Back and There Again
A repair gone awry forces some Unconventional Measures.
A repair gone awry forces some Unconventional Measures.
Apologies for the delay! I was, uh. Getting married last month. Anyway, here is the next bit of the Dark Horse saga, which is also smutty! And which focuses on some of the new characters, as well as, ah... an older one. I hope you enjoy! 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.
Tales of the Dark Horse, by Rob Baird
S8E3, “Back and There Again"
Stardate 68077
Captain's log, stardate 68077
We're responding to a distress call from an Ardzula mining ship, which has apparently come under attack by the Pictor. Unfortunately, we were nearly a light-year away at the time, and early indications are that the battle has already ended.
“Action stations. CCI, what does Captain Ford have to say?"
“Both Riverjacks and the Tempest are standing by, ma'am," Spaceman Ahmed reported. “We can launch as soon as we're back in normalspace."
“Tactical?"
“All systems operational," Leon reported, and then felt the need to expand on that summary, just in case: “Weapons are in active-standby and deflector shields are ready to be put online at full power."
That, as they said, was that, as far as Maddy was concerned: “Get the shields up as soon as you can, and start looking for targets. Lieutenant Parnell, let's do this."
“Yes, ma'am. Killing the FTL drive… now."
The ship's tactical sensors switched on, and promptly began feeding the CCI station data; Spaceman Ahmed cocked his head at the report. “Ah… there's no sign of an ongoing battle. I'm detecting debris consistent with at least one ship."
“Put the tactical plot on-screen," May ordered; looking at the wreckage itself wasn't going to tell her much. Ahmed had helpfully tagged the largest pieces, which appeared to be on somewhat random trajectories. “Can you tell me anything else?"
“The metallurgy matches Ardzula-Mar hull construction techniques. Based on the damage we can see… it's not really my department, but…"
“It's mine," Lieutenant Bader said, speaking up. “There's evidence of antiparticle spalling and high-temperature deformation of the structural members. Their main reactor went critical, captain."
Captain May sighed, ears flattening slightly. “Any sign of escape pods? Anything like that?"
“I'm searching," Ahmed promised. “But nothing so far. Given the ion trails, I think there were only two ships involved… I'm not detecting any other sublight thrusters."
“There is also a Pictor cruiser, captain. Or what used to be a Pictor cruiser." Briefly, the German Shepherd did commandeer the viewscreen, because in this case the damage was obvious. “The hull is open to space across multiple compartments. Their engines and main power systems appear to be offline."
“Life signs?"
“None."
She sighed again. “Go to State Gold… keep the deflector shields up, for now, but let Captain Ford know we won't need him. Eli, take us in closer. Begin a search pattern and keep your eyes peeled for any survivors."
Parnell plotted a course around the densest parts of the debris field, which was expanding with deceptive slowness on the tactical display—some of the pieces would hit the Dark Horse with a couple of kilometers per second of velocity difference.
Five minutes went by, and then ten. Spaceman Ahmed stared at every new signal hopefully, in case it might turn out to be a lifeboat after all. Lieutenant Bader's eyes were focused elsewhere. The shepherd thought he understood how the end of the battle had probably played out.
Based on where the two were located, relative to his extrapolations of the debris field's trajectory, both ships had been close together when the mining vessel's reactor exploded. Scuttled, Leon decided. They triggered a self-destruct sequence rather than let the Pictor board them.
That explained the automated nature of the distress call, no doubt triggered by the mining vessel's hull failure. This was something that had, apparently, taken the Pictor by surprise as well. But:
“Captain? That cruiser's reactor was shut down safely. There's no sign of any damage to the ship from internal explosions. They just took a bunch of shrapnel through the hull and weren't able to recover before the life-support failed."
“Alright?"
“So there's nobody left aboard. This could be a golden opportunity to recover intelligence on the Pictor."
Maddy realized the value of that opportunity immediately. “It would be. Can you confirm there's nobody left aboard? Or if anybody might've booby-trapped it?"
“I'll do what I can, but if they didn't set their own self-destruct charges, I don't think they had time for sabotage."
The Akita found herself in a better mood by the second. She tapped her communicator. “Engineering, this is the bridge. Shannon?"
“Mads?" the raccoon answered warily.
“What would you say if I planned a field trip to an abandoned Pictor cruiser?"
