to its FTL configuration. “We're on course. Just under six megajärvi, it looks like. All systems are nominal."

“Take us to twenty," Captain May said. “We've got places to be."

“Uh… aye, captain." She gave a sideways glance at the wolf sitting next to her. “We'll do twenty?"

“We'll do forty, in a pinch. Twenty's nothing."

“Nice." Sure enough, there was no protest from the ship's systems as Mei adjusted the field parameters and increased the reactor output to match. “Twenty megajärvi, done."

***

In the three shifts that followed, they made the same good time, and Mei took the opportunity to study everything Eli Parnell gave her. The same was true for Jamie Meyer, who had joined as another CCI operator.

The mountain lion outranked Mitch Alexander, and was several years older, but continued to be slightly awed by the complexity of the Dark Horse's ancient hardware. “Hey, look at that. That's a signal, I think. Right?"

Mitch furrowed her brow. “Yeah. Sure is."

“Not even from the high-gain, is it?"

“No, and not from the hypersondes, either. Short range, for sure." Trying to filter the transmission into comprehensibility proved challenging, as did waiting for the universal translator to give them a clue about what might be going on. “Okay. Less than a light-year off. It has a Dominion signature."

“Pirates?" Jamie guessed, upon reading the decoded message. It declared that the originating vessel was, at present, preparing for imminent battle against 'intriguing prey.' “Calling their allies, or something."

“We're the allies," Mitch explained, double-checked the coordinates, and raised her voice. “Captain, we're picking up a distress call from an Uxzu convoy that's being shadowed by a Pictor flotilla. They estimate contact in just under two hours."

Maddy up her ears. “Any other tactical details?"

“No. We can try to establish comms, if you want?"

“Do it. Helm, adjust course. Maximum speed."

“Yes, ma'am," Mei promised. She dialed in the new hyperdrive settings, and waited for the Dark Horse to come onto its new heading.

Eli Parnell lowered her voice. “We can do better."

“Than 32 megajärvi? The systems are already in the red."

“I told you: we can do forty, if we have to." She tapped her communicator. “Engineering, bridge."

“Engineering," Shannon answered; the tone of her voice was tense, and knowing. “How much do you want?"

“Nine hundred, for two hours."

“Ah, pizda," the raccoon growled over the commlink. “Passeka bridge officers. Haven't blown any relays in nearly a week—too long, eh?"

“Distress call."

“Always something. Two hours," the chief engineer confirmed, and then closed the link.

A moment later, Mei and Elissa watched the reactor output graph double in real-time. “We're not in the red anymore," Mei marveled. 'Maximum safe power' had gone from 500 to 1000 gigawatts. “Alright, taking us to forty… two? Forty-two megajärvi."

“What'd I say?"

“Captain, we'll be there in ninety-seven minutes."

May, paying close attention to the conversation, was pleased at the clouded leopard's adaptability. “Good. CCI, when you manage to get in touch with the Dominion, let them know we're on our way."

“Yes, ma'am."

Jamie, who had quickly realized she was out of her element, watched Mitch work instead. Ten minutes later, the Abyssinian had pulled together a clearer picture of the situation: four light vessels of the Elaxi Pride, returning from a patrol, were being cut off by a Pictor cruiser—big enough to throw its weight around and use its wake turbulence to upset the comparatively primitive Uxzu hyperdrives.

“A target of opportunity," Vasquez suggested; May had called him to the bridge as their expert on the Empire. “Or maybe that patrol found something the Pictor don't want revealed."

“Spaceman? I'm guessing the Elaxi aren't being very forthcoming?" Maddy knew that, like all Uxzu, they were unlikely to hint at anything that might imply any kind of vulnerability. “Do we know their destination?"

“No, ma'am. Just that they're preparing for battle."

“We can deal with a single cruiser on our own…" May didn't phrase it as a question; she was more than confident in her ship, so far as that was concerned. “I'll brief the scout pilots so they're ready to help with missile defense. Ms. Parizeau, you'll be taking the helm. Lieutenant Parnell will tell you what you need to know."

“Yes, ma'am," Mei said. The added delay occasioned by the reply was just enough for Eli to have her best poker face on when the clouded leopard turned to face her. “You will?"

“Of course. Nothing to it."

***

Jack summarized what he'd been told in a few curt sentences. “Indications are that it's an unescorted cruiser, what Star Patrol intelligence classifies as a Type 124. We should expect intense missile fire. I'll want us ahead of the Hoss in case we need to screen the Dominion ships."

Konstantin nodded. “Alright. My Riverjack's ready if yours is."

“It is. Cash, what's the play?"

Ciara weighed her options. On the one hand, the Tempest was a significant force multiplier for the two scouts—the spy ship's powerful sensors made their job prioritizing and targeting incoming missiles much easier. On the other… “Probably best to have more firepower than less, right?"

“How's the Kahil?"

“Mitti was trying to install a new targeting scanner when we cast off. The computers aren't playing nicely together, though. I'll have to roll back the software, but that shouldn't take too long."

“You've got an hour and a half. Mx. Rocha, time to learn on the job. 'Adventure,' right? Get to it, you two. I want a status update no later than t-minus 20."

The maned wolf looked over their shoulder towards the distinctly non-Terran-looking attack ship. “Yes, sir."

“Most of the consoles are TC standard, now," Ciara explained, leading Liron back towards the bomber. “But there's a lot of integration work that still needs to be done on the control software. The main cannons are 130-megajoule railguns. We don't have anything that regularly deals with those kind of loads at this scale when we need to swap in spares."

“Fair," they acknowledged. “Do you downrate the cannons, in that case?"

“No. That would defeat the purpose. We just run the modules we have at their limits. Past their limits, sometimes," she added, more quietly. “Within the safety margin, though. I've been comfortable with it."

Liron Rocha, immediately, decided that they were not. The maned wolf's ears started out half-perked, but swiveled further and further back with each new system Ciara explained. At least it's all overbuilt, Rocha decided. Designed to take a beating, in a way that Terran hardware often was not.

“We'll have to manually calibrate the targeting array," Munro said. “But later, when we're done. Torres and I were hoping we could take a shortcut by just putting a conversion subroutine in between the existing controls and the targeting scanner, but between losing precision and the extra time required…"

“You can't just make changes in the control software?"

Ciara, with some effort, pulled open a hatch and gestured to the messy array of conduits within. It looked nothing so much like the half-ravaged entrails of some hapless prey animal. “This is how they route data and auxiliary power through the ship. Try to imagine what Uxzu code looks like."

Liron rubbed at their neck, and silently reminded themselves that the Polaris was long gone. “When we have some breathing room, I'll try to make sense of it."

But it took most of the time remaining for them just to revert to the original programming, and to go through sufficient diagnostic checks for Ciara to be satisfied that the bomber was in fighting condition. Jack Ford, when this was explained to him, nodded approvingly. “Nice. What d'you think of the old crate, Rocha?"

“It was… ah…"

“Pretty much, huh?"

“It'll be a learning experience, sir. But I'll manage."