“Oh, fuck me," was, as it happened, the answer to the question of Shannon's response. And then: “What would I owe you?"
***
“Take good care of it," Ciara said, gesturing towards the object of Liron Rocha's mixed admiration and ire. Large sections of the Kahil's outer hull plating had already been removed; the maned wolf was busy prying off the cover to the auxiliary power unit.
“I'll do what I can, ma'am. No promises."
Ciara looked towards Mitti Torres, instead. “Don't let them do anything rash."
Mitti grinned, getting up so that she could give the flightsuit-clad vixen a hug. “No promises. You're leaving me behind, after all."
“Just until you can prove you've learned your lesson," Ciara told her, although Mitti's injury—the fur on her neck was still noticeably short—was not the actual reason she was not being taken along. Munro would be keeping the Tempest right alongside the disabled Pictor vessel, so that the salvage team could take advantage of its advanced sensors. Mitch Alexander's familiarity with the old ship's systems was second only to Ciara's.
Her twin would have been of use on the salvage team itself, and Mitti's injury was the reason she hadn't joined that. Probably, the Abyssinian thought, she could've forced her way onto the away mission. But it wasn't worth causing that sort of stress to Ciara, particularly when the cat had just as much she could be doing on the Dark Horse.
Right now, she was trying to keep Liron from losing their mind. Their ears were back, staring at an object that should have been a flow regulator for a plasma distribution system. It had been placed as though it was a flow regulator.
But it did not seem to have any moving parts. “I don't suppose you've put this under a scope, maybe?" they asked hopefully.
Mitti shook her head. “I didn't work too much on bombers. Mostly random stuff we found in salvage yards."
They set the thing—whatever it was—off to the side, in a bin reserved for 'further investigation.' “I don't understand how the Uxzu… function."
“Yes. How their technology works has always been a little bit of a mystery. Also how to fix it," she admitted. The 'further investigation' bin had required a larger container several times since they'd started work. “Most of the time, if you hit it hard enough with a hammer, that does the trick."
Liron folded their long legs beneath them and, with eyes closed, mentally reviewed everything the pair had done over the previous nine shifts. Neither Jack nor Ciara wanted the Kahil used again until a thorough assessment had been completed of any possible points of failure.
At present, with everything but the main reactor itself disassembled, the assessment ran to over two hundred items, and every shift had brought with it some new and unsettling surprise.
“Stand by to launch auxiliary craft," a voice announced, and warning lights began to flash around the two. The lights were a formality: secondary airlocks isolated the launch systems from the rest of the flight bay.
Just in case, Liron double-checked the location of the nearest emergency life-support kit. Mitti did not—having never been taught Star Patrol protocol for such matters. She waited until the lights stopped. “I hope they find something good. Do you know anything about the Pictor?"
“Their technology? No, not really. Nothing interesting, I mean. We installed new countermeasures on the scout ships in my last squadron, so… I guess I could tell you what frequencies and stuff their missiles use." Liron sighed. “That's more than I know about this thing, huh?"
“Well," Mitti began, and couldn't come up with a reasonable objection. She, too, sighed. “It is a… unique challenge."
So far, the shift's nadir was the discovery of a thick, curving piece of metal Liron assumed at first to be a structural member of some kind. Then Mitti discovered the insulation separating it from the Kahil's internal supports.
And then, shortly thereafter, Liron found the power connections. Based on their estimates, the busbar was probably good for a couple megawatts—something the Star Patrol definitely would've used a plasma system for. The Uxzu did not, although neither Mitti nor Liron were clear on what the bus had originally powered.
She had not vetoed Liron's recommendation that it be disconnected from the reactor, after which rigorous diagnostic testing could reveal if the disconnection broke anything. When they made that recommendation, though, Liron had naively assumed they'd be reassembling the Kahil in the near future.
So had Mitti. “I'm going to…"
Liron perked an ear. “Going to what?"
The Abyssinian sighed, picking through the 'further investigation' collection. Eventually she settled on the flow regulator, while a hypothesis about its functioning was still fresh in their minds. “I'm going to start here. Do you want to take a break while I get some equipment from the lab?"
Liron considered that, then shook their head and pushed themselves to their feet. “A walk would do me good."
They, they thought, beginning to develop a headache.