There was, Jack felt—more strongly than Ciara or Liron would've, to be sure—no time like the present: “There's room for a third person, right, Cash?"

“Yes."

“Mx. Rocha will join you as a… flight engineer, let's call it. Not like we'll need you on the flight deck, anyway, Liron. Besides: first-hand knowledge would help, right?"

Rocha knew the coyote was not going to be talked out of the idea. “I suppose, yes."

“And Torres is on the way?"

That question was for Ciara, who had already paged the Abyssinian now that she knew they would, indeed, be launching. “Yes, sir. She'll be here any moment."

He nodded again. “Then I'll see you when this is over. Good hunting, Cash."

“'Flight engineer'?"

The coyote was already gone. Ciara pointed to a seat amidships. “There's a station there for… something. I don't know what the Uxzu use it for. Maybe a proper bombardier. I suppose a relief pilot is more likely."

Torres arrived to hear most of the exchange. “Or a spare, in case one of us takes a stray round. Right? Hey, vix. Hey…"

After a moment of awkward silence, Ciara realized she was being prompted for an introduction. “Oh! Mitti, this is Chief Warrant Officer Rocha. Mitti Torres is a civilian, but she knows the Kahil better than I do."

“Liron, then." the maned wolf said, and shook her paw. “Commander Munro and I already finished preflighting the ship. I was asked to tag along. I guess Captain Ford figured that, since I'm supposed to maintain this…"

Torres grinned. “Me, too. It's a bit of a… hmm. How do I put it?"

“Adventure?" they guessed.

“Yeah. Call it that." She slipped into the copilot's seat, and locked her harness in place. “Are we ready to go, vix?"

“Call it that," Ciara echoed. “Self-test is good on my side."

“Same. Power readings look clean; six kilowatts, nominal. Unlock the initiator."

“Unlocked. Phase?"

“Uhhh… aligned," Mitti said, as the Kahil adjusted to drawing power off the Dark Horse's main reactor. “Transfers to 'initiator.'"

The switches, which had been designed for an Uxzu, were imposingly difficult to move, and settled into place with a heavy thunk. “Transfer set."

“Still warming up," Mitti reported. She indicated the gauges, for Liron's benefit. “See?"

Liron blinked, swiveled their ears back, and failed to benefit. “Still 'warming up' at six hundred degrees?"

“Yeah, they do some… weird plasma stuff. We'll start the magnetic constrictors at about nine hundred. I, uh… I don't really understand it either, and I've worked with these things for, like, a decade."

“I thought this was from the Dominion? We only met them a couple years ago, right?"

“In your universe, yes. Vix, constrictors to 'start.'"

“Start," Ciara called back. Liron, she figured—now unable to run away—was bound to learn the truth about Torres sooner or later. There was no point in asking for discretion.

“Both fuel tanks read 90%. No errors. Switch on the pumps."

“Pumps on. Secondary stage is saturated."

“Confirmed. These numbers, here, on this display? These are still Uxzu figures. Rule of thumb, divide by 2.5 to get this in tesla."

Liron ran the numbers in their head. “2.5 or 25?"

“2.5. Two and a half."

“The secondary is over 40 tesla? What about these numbers—the ones for input current? What's the conversion there?"

“No, that's… uh. That's in megawatts. You'll see," Mitti promised. “Vix, go for main reactor start."

“Reactor starting. Primary stage is online."

“Everything's good. Transfer switches and pumps to 'run.'"

A quiet hum pervaded the cabin as the vixen did so. “All switches are active. Ready disconnect?"

“Uh," Liron interrupted. “Does this not have an interstage coupler? Like some kind of boost system?"

Mitti shook her head. “It does not, no."

“It doesn't have any isolation for the drive motivator?" They weren't certain they'd understood. “At all?"

Liron had, of course, understood. “It does not, no."

“But at these power levels, the backfeed is going to wreak havoc on the flight bay."

“It does, yes. Vix, ready disconnect. We—"

“Disconnecting," Ciara said; there was a loud bang from outside the ship. “We're on internal power."

“We use a sacrificial filter," Mitti finished, when everyone's ears stopped ringing. “My assumption is that Dominion ships are built sturdier. Or they don't care. Um, they don't seem to have invented decoupled motivators, and we haven't gotten around to rigging an isolator up. That could be your first job."

Liron hadn't checked to see what kind of 'sacrificial filter' Ciara and Mitti might've installed on the power feed. They did, however, know the kind of currents that Star Patrol-grade filters were intended to pass, and the kind of currents that would cause them to explode like that. “Adventure, huh?"

Ciara looked over her shoulder, and—by now a veteran of how things worked in the Rewa-Tahi—grinned at them. “You haven't seen anything yet. Can I ask for launch permission, Mitti?"

“Any time, vix. Let's go."

***

“Action stations!"

“Action stations," Dave echoed. “Helm, unlock special restrictions on my authority. All crew, all consoles, go to State Red. CCI, get the fighters up and confirm—"

“Tactical," May spoke directly to Lieutenant Bader while her XO went through the rest of their combat checklist. “Sitrep, please."

“We're getting painted. They know we're here," Leon answered. “Our deflectors are online and our weapons are active. Point-defense is set for anti-ship coverage."

“Dave?"

The retriever checked his own console for any counter-indications from the ship's other sections. “We're ready. The auxiliary group is already aloft and taking position alongside us."

Maddy flexed her fingers, and felt the sharpness of her own claws before raising her voice. “CCI, tell Jack he's free to engage at will. Helm—intercept course!"

“Aye, captain." Mei told herself it was a little like her last time aboard the Carrol Equinox, except that they weren't badly outnumbered and she had a military-grade shield and point-defense grid between their enemy and her own ship. “Course engaged. We'll be in range in five minutes."

“The Pictor cruiser is launching ships. We have…" Lieutenant Bader double-checked his console. “Nothing on us, sir. They're going for the Dominion."

“Sure," Maddy realized. “They can hit and run and jump again without having to tangle with us. Alright, then. Lieutenant, how are you with the new beam weapons Ms. Kimura installed before she left?"

“Reasonably confident."

It was the answer the Akita had expected. “I'm sure you've been practicing. Set the grid for missile coverage—they'll notice us eventually. You're on their boarding ships, Mr. Bader. You better bullseye those little bastards."

“Yes, ma'am."

“Parizeau, get us between that cruiser and the Dominion. Flank speed. CCI, tell the Elaxi we'll cover their withdr… ugh." May rolled her eyes. “Tell the Elaxi they should… prepare for a… counterattack, or something—but direct them astern of us. Please."

There was nothing amiss with the course Mei Parizeau plotted, and Elissa kept to her station—formally, the assistant helmsman's post—without leaping up to seize the controls. Barely: “do you need any help?"

“I think I'm fine," the clouded leopard said. She licked one of her fangs, waiting for the range calculations to update on her display. “Three minutes to intercept, captain."

“When they call for an attack maneuver, the button under your left thumb? That's the tactical interlock switch. Hold that in, and the weapons officer gets fine control for aiming the particle beams."

“I know. You said."

“You have to keep holding it."

“You said that, too," Mei reminded her. They'd been reviewing those protocols ever since receiving the distress call.

“Okay. Yeah." Steadying her nerves—in the worst-case scenario, she told herself, she could still take over the ship's controls—she observed the rest of their preparations. “And be sure to keep our fighters out of the firing line. They don't get automatically blocked."

“Something about the transponder, yeah. You told me. You were speaking very quickly, but I heard you."

“Alright. Alright…" Eli swallowed. “You've got this. I know."

“I got this. Wait, no, one question. She said 'flank speed'… that's what you guys call 'ramming speed,' right?"

“What?" Eli's head jerked towards the throttles, confirming that both of them were at the stops. “We don't—"

“I didn't want to get confused. Just in case it doesn't work out." Next to her, the wolfess had pinned her ears reflexively. “Gosh, Mitch was right: you are fun to tease."

Eli gritted her teeth. “When did she even have time to tell you that?"

“Through a message to my console, earlier. Captain! Sixty seconds to intercept."

“Tactical?" Captain May asked. “How are we doing?"

“Grid is rigged for antimissile defense, ma'am. Weapons are standing by. The Elaxi ships are headed towards us, but clear of the firing line, for now. So are our scouts."

“Good. Target the boarding ships and fire whenever you're ready."

“Yes, ma'am. Helm, target all contacts tagged Mistral in descending order. Pattern Echo-4; ready for framing and interlock."

“Long-range particle-beam attack," Eli told Mei quietly; the clouded leopard had already begun to adjust the ship's course. “Just point the nose as precisely as you can. Leon will do the rest."

“I'm trying," the new helmsman promised. With the added stress, it was proving to be rather different than flying freighters. Even if the controls were mostly the same, she'd never needed to operate them with long-range particle-beam attack in mind. “Keep me honest, though."

The numbers added up to Eli's satisfaction. “Framing maneuver in 30," she called back to the tactical officer. “Five on primary. Fifteen on secondaries."

Given how fast all parties involved were traveling, Leon thought five seconds was rather optimistic. “No more than five, you mean. I have a solution. And I'd recommend egressing to 1-1-2 mark 0-2-5."

“Okay," Mei said. Her eyes were focused on the course plot in front of her. She held in the interlock switch. “All yours, sir."

“Firing on primary. Firing on secondaries," Leon continued; their closure rate was too high for an immediate assessment of the damage. “Interlock released."

Mei slewed the Dark Horse instinctively as soon as her controls came back to life. It wasn't until they were settled onto the new course that she consciously recalled the shepherd having recommended it. Calm down, she tried to tell herself.

“Catastrophic damage to Mistral-1, -3, -4, -6, -9, and -11," Mitch reported. “Minor damage to Mistral-7, but they're still in the fight. And I think we're becoming popular."

Captain May looked over to the Abyssinian. “Define 'popular.'"

“Well, for one they're starting to light us up with—wait, incoming! Missiles inbound, bearing 3-0-0 mark negative 0-8-5."

She had not specified a number of missiles, although the Akita saw from the tactical display on their viewscreen that it already had three digits. “Roll us. Put them on our beam. CCI, let Jack know we could use some help."

“They're already on it, ma'am."

Mei looked at the screen, and then at the course plot Leon Bader had given her, and then at Lieutenant Parnell. Realization dawned: “That egress course put us right in their sights, didn't it?"

“Yes. We've got shields, remember? But stand—"

“Stand by for evasive maneuvers on my signal," Maddy finished, before Eli needed to. “Lieutenant Bader…"

“54 missiles remaining, ma'am." Their scout ships, wary of taking fire from the Dark Horse's point-defense weapons, had broken off. “47. 43. 40. That's it, they're inside our minimum—"

“Helm. Do it."

Mei twisted her controls in the direction of the incoming missiles—they wouldn't have much time to compensate at the higher closure rate, and any that missed would be out of fuel long before they could claw their way back around—and pushed the throttles forward until they clicked heavily past the emergency stops. She was only dimly aware of the added effort it took to move or the shudder of impacts, and even less of a somewhat startled yelp from Leon Bader.

The shepherd recovered quickly. “All missiles trashed. We took six—nothing too bad. Forward deflectors are at 91%."

“Inertial alarms," Mitch warned. “Maybe slow down a bit."

Mei pulled the ship's throttles back. “Sorry."

“I asked," Captain May reminded her. “And we're all harnessed. Tactical, what are we doing?"

“More incoming, off the port stern." As long as they were flying away from the Pictor ships, their own acceleration bought the point-defense grid plenty of time. But that was not what May had asked for. “Helm, target Mistral-12, -7, and -13. Attack pattern Echo, ready framing and interlock."

Mei Parizeau was now also aware of the physics at play between the Dark Horse, the Pictor, and the next salvo of missiles. She tried to put that out of her mind, and focused on the plot their tactical computer had suggested. “Twenty seconds."

“Fifteen," Eli corrected, and clock was already ticking. “Framing in twelve. Three on primary, your secondaries… gods know. Half a second?"

“I'll take it," Leon said. The first of the missiles slammed into them. “Shields holding," he added, curtly. There was insufficient time to be more specific.

“Interlock set."

Leon, who had been practicing with the upgraded particle beams, said firing! just as curtly, as three expanding debris fields crossed out of range. “Interlock released. Good effects on target, I think."

“They're gone, yes," Mitch confirmed. “The Dominion ships are beginning to engage as well. We don't have any more incoming."

Maddy's eyes narrowed. “So now what, eh?" she asked the Pictor cruiser, rhetorically. “Your move, asshole."

“Getting ready to jump. They're not going to be able to recover their boarding ships before we mop up."

“Can we hit them first? Tactical! Firing solutions."

“On it, ma'am. Uh—" The ship's marker disappeared from his console before he could even begin his calculations.

“They're gone. Three Pictor boarding vessels are left, but…" They had drawn the ire of the Elaxi, who seemed to feel as though they had been unfairly cut out of the fun. The Dark Horse would not be able to put the boarding ships in range before they were dispatched with, either. “I don't think we have to worry about them."

“Yeah. I don't either. Get our scouts back aboard and secure from action stations. I assume the Elaxi will want to chat." She turned to her first officer. “You up for an Uxzu banquet, Dave?"

“Not really." Only Maddy had truly taken a liking to the various spare parts and insects that tended to make up such a feast. “But maybe Elaxi cuisine is different."

“Maybe!"

Mei caught sudden movement: Commander Bradley had reinstated the ship's normal maneuvering parameters, and the restriction-override switches automatically unset themselves. Carefully, she pulled the throttles back to their idle position. Then, releasing them, she looked at her splayed paws.

“Later, probably," Eli said, catching the attention of her new partner in crime. “Right now you're still mostly adrenaline."

The clouded leopard certainly felt that way. She curled and uncurled her fingers, which had finally begun to tremble, and took the controls back. “That was all… very fast."