***
The door to the bridge opened, admitting Mei Parizeau and Dave Bradley, who held up his paw to forestall Jamie Meyer when she took immediate notice of their entry. He did not manage to do so in time—the mountain lion was looking for any bit of excitement she could find, anyway, given the slowness of the shift. “Officer on deck!"
“As you were. Lieutenant Parnell, how's my ship?"
“Fine, sir. It's been a quiet watch." All it had really required was double-checking the navigation plot, every hour or so, in case they needed to jump to hyperspace quickly. Also, unlike Jamie, she was not working double-shifts—neither Mei nor Rika Srivastava were working on the salvage, so they'd been able to maintain a normal rotation.
“Good. You're relieved, then. Ms. Parizeau, you have the conn." He remained standing while the two traded places, until Eli had left the bridge, then walked over to Jamie Meyer's station. “What about CCI?"
“Nothing major, sir, besides a few engineering reports. We're deferring some more maintenance, either because most of the engineers are still on the Pictor ship or because we can't do the work while we have crew on EVA."
Dave nodded. “Anything serious?"
“Nothing that's labeled as critical, no. It's just the delay needs to be signed off on by one of the senior staff."
“Sure. Send them to my console, and I'll take a look. How are you holding up?"
The mountain lion stretched out, flexing her fingers and gauging what the answer might be. It was her third such shift since they'd found the shipwreck. “Fine, sir. I think. It does get a little easy to… zone out, the longer it goes."
“I guess that's what the alarms are for. I appreciate you being willing to step up."
“Of course, sir," she said. Although—and Dave could've guessed this—she would much rather have been doing something interesting. Some kind of challenge, maybe. Wasn't that why she'd joined in the first place?
***
“I think I'm actually making progress…" Mitti's upbringing had not exposed her to the phrase 'whistling past the graveyard.' “We might need to tap the auxiliary power unit, though. The module itself doesn't want to turn on without a connection."
Liron checked the readouts for the APU which, on the Kahil, was effectively a battery. It had been fully charged when the two had begun their teardown of the Kahil, and still appeared to be in good shape. “That would be fine. You need a connector?"
Mitti shook her head, and held up the free end of an Uxzu-spec power cable in one of her paws. She plugged it in, and was relieved to see symbols appearing on the device's face. She was less relieved to feel a brief flicker of pain in her temple.
“Are you alright?" Liron had looked over in alarm, but the Abyssinian waved them away. “What happened? You made a noise."
“Tried authenticating me with a retinal scan… I think." Her cybernetic implants were good at filtering those out. “The Uxzu don't do subtlety very well. Anyway, it seems to be fine now. This says it's an auxiliary control module. It mostly looks like a record-keeping device, though."
“System logs? Flight recorder?"
“Flight recorder. All these missions are from before we started—I mean, before my old group started using it. A long time before I came here. The frame looks like it's almost seventy decades old."
Liron perked their ears, and scooted over. “Are there maintenance records? That could really help us know what needs to be done."
“Or what they thought needed done," Mitti agreed. “But it doesn't look like it… basic telemetry only, I think. I guess we don't need this. You mind if I shut it down?"
“No." They turned back to their previous work. “Write down somewhere that we don't need it, though."
“Of course." She pulled the plug back out. There was an odd noise from the maned wolf, and then a thump. And then an odder noise from Mitti, who had already plugged the device back in and was tapping frantically at her communicator. “Sickbay. I need a doctor in the maintenance bay."
“What's—"
It was Dr. Wolf, whom she cut off in a panic. “Just get here!"
Liron groaned, and opened their eyes to find themselves staring at the underside of a console, upside-down and from a bizarre angle. “Huh?"
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Fuck, are you okay?" Mitti asked, kneeling next to the maned wolf and offering a paw to help them sit up. “Fucking—I'm sorry. Fuck."
Liron's head hurt, from where it had hit the deck of the Kahil; more than that they were surprised by the tone in the woman's voice. “You don't curse like that… right? Normally?"
“No," she admitted. “Special occasion."
“What happened to me?" Besides the mild headache, Liron thought they hadn't been hurt—nor was there any blood, when the maned wolf explored the tender spot on their head with their fingers. “Electrical shock?"
“No. I don't think so." Fuck. You know it wasn't. But the words were hard to form, because she should've known before making a mistake like that. Mitti held up the device she'd been investigating. “This? It's not a control module for the bomber. It's a control module for the crew."