“Yeah. It really can be."

“I do okay?"

“I think so. I'm not sure I would've made the break turn into those missiles, but…"

“Really? It was in one of the tactical updates I got on the Kennedy. The Woods Maneuver. Pictor missiles are vulnerable to it—something with a sudden increase in closure rate, I guess. Maybe I'm wrong."

The Dark Horse did not receive such regular tactical briefings, and Eli realized that, for all her familiarity with the ship itself, they had been kept at quite some distance from the unfolding war. “Oh," she said. “No. I'm sure you're not."

“I can tell you everything they told me, if you want," Mei offered. She had seen the same realization play out on the she-wolf's face. “You can tell me how much is helpful. Deal?"

“Well, they're not going to invite us to dinner." Eli—now having set her mind to making a new friend, after all—smiled, and nodded. “Deal, yeah. Thanks."

***

“Okay. We're shut down. We got a, uh… we got some kind of weird reading earlier. I'm gonna check and see if we got hit after all."

“Wouldn't want to disappoint Shamrock," Ciara muttered. “Alright. Let me know what you find. I need to download the logs before I lock out this station."

Liron watched the Abyssinian go, and then allowed their curiosity to be indulged. “Captain Ford would be disappointed if you didn't get hit?"

“That's my name. 'Cash'—he said he needed to come up with a code for 'Ciara's alive, somehow' after we had some…" All things considered, she supposed it wasn't really that inappropriate of an epithet. “Some incidents. The first few missions we had, it was some proper dogfighting, and I was new to the bomber. I came back every time with some battle damage."

“I didn't notice. It's built tough, at least, huh?"

“The Uxzu don't do shields. I'm really not sure if it's because they don't like them, or if it's because they don't know how to mount them. I mean… you see how this thing looks, right? We can't retrofit a shield generator on it, not with all these angles."

“And crew survivability is… an afterthought?"

“Based on my understanding, if a sortie is important enough, they're fine with attriting a squadron or two. It's a wild place, warrant."

The maned wolf shook their head. “I guess. I thought we'd seen 'wild' back in—"

They didn't get a chance to finish: there was a sharp bang, a yelp, and then a heavy thud between a few more, weaker clanging sounds. Ciara was on her feet before she heard the impact—the yelp was unmistakable. “Mitti?"

An access panel had blown itself off, ricocheted a few times, and come to rest where they would find it half an hour later. Torres, however, had not ricocheted: the feline was facedown, motionless, with her head framing a rapidly spreading pool of blood. The next yelp came from a horrified Ciara.

Liron, having immediately perceived the vixen's priority, sprinted to grab the emergency medical kit from inside the Kahil. In the few seconds it took them, Ciara had rolled Torres onto her back to assess the situation. She was breathing rapidly, and twitched when Ciara clamped a paw over a deep gash in the Abyssinian's neck, but did not otherwise stir.

“Medkit," Liron said, shoving it in the vixen's direction.

The sound of another voice startled her from the laser-like focus that had descended on the vixen. “Right," she stammered. “Can you—call sickbay, I'll—hey—now!" she said, already tearing the kit open.

The command had not, in one sense, been particularly coherent. On the other hand, the next steps were not particularly confusing. Liron tapped the communicator on their wrist. “Sickbay, we have an emergency."

Ayenni answered at once. “What is it?"

“Downed crewman. Starboard flight ops, closest access is door A. I think there was an explosion. They're breathing but unconscious, bleeding heavily from a cut on their neck. I think that's the only visible injury."

“On our way. Who is it?"

“Mitti!" Ciara shouted, loud enough to come in clearly over Liron's communicator. “It's Mitti Torres!"

Jack Ford had heard the explosion, and subsequent shouting, from the other side of the shuttlebay. The coyote reached the Kahil to find a scene of what, even on the Dark Horse, amounted to at least moderate chaos. Ciara's uniform was soaked with blood, although the glow of a medical patch on Torres's neck and the limpness of the cat's form told him most of what had happened.

Approaching from a distance also meant that he was the first to notice the vanished maintenance panel, and the smoke beginning to emerge, in ominous, lavender-tinged wisps, from the space it had formerly covered. “Rocha," the coyote barked, and pointed.

Liron saw what Jack meant immediately. They ran to grab a fire extinguisher from the nearest maintenance cart. On second thought, they unlocked it and just dragged the whole thing over. The smoke was starting to thicken, and the maned wolf had no idea what sort of unsettling Uxzu chemicals made anything like that kind of color when they burned.

Jack left Liron to their work, kneeling next to Ciara. “Cash. Hey." She didn't answer at first; he gripped the vixen's upper arm firmly. “Hey. Talk to me."

Distressing as the sight might've been, it was still all but impossible for Ciara to tear her attention away from Torres, whose panting had begun to grow shallow. “Uh. Something—the hatch, I think."

“You got an emergency trauma patch on her, it looks like? What mode?"

The 'patch' was a thick strip, tearable at any length, that served as a substrate and initial power source for the trillions of nanobots embedded in it. “Just… the normal one," Ciara said; she'd set the programming chip on it without truly thinking, until and after the patch activated and began to glow.

The goal of the patch was to close wounds and arrest any nerve damage long enough to get a subject to surgery and no further—they had, for a time, been called 'single-use combat kits' before wiser heads prevailed. It also served as a local anesthetic, unless instructed otherwise, although Jack figured Torres didn't care much one way or the other. “Seems to have worked. You called Ayenni?"

“Yes. Uh. Liron did."

The door—primary entry A, as the maned wolf indicated—opened, and even before it had finished the ship's new surgeon was forcing his way through them. “Doctor?" Jack asked, slightly confused.

“Yes." His eyes swept the scene quickly, and he sat next to Ciara, opening the kit he'd brought with him. “And you put a—okay. Right position," Wolf said, and tapped the side of the monitor Ciara had placed just behind the cat's left ear. “These need to be turned on, though."

“Sorry." She sensed that he wanted her to give him room to work. Although she was loathe to let Torres go, she scooted back a few centimeters. “I didn't know."

“It's fine, it's fine," he reassured her, glancing up to the coyote with captain's insignia on his uniform while the device finished its initial scans and started compiling a summary. “You're the CAG?"

“That's me, yeah. Shamrock—Captain Ford."

“Let's schedule some training, sir. Ideally before the next op." Somewhat chastened—especially for a coyote—Jack nodded, although Lukas had already turned his attention back to the monitor's readouts. “Alright. We can move her."

He had begun to unfold the stretcher packed into his gear without further explanation. The medical scanner he used was, problematically, impenetrable to Ciara Munro. “Is—how bad is it?"

“She'll be fine." Wolf assumed it went without saying that this assessment was contingent on moving quickly: there was no guarantee that the simple monitor provided in a field kit hadn't missed something that the more advanced scanners in their medical bay could pick up. “Nothing too bad."

“Really?"

He double-checked the battery on his stretcher, maneuvered the pliant feline onto it, and switched the power on. Its attached screen lit up, followed a moment later by the antigravity system. “Don't have to reattach anything, at least. She'll be okay."