“Oh." Liron rubbed behind their right ear. “How does it work?"
“I don't exactly know how it works. The Union… are you feeling alright, though?" she changed topics quickly, telling herself that it was simple concern for Liron, and not her paucity of useful insight on the device. “You can stand up and everything?"
Growing slightly more concerned, they stood up, and took a few careful steps. “I can stand up, yes."
“I'll wait until the doctor arrives, then."
“He's here." Dr. Wolf had heard only the last sentence; from his perspective, there was nothing amiss. Unlike the previous time he'd been summoned to the flight deck, nobody was actively bleeding out. “You called?"
“We… I… triggered a control module in the ship we were working on."
“And?"
As Mitti understood it—the Link never used such things, even at their worst—they had been designed by Union scientists to ensure nobody tried to defect. Such a device created a bond between craft and crew. Straying too far from the machine would trigger a response. Trying to interrupt the signal would trigger a response. Shutting the module down without the correct authorization codes would trigger a response.
“You keep saying 'trigger a response'…"
Mitti nodded. “When I pulled the power, you went out like a light."
Dr. Wolf set up his computer, attached some probes to a rather alarmed-looking Liron Rocha, and waited for the data to begin streaming in. “How does it work?"
“I'm not sure. I know it reacts to specific neural patterns and generates some kind of… overload, I guess. The resistance movement I fought with, we never would've used anything like this, understand? But I should've recognized—I just wasn't—I figured whoever stole the Kahil and gave it to us would've removed something like that!"
“Well… no point in crying over spilled Argolian nectar."
Mitti shot the maned wolf a look. “Isn't it 'milk'?"
They shrugged lightly. “I thought it might sound better if it was more exotic. And you look like you need a drink. Or I'm projecting…"
“Probably both."
Wolf's equipment had finished its initial scan. “Your vital signs are stable, Liron. If Ms. Torres hadn't told me what was going on, I'd say you're just dealing with some elevated stress levels. But… there is… something happening in your brain. The activity is being modulated, but almost imperceptibly."
“It would become perceptible if I killed power to the module again," Mitti promised. “But I wouldn't recommend that."
“Unfortunately, the sensors in your suit do record some data, but not at the frequency we'd need. Whatever happened, either it was below the detection threshold or Ms. Torres fixed it too quick to notice."
“I did wake up on the floor," Liron pointed out. “So… I noticed, if that helps you any."
Between that and 'Argolian nectar,' Wolf understood Liron was trying to mask their nerves. He also understood that an even better way to do that would be if he knew how to fix what had happened. “Is this 'control module' designed to incapacitate or to kill?"
“The Union doesn't really go for 'incapacitation' if they have other options. According to rumor, it explodes your head. That's probably an exaggeration. Obviously, we don't have schematics on them or anything. I… fuck," Mitti groaned.
“What is it?"
“I felt something when I turned it on. That must've been one of my implants blocking it from pairing with me. Mx. Rocha was just… next closest. I'm so sorry," she said, and was preparing to repeat herself when the maned wolf reached out a paw and tapped their shoulder.
“We'll fix it. There has to be a way to shut it down safely. You said yourself."
“With the access codes, yes. I don't have those."
“Isn't that a solvable problem? Petty Officer Cooper was able to make sense of the technology in your implant, wasn't he? What if we asked him?"
***
PO3 Mike Cooper's log, stardate 68079.2
Signal does not match any existing modulation.
Data format entropy <= 4.5 dBScn/cycle. Falloff strongly implies linear encoding.
Next step, check for Rejmanova factors. If not—cyclic encryptor?
Thoughts: must be a dedicated module, maybe in the 5-figure range? Could be solvable if—
[log terminates]
“Uh." Mike Cooper felt the abiding need to choose his words carefully. “Can we talk, Mitti?"
It was Dr. Wolf's philosophy that, in general, his patients deserved to know what was going to happen to them. That went doubly true for soldiers like Liron, who often had enough specialized knowledge to understand it. “Can you just explain whatever you were just going to say here?"
“I'd like to know," Liron added—they had, without realizing it, come to appreciate the wisdom of Dr. Wolf's approach. “Considering your expression."
Mike hadn't worked much with the maned wolf, who'd been sequestered with the pilots since their arrival. Still, he avoided making direct eye contact. “It's some kind of high-range multipart cyclic encryption. Generally they use a decay operation to apply an inverse scaling function to a given set of signals when they're broken into parts. High-range means… well, in this case, it's six duodecimal encoders, so… about three million parts."