“Well—"

Wolf held up his paw to quiet her while he called Ayenni. “Sickbay, Wolf. Headed back now. The monitors are transmitting, right?"

“Yes. I have her vitals. I should be ready by the time you get here."

“Understood. Wolf out."

“I'm coming with you," Ciara said. The stretcher did not require two people to control, if one of them was well-practiced with its operation, but Wolf—and Jack Ford—understood quite well that Ciara was not about to be dissuaded from this mission.

So it was that Liron, busy with keeping the Kahil from doing further damage to itself or anyone else, returned from their work to find Captain Ford alone, staring at a conspicuously sized clean spot on the deck, surrounded by cooling blood.

Grateful for the distraction, the coyote turned quickly to Rocha. “Fixed now?"

“Fixed enough to not get worse, at least."

“What was the problem?"

“A blown fuse, I think, initially. The smoke was from coolant hitting the circuits." Jack nodded at the explanation, but said nothing. “What did the doctor say, sir, if I can ask?"

“Said she'd be alright."

“What did he mean?"

Jack took a deep breath; none of the tension left him when he let it back out. “I think he meant it. He didn't seem too stressed. The normal amount of stress, I guess."

Liron looked at the mess on the hangar floor. “Well. I'll get everything cleaned up, then. And then… I can borrow a tractor, right? I'd like to move this crate to a maintenance bay for teardown… find out what went wrong."

Jack found himself briefly surprised at the maned wolf's immediate pivot back to business; he shook his head to clear it. “Whatever you need to borrow around here is yours, Mx. Rocha. You're as sensible an owner for the flight deck as anybody."

“Understood. Thank you, sir."

“Of course." You should focus, too, the coyote told himself. There's work to do. “I don't imagine I'll be as useful for you on that teardown, but I can sure as hell help you clean up."

“It's fine. Not my first." They flicked an ear at Jack's odd expression. “Your first, sir?"

“We've been lucky here. And back on the Aggie, my old ship, we didn't see much action. We lost an Aardvark in a training accident, when I was a flight leader. But… not my section. You've had it rougher, I guess. The Lex is on the frontlines, isn't she?"

“High-tempo operations for two months straight," Liron confirmed. “By the time the Admiralty sent us back—to refit, officially—the 602nd went through a third of her Riverjacks. Not as bad as the Kaga, even."

“Isn't the Kaga a support cruiser?"

“Yes, sir. After the chancellor sent in the marines on Dendara, we flew support. Between the shuttles and damage from pirate ground-defense batteries… well… well, and… most of those pilots really shouldn't have been thrown into the grinder like that. But they were. A Defiant will take a lot more damage and come back than the crew inside it."

“Huh," was all Jack could think to say. Liron had pulled out a marking tool from their pocket, and was drawing around the largest divots carved in the hangar deck so the cleaner bots would avoid the damage until it could be properly investigated. Ford, for want of a better idea, pulled one of the bots off its shelf and switched it on.

“Hold up. Sir," Liron added hastily, lest their objection be taken as insubordination. “Once it starts to get tacky, it sort of screws with the machines. I'll show you how to take care of it, if you're serious about helping."

“Should I not be?"

“Back on the Kaga, the officers always realized they had some important reports to be working on." But Liron already recognized Jack was not one of those kinds of officers. “I'll teach you, though, sure. Here…"

***

Torres, who had spent her entire life dismantling and repairing dangerous machines, was no stranger to waking up in hospital beds. A perplexing lack of sensation at her neck indicated the likely source of the current situation.

“Hey, you're awake. Welcome back, miss."

She couldn't place the voice—Torres and Lukas Wolf had not officially met—and blinked a few times. Or tried to. “Huh. Uh. Yeah, hey. I'm trying to open my eyes and don't… seem to be able to."

“Your eyes are open," Ayenni said; this voice, Mitti did recognize, and she turned reflexively towards it. “You're temporarily blind."

Torres froze, pausing to consider what she'd just been told, which Dr. Wolf took as sanguine acceptance rather than misunderstanding. “Your ocular implant was causing a feedback loop that could've led to serious brain damage. We shut down all of your visual pathways while we're figuring out how to move forward."

“Um," Torres finally said. Wolf had done a superlative job at this: she could see nothing, not even when she tried to picture things she knew she had a good visual memory of. The experience was not so much blackness as it was an absence of even understanding the principles of sight. “Move forward, huh?"

“I imagine it's disorienting," Ayenni offered, trying to reassure her. “We'll figure something out, though, don't worry."

She brushed Torres's shoulder and, briefly, the alien's thoughts merged with her own. There was a brief flash of something she perceived, at least, as distinctly colored. “Wait. I just saw something there."

“Oh. Probably what I'm seeing. Like this, I guess." Ayenni rested her paw on the cat's arm.

Images flooded into Mitti's mind, and quickly assembled themselves into a picture of her current situation. For a moment, she was reassured, although she found herself beginning to grow increasingly unsettled. “Okay—no, can you stop? Please?"

“Of course." She drew away from the Abyssinian. “Are you feeling okay?"

“Yeah. I think so. Just, uh. It's a very disconcerting experience, looking down at yourself on a hospital bed." The void was preferable to that. Her breathing returning to normal, she sighed. “What happened, anyway?"

“An accident on the flight deck. Do you not remember?"

She was, now, able to associate this voice with the new figure who had been standing next to Ayenni, and was also wearing medical garb. “No. No, sir. We were… on a mission, I think? Then nothing."

“Probably some kind of explosion. You'll have to ask the pilots. They're always blowing things up," Wolf muttered. “You took some shrapnel to the throat. A bit of it lodged in what I guess must be neural link between what seems to be a coprocessor installed in your C5 vertebra and your ocular interface. What we—"

“She just woke up, Dr. Wolf," Ayenni interrupted, gently.

“It's alright. It gives me something to focus on," Mitti said. “The link was damaged?"

“There's a fragment of some kind of polybolonide that looks to have penetrated the cable sheath. I can't tell if that's the source of the interference. The coprocessor registers as having a medical diagnostic interface, but our computer doesn't make sense of it. I was hoping you could tell us who manufactured it."

“It's a Kushani VNX module. A VNX… 5204, I think. From a turret."

“Oh!" Ayenni caught herself apologetically when Wolf tensed at her cry. “No, it's nothing. That just makes sense, is all. The Kushan are incredibly skilled cyberneticists. They're native to… I don't even think you'd call it the Rewa-Tahi; it's much further from your space."

“I've never heard of them," Wolf admitted. “So… probably."

“The nearest Sivan Kush outpost is at least another… 800 light years distant from us? They don't even trade with the Dominion, as far as I know. My people sometimes journey to study under them. If they're interested in that kind of technology, anyhow."

That did not make things much clearer for Lukas: “How did you get an implant from the Kushan, then, Miss Torres?"