You asked me to explain, Mike thought, at the looks Liron and the doctor gave him. He tried to keep it simple: it was a hardware encryption technique, designed for operational speed. Solving it required reproducing three million signals within the acceptable bounds of error for the decryption module.
“And if we don't shut it down in time, it'll send a… termination command," Mitti decided on calling it, “to Liron's brain."
“'In time' would be a matter of a billionth of a second, depending on the hardware. It could be even less." Mike wasn't a hardware specialist, and he hadn't had time to look at the schematics Mitti was able to prepare. “We should not count on being able to decrypt it without the key."
The good news, so far as Liron could tell, was that they were not in imminent danger so long as the Kahil remained operational and its 'control module' had power. “So I just live here now?"
“I can't make that decision," Cooper said. “All I can say is that—especially if it has any kind of protection designed to detect hacking attempts—I don't think brute forcing it is reasonable. But we should talk to the captain."
***
Maddy was on the bridge, reading the latest report from the salvage team on what, according to its logs, had been the Pictor cruiser Mawul. There were no survivors; the hull damage was such that the Mawul also could not be repressurized easily, and the Star Patrol teams had to continue working in exposure suits.
That slowed things down a bit. According to Shannon, though, they'd already recovered intact weapons and guidance systems, and a better understanding of Pictor construction techniques. Not too many changes, the report said. But we'll be able to take full advantage of it, don't you worry.
She didn't think they would find anything mind-blowing: even if they hadn't been able to scuttle the ship, May was certain the Pictor would avoid letting codebooks or battle plans fall into enemy hands. Perhaps they'd get lucky, although she suspected that finding the ship as intact as it was had probably used up most of their good fortune.
Her communicator chirped. “Captain May, this is Dr. Wolf. Can you come down to the starboard maintenance bay?"
Maddy put the report aside, and tapped her wrist. “Yes. What's going on?"
“There's a situation involving Chief Warrant Officer Rocha. It's not immediately life-threatening, but it would be easier to explain in person."
It was a step up from you'd better come look, at least. “Alright. I'll be down in a moment. Lieutenant Parnell, you have the bridge."
Elissa and Petty Officer Meyer were the only other crew standing watch. Eli checked, and confirmed that the ship's command codes had been transferred to her console. “Understood, ma'am."
Even knowing that she would fall short, the captain tried to guess what might have happened. 'Not immediately life-threatening' suggested there'd been an accident, although most of those did not require her attention. Probably not that.
Something that did require her attention suggested they might have discovered something hazardous that could cause problems for the Dark Horse in the near future. But if that were the case, then why had the report come from Dr. Wolf, and not from Liron directly? Probably not that either, then.
Something that was 'easier to explain in person' suggested that it would not make a great deal of sense, and that either Liron, or Wolf—or both—wanted to be able to read her facial expressions or communicate visually instead. That was often the case.
God only knew, Barry Schatz was always speculating about 7-dimensional hyperspace multifolds, and Dr. Beltran could be counted on to raise the specter of some complicated bit of political history that she was expected to keep in mind when talking to one of their allies.
This, Captain May firmly believed, was because most of her crew was smarter than the Akita herself. She relied on their expertise; they relied on her judgment, which often meant communicating to her in metaphor.
Yes. She felt certain of it, pausing to adjust her uniform at the door to the maintenance bay. Whatever Dr. Wolf was about to tell her, at least one multisyllabic word beginning in multi- or omni- or iso- and ending in something else Greek was going to be involved.
She opened the door. The Kahil, their Uxzu bomber, had been largely stripped, with its internals stacked in boxes and on antigravity sleds parked around its perimeter. Liron Rocha sat, long legs dangling, at the rear hatch; Dr. Wolf was next to them, checking some kind of monitor he'd affixed to their neck.
Mitti Torres and Mike Cooper were kneeling at a computer. Neither looked happy. Maddy had expected Torres, whom she knew was working on the Kahil. Cooper was a bit of a mystery, and introduced the possibility the complicated word would start with tera- or hyper- or electro- instead.
Liron noticed her first, and started to push themselves back into the Kahil so they could stand up. Maddy shook her head. “At ease. It's fine." She steeled herself. “Dr. Wolf, you wanted me?"