“In my universe, the Sivan Kush is over eighty planets. They're one of the few powers capable of resisting the Union. Our resistance cell traded with them, sometimes. They, uh… I've never met one. We salvaged a gunship that had an interface with some VNX chips. Mostly we used those in surveillance drones, but when I damaged my eye, the general let me have one as a… a way of thanking me, I guess."

Wolf had been taking notes, and reviewed them with a canted head. “In 'your' universe?"

“I'm from an alternate dimension, yes." Lukas brought up her charts, and was starting to scan her for signs of delirium he might've missed; Ayenni caught his attention, and silently nodded her confirmation of the story while Mitti continued explaining. “I was part of a resistance movement. The doctor has my medical file—what I remember of it. It's not the only cybernetic stuff I have, just the most visible."

Dr. Wolf's head was still cocked. “So… the chip is manufactured by an alien race we've never met. But also, from a parallel reality that we've never been to?"

“Ayenni has." Ayenni nodded again, subtly. “I don't remember the programming being too difficult, though. Maybe Mike? Mr. Cooper, the engineer? He might be able to help."

***

Mike Cooper was embroiled in a different argument, and unaware of the drama playing out in the ship's sickbay. Shannon and TJ had been arguing for nearly fifteen minutes over the new transmitter they'd been sent, and whether or not it was safe to install. Mike, responsible for writing new bindings for their communications software, had been waiting for most of his shift to actually deploy those changes.

“It's supposed to be your idea, spaceman," Shannon pointed out.

She had asked TJ if he understood how the long-range holotransceiver was supposed to work. Travis shrugged. “Yeah? I mean, the one we used was. They made all kinds of changes."

“Minor changes," Mike Cooper interjected. “All of them on the software side. I've reviewed those. I reviewed them when I was writing the new code. It doesn't seem to be too big of a deal, though."

“And the power converter. I was taking power off the auxiliary circuits. Twice the voltage on main, dude." TJ thought it wouldn't be a problem, but the new hardware was a black box to him. “Maybe it's okay."

“If we fry it trying to say 'hello,' the admirals are going to be unhappy. Mads made that quite clear to me. How strong is that 'maybe,' TJ?"

“I don't know. It's… I mean. Like…"

Mike's communicator went off before he could finish whatever he'd been planning to say. “Petty Officer Cooper, please report to sickbay."

The three of them looked at his wristband computer. “Who was that?" Hazelton asked. “Was that Dave?"

“Dave has a Canadian accent." Mike tapped the communicator. “I'm on my way. What's going on?"

“It's a medical emergency. Get here quickly."

Shannon turned up her paws. “Well, okay. You're dismissed, Mr. Cooper. A medical emergency with computers, huh? Ancroy, n'vis. Eh, TJ?"

Travis watched the panther disappear through the door. “New equipment, I bet. Probably isn't working right. Maybe we can ask the Admiralty for help."

Hazelton stared at the otter, searching his expression. “Do you still owe your parole officer quarterly reports?"

“No. I mean, yes. Yeah, but, like. They're suspended while I'm on this mission. What about you?"

“I don't have a parole officer. I'm not any more thrilled than you are about having those fucking nandesfers spying on us. Manjmer idiotas." She spat, as if the outburst hadn't made her feelings clear enough. “Ugh. But Mads told me to try my best."

“Try your best to install it, or try your best to not install it?"

“She said… ah. J'embliy." The order had come alongside several others, and being told of her promotion, and the raccoon had to rack her brain. “Admiral Mercure expected me to do my best, and so did she."

“Same question, right?" Shannon gave a short, heavy sigh, and a glare that did not abate when the otter shrugged. “Above my pay grade, that's for sure."

***

“Reporting as…" Mike trailed off, taking stock of the room. Dr. Wolf had not yet cleaned all the blood from his uniform, and Torres—motionless on one of the beds and surrounded by softly chirping equipment—seemed the most obvious source. “Uh. As ordered. What can I help you with?"

“Some programming, I hope," Wolf said. “I'm told you're our expert on that."

“Yes, sir."

Wolf handed over a computer, which was busy outputting a stream of garbled diagnostic information. “This is for Ms. Torres's cybernetic eye. We've shut down her visual cortex as a precautionary measure. There's a feedback loop that we need to figure out before starting it back up again. Does that make sense?"

Mike took the computer with a deepening frown. “Does the problem make sense, or does any of the data on this screen make sense?"

“Hopefully the answer to both would be 'yes,' but let's start with the problem."

“I understand the problem. Torres has talked about that eye before. I think it was installed after some injury or something, but it's never given her any problems so far as I know. She gets in enough, I'm sure. We all do."

“I can hear you, by the way," Torres spoke up. “I can't see anything, but I can hear you. If there's anything I can do to help, you just let me know."

The panther coughed. “Sorry. This data stream is coming from the implant, doctor?" he asked, directing his attention to Wolf. “Anything else I should know?"

“It's coming from the implant, yes. I can't tell you much more. There's a tiny bit of shrapnel that's lodged in the cable sheath, but when I tried to remove it, things went haywire."

“Still powered on, then. Hmm. Can I?" he gestured towards the open chair Wolf was standing next to, and the doctor stepped away obligingly for him to take a seat.

The only thing that proved to be immediately obvious was that the implant had not been programmed by anyone in the Terran Confederation, nor converted to any kind of Star Patrol standards. But there were, Mike figured, only so many ways one could really encode streaming visual data that was designed to be processed by a Terran brain.

“Did you do any work on this yourself, Torres?“

“Not much. I think I might've had to when I was calibrating it, but otherwise I let the cyberneticists do their best. Or their worst? I hope it was their best."

“It was very tightly integrated into the visual processing centers of her brain," Wolf added. “More than we'd be comfortable with. You could take that as a sign of some skill. Or recklessness."

“Skill." Ayenni, who had been watching Mike work, knew he would want as few variables as possible. 'Did they know what they were even doing?' was a good one to take off the table. “The Kushani are renowned at this."

Half an hour later, Mike decided he understood the data rate, at least—the frequency with which packets of information were being sent. Knowing that let him take a few educated guesses about what might be contained in each packet. Knowing that, he nudged one of the adjustable lights the two doctors had focused on the Abyssinian. “Huh."

“Huh?" Wolf asked. It was the first thing anyone had said in the room for a solid ten minutes. “Is that a good 'huh' or a bad 'huh'?"

Mike nudged the light again, and then tapped its control panel to change the color temperature. “Just a 'huh'-huh." The panther was distracted by some of the implications of what he was seeing. “I don't think the data is being converted first. It's raw signals, somehow. But, uh… hmm. The universal translator's giving me something, at least."

“A control system of some kind, maybe?" Wolf did not do a good job keeping the hope out of his voice. “Some way to get low-level access to the electronics?"

“We'll see."

“We?" Mitti asked. “Who's included in that?"

“Well… that was more a turn of phrase," the panther admitted, although he figured that with any luck it would prove to be both of them. He cleared his throat. “Just me, for a start. It is a… a control panel, of sorts, I guess. Yes. There's an error report. You didn't happen to be awake when they installed this thing, right?"

“I don't think I was, no. I try not to be awake when I'm having my eye removed."

“That's fine. Just means a bit of guesswork. The report indicates a bad cable. Intermittent connection, possibly due to physical damage. You said there's some shrapnel, right doc? That's about what this is pointing to."

“Yes. We couldn't remove it, though. It was shorting something out. The brain is a bad place to do that. I thought we'd disconnected it from any kind of power source."

“You did. The report says that, too. It looks like it's running on backup power of some kind, though."

“If we can get that sorted… what do you think, Ayenni?" Dr. Wolf looked to the alien doctor; when she nodded, he started up the sterilizing equipment and their surgical robots. “Tell me you can safely shut it down for a few seconds, Mr. Cooper, and I'll get ready to remove the shrapnel."

“I can shut it down. But according to the documentation, you'll only have thirty seconds before memory in the chip starts getting corrupted." Accounting for the conversion method the universal translator indicated for the Kushan units the documentation used, the actual time limit was almost 40, which he hoped was a safe margin of error. “Go or no-go, doc?"

“It shouldn't take more than that." The computer chimed to indicate that the sterilization cycle on the robot had finished. “Ms. Torres, I'm sure you've been following. We're going to have to do a little bit more work on your neck. You shouldn't feel anything."

“I don't. It's kind of like sensory deprivation torture, honestly. You're free to get it over with."

“We'll do that. On my signal, Mr. Cooper, if you're ready."

The bit of shrapnel was, by the standards of the surgical robot he'd chosen, massive—nearly 15 micrometers in diameter, and four times as long. Not the kind of thing he'd want to go after with tweezers, but almost visible to the naked eye.

It had caused excitement out of proportion to its stature, which was in keeping with the mission statement of the Dark Horse herself. Wolf, focused on controlling the robot, ignored the time. Getting a solid grip required five seconds. Carefully removing the object took another fifteen.

Ayenni, who was merely observing the process, had already guessed that Mike would've built some buffer in, since the panther hadn't objected when Dr. Wolf wanted to get to work. In the back of her mind, she estimated that repairing the damage to the cable sheath would take at least a full minute.

Dr. Wolf finished it in a third of that time, while he was still holding his breath. So was Mike Cooper, who let it out and sent the startup command back to the dormant cybernetics as soon as Wolf indicated that he was finished. “Backup power's running again. The error from before is gone."

“I'd like to try removing the neural dampener, then."

When he moved to do that, Ayenni brought up every monitor she felt comfortable scanning in real-time without becoming overloaded. “Her vital signs are… well, pretty good, anyway. I think it's stable enough."

“Then…"

At once, Torres regained some semblance of feeling below her neck and the awareness of brilliant, blinding light. She gave a little yelp, then quickly raised her paw before either doctor could become too panicked. “Sorry! It's fine—startling, that's all."

“You can see again?" Mike asked.

Mitti waved the paw across her face. “On one side, at least. Thanks."

“Don't mention it. If they reconnect the power to your eye, is that all automatic?"

“Hope so, huh?" After the period of time she'd spent locked in her skull, the Abyssinian would've been perfectly happy to leave it at that. Her mood was positively ebullient. “We can try, though. Can I turn it on myself, doctor, or do you need to do that?"

“We'll reconnect the power," Wolf promised. That was within his abilities even without a computer expert standing next to him. “Done. How is that?"

That side of her vision turned a shimmering, eerie purple, which did not abate even after she closed the eye. “Sort of. I think it's the startup sequence, but it's all greens and ultraviolets. I… do not like this. Kind of painful to look at."

Mike found that, on his console, he had been presented with a configuration menu listing a dizzying array of options, most of them in alien script. “Something got reset. The universal translator is catching up. How many… what? It says lenses. Asking how many lenses you have, I think?"

“Oh. For the data integrator, yes. I only have one. The Kushani have… weird eyes, I think. Or a bunch of them, or something."

“Compound eyes, each with a different spectrum," Ayenni said. “The resolution is also quite high, with hundreds of billions of photoreceptors. I'm sure that's why your resistance group used their chips for surveillance equipment."

“Probably. I think I remember our doctor telling me that she turned down the resolution or something so I wouldn't go crazy. You—hey! You got it, Mike!" The startup screen, playing against the back of her closed eyelid had snapped back into a range the Abyssinian was comfortable with. “Thank you!"

“I think so…"

“Yeah!" Mitti opened both eyes, turned in the panther's direction, and immediately became nauseated. “Nope! Nope, that's not right. Undo that. You're upside-down."

“What? I picked the right orientation." Just in case, though, he chose its opposite. “It's your right eye. Top of your head. Convex lens. Those flip images, right? Back me up here, doc. One of you."

“Yes," Dr. Wolf said. “Although Terran brains are quite plastic in that regard. They'll adapt quickly."

“Maybe my sensor was installed the wrong way," Torres suggested. Carefully, she tried examining the room again. “It works now. Good as new."

Wolf heard, in her tone, a concerning enthusiasm. “Be that as it may, you're staying here for now. Until you're recovered."

“Well…" In the brief period during which she'd perceived Ayenni's view of the world, Mitti had seen the bare patch shaved into the fur of her neck; she could guess, from its extent, what the damage had been. But she felt fine. “Wait. I'm not Star Patrol. You can't give me orders."

“You're staying here," Ayenni said firmly. “On my orders. Better?"

***

Captain's log, stardate 68040.3

One awkward dinner and an exchange of trophies later, we are back on course for Garakhav. The Elaxi have promised to send ahead their own tactical report of the encounter, so that Dominion commanders are aware of how seriously the tactical situation needs to be managed.

That is not what I have been thinking about.

“What are we going to do?"

Dave fidgeted with the small computer he held, and which contained the bullet points he'd wanted to review with his captain. “I don't know," he said. “Our new plane captain says they'll do a full inspection of the Kahil. We probably got lucky."

“What about Lieutenant Commander Munro? What's her recommendation?"

“Officially, she says she'll help Rocha with their review and take it from there. Torres is evidently in fairly good spirits—'lesson learned,' she says, according to Ayenni. She'll want to get the ship up and running again as quickly as possible."

Maddy had not lost anyone under her command before. Had not, despite her penchant for getting into trouble, even come particularly close. “Ms. Torres is more used to this, huh?"

“Probably. So. Unofficially, Captain Ford and I both agree that Munro will be a lot more cautious for the foreseeable future. Perhaps excessively so, like Parnell was when she came aboard. Unless there's some clear fault with the Kahil that we should've noticed earlier."

“Hmm," May said.

“Dr. Wolf would like us to make sure we're up to date with our first-aid training. We've done a good job keeping the stations and equipment maintained, but—fortunately—we haven't had the need to use it much. I told Dr. Wolf he and Ayenni should do that as soon as they can."

“Agreed. We have been lucky. I can't believe they sent us out here without a doctor." The Akita shook her head slowly, and brought herself back to the question she'd intended to ask from the beginning. “Munro and Torres. Do we split them up, Dave?"

“Personally or professionally?"

“The latter. Torres is a civilian. Even under Star Patrol regs, I can't order them not to date each other. I can keep her out of the cockpit, though."

“Or Munro," Dave pointed out. “The Kahil isn't Star Patrol property, either. If anything, it probably belongs to Torres's resistance group, right? They're just not around to make a claim to it."

“Fine. So: do we?"

“I'm inclined to say 'no.' No matter what, I think both of them have a strong sense of duty. Commander Munro might be more cautious for a bit, but she's not going to abandon a mission for Torres, and Torres wouldn't let her. In my opinion, anyway."

“Mine, too." The Akita had grown accustomed to leaving personnel details up to Dave, in a bureaucratic sense, because in those affairs her opinion and the retriever's were generally the same. “But it is something to keep an eye on."

“Of course."

“Or to ask for advice. Did you talk to Shannon? Figure out what 'problem' she was talking about?"

“She won't install the transmitter."

May tilted her head. “Won't?"

“Refused to. She, uh. None of it's on the record, of course. I've gotten out of that habit when I'm talking to her." Dave was not quite as fond of their chief engineer as Maddy, but he appreciated her quiet scoff. “She said she'd considered blowing it up and taking the resulting demotion."

“That sounds like her. Honestly, the Admiralty would probably accept that explanation. I don't think Admiral Mercure actually wants them prying on us, anyway."

“Honestly"—Dave felt it was worth pointing out the obvious, in case Maddy's guileless nature had obscured her to this—“Mercure probably intended that explanation."

“I had considered that, too," she assured him. “But if it's not blown up, then what?"

“She said there were too many unanswered questions. After the incident on the flight deck, she said it would be irresponsible to integrate untested technology with our power systems. She noted her larger team now, and a belief that, as a lieutenant commander, she should be setting a better example."

“She said that?" When May raised an eyebrow, as she did now, the Akita's mask tended to make her look even more shocked than she truly was. “Shannon did?"

“Indeed."

“The Admiralty is definitely not going to believe that."

“No."

“She should've just blown the damned thing up." Maddy sighed. “At least have her continue to try and get it operational. We should do that much."

“Yes. Yes, we agreed on that. She has dedicated some headcount to work on it, part-time. I even did all three of us the favor of asking for a timeline."

“She growled at you until you left main engineering, didn't she?"

Dave grinned. “She growled at me until I left main engineering."

“Incredible. Well, it's good to have them off our backs. Let her know we'll need a status report the next time we send the Tempest back, though."

“She knows. But there's a war on, Maddy. And we've all got priorities."

***

“That was… impressive work," Ayenni told him.

“Your ears," Wolf said, gesturing towards them; the rims had taken a slightly reddish tint. “You're serious, huh? Well, thank you."

Now the tint flashed to a curious orange. “What do you know about that?"

“It was in one of the white papers that the expedition has sent back. Your native language is partially visual, right? There aren't any languages in the Confed that have chromosyntactic elements—it caught my attention. The redder tints are more… pleased, or excited, as I understand it."

“Yes." And the orange was, generally, more thoughtful. They stayed that way. “That's a simplification, but not inaccurate. I didn't know we Yara were celebrities."

“I don't know that I'd go that far. It piqued my interest, you know? It must've piqued… Beltran? That's right?"

“Felicia Beltran, yes. Our diplomat. I guess I didn't know she'd paid that much attention to me," Ayenni admitted, although when she said it out loud it did seem like something the ever-observant leopardess would've done.

“Apparently. Her and your science officer. He's the co-author."

“Barry? Well, that makes sense." Barry had, in point of fact, tried to learn the Yara's language, relying on the variable-temperature lighting controls of the ship's environmental systems. That had not gone well, although she appreciated the effort. “I was serious, yes. The suturing was some of the best I've ever seen from an alien."

“I take that in the spirit it was offered," Wolf said diplomatically. “I'm sure there's a lot I can learn from you, too. Once things are calmer, although as baptisms of fire go, it could've been worse."

They had put up a temporary barrier between their office and the rest of sickbay, so that they could work without disturbing Torres. Ciara Munro was talking with her—softly, it appeared, although with the sound dampening on the energy field between them kept the conversation a mystery. Ayenni watched them for a moment, and smiled. “It's true. I'm glad you and Mike were able to get the implant solved as quickly as you were."

“Yeah. Especially since neither of us had heard of a Kushan anything before. This is going to be an interesting tour, I think…" He watched as Munro bent down, and planted a gentle kiss on the Abyssinian's cheek. “Huh."

“It was odd behavior to me, too, at first," she teased. “But I had the excuse of coming from a culture that doesn't have much physical contact."

“That wasn't what I meant by 'interesting.' Are they… a couple?"

“Yes. I'm not entirely sure they'd admit it yet, but…"

Wolf nodded. “I guess even if she's crew, she's technically a civilian?"

Ah, Ayenni thought. That's what he's getting at. “Technically. For what it's worth, I've been the ship's doctor for quite some time now and, ah… if your people have rules about fraternization, I have no idea what they are. I'm not sure the crew does, either."

“We have rules," he said. “Although this ship does have a reputation. Everyone?"

Ayenni considered everything she knew. “More or less. I don't know that Dr. Beltran is really all that interested in sex. Perhaps not Valerie Smith, either. Everyone else, well… you'll get pretty good at figuring out the proportions in the DNA samples…"

Caught slightly off-guard, Wolf let out a snort. “Oh."

“You have to figure that it's a crew of mostly young, adventuresome people, and they're a long way from home. Although…" She thought over the crew a second time. “Maybe some of their Star Patrol training has stuck. The only couples are with civilians, as you put it. There's also Leon and Sabel Thorsen—"

“The Ulver? Are they even programmed for that?"

“I wouldn't want to impugn the skills of Terran scientists," Ayenni began, hoping to soften the blow. “But he was not programmed terribly well. He's definitely not a machine. And he's proven quite able to adapt to all kinds of new situations."

“Huh. That's kind of neat, though, isn't it?"

“I think so! Anyway, besides them, I think there's David and myself."

“Commander Bradley? The XO? I'd almost…" He stopped, on the verge of saying something indecorous, and then decided that there was not much point in subtlety when he was talking to a telepath. “I'd almost figured it would be the science officer, if anyone."

“Because he was so enthusiastic about my language?" Ayenni had to smile at the idea of the two of them together for any length of time. “No. Barry is an interesting person, but not my… 'type,' as you Terrans say. I thought he mentioned having a partner, at some point. But I might have been mistaken—I try not to pry too much."

“Am I prying?"

“Academically curious," Ayenni allowed. “Which is being smart, considering how… idiosyncratic?" That was the word she settled on, finally, which seemed like the best way of putting it without creating too many red flags for the new doctor. “Yes. How idiosyncratic the crew can be sometimes. The important thing is: you'll learn. If you want to."

Wolf returned his attention, briefly, to Ciara and Mitti, before deciding it was none of his business anyway. “I do. Why else would I sign up?"