“Warrant Rocha is currently bonded to this spacecraft. Apparently they triggered a control module in the bomber, intended to prevent defections or treasonous behavior."
“I triggered it," Mitti interjected quietly.
Dr. Wolf shrugged. “If they leave the ship, or if the module is shut down, Mx. Rocha will suffer catastrophic and irreversible brain damage. We are not, at present, able to interrupt the link or to disable the module, which is cryptographically secured beyond our ability to decode."
All of that, which did not include any of the 'how,' made sense to Maddy. “When did this happen?"
“About two hours ago," Liron said. It had been two hours and eleven minutes, exactly—they were keenly aware of the time, marking as it did the start of what would apparently be the last part of their life. “Dr. Wolf asked Mr. Cooper to try turning it off safely. When he couldn't get access, I suggested you be informed, ma'am."
“And you're… tied to the Kahil somehow?"
“To this, yes," Liron said, pointing to small device on the workbench where Mitti and Mike Cooper were still busy with their own diagnostics. “It came from the Kahil."
Those diagnostics were ominous enough that Mitti tore herself from them to offer further explanation, getting to her feet. “We never used these in the Link, captain, and I've never seen one up close. But we had always heard rumors."
“It does seem like something the Union would do, from what I remember of my… compliance bracelet." Madison did not quite manage to avoid wincing at the memory. “If it's part of the ship, though, can't it be turned off from the ship?"
Mitti Torres looked at Mike, who required a few seconds to realize it. When he finally noticed, Mike did his best to emulate Wolf's example of simple explanations. “It's not really part of the ship. The Link made some updates to the Kahil, and that's after any modifications the Union made when the frame was delivered from whatever Uxzu factory originally produced it."
“Even if it was part of the bomber, the key to disable the link would be held by the squadron commander, of the captain of the carrier it was assigned to," Torres continued, mostly based on the rumors she'd picked up in the salvage yard. “We don't have much experience. By definition, if a ship reached us, it was because its pilot hadn't been terminated."
Maddy nodded slowly. “So what's the plan?"
“Apparently I'm safe as long as I stay close to the ship. Perhaps inside it—nobody's too eager to check. The module has plenty of power, so I'll be fine."
“But you're not staying inside a bomber forever. What's the plan to get them out? Dr. Wolf, how badly would they be hurt?"
“I don't know. Ms. Torres is still reverse-engineering the specifications of the transmitter in the control device. Based on what I've seen, the damage would likely be total."
“Why? It was designed for Uxzu brains, right?"
That was a good point. Unfortunately: “Neurologically, they're not that dissimilar from Terrans. The transmitter works by acting on certain glial cells, or what present as certain glial cells for someone like Mx. Rocha. It would kill them, I'm certain of that."
Maddy, who was unbothered by not knowing the precise functioning of a 'glial cell,' trusted she had been given what she needed to know. And, of course, she knew what needed to come next: “right. Then we find a way to disable it. Get to work."
***
Captain's log, stardate 68080.1
Liron Rocha is in fairly good spirits, all things considered, but we're clearly going to have to figure out a way to free them—sooner rather than later. Fortunately, I can't think of any group of people more qualified than my crew to do just that.
“Have any of you heard of anything like this before? Lieutenant Vasquez, I'm hoping there's something you've heard."
There was not. “No. The Pictor have never had problems with defectors or noncompliance. And, obviously, it's not something anyone in the TC would do."
“ISD doesn't have any kind of off-switch for you guys?"
“No, ma'am. We're just spies, not sociopaths."
That was simultaneously good news, and unhelpful news. The Akita took it in stride, and wrote: NOTHING IN CONFED. “Ayenni? The Rewa-Tahi is wilder territory than we're used to."
“It is, yes. I've encountered some things that are vaguely similar. But they're generally designed to remotely stimulate pain. Uh, or pleasure. Nothing as sophisticated or… cruel, frankly, as what the Union invented."
“You said that one of your implants had detected and blocked it," Lukas Wolf recalled, turning towards Mitti—the closest they had to a subject matter expert. “So there must be some knowledge of how to deal with these things where you're from."
“Probably. But…" Her ears went back, and she curled her tail around the leg of her chair. “I'm really just a salvager, Dr. Wolf. If there was a protocol to turn them off, they might've taught it to me. Since they didn't teach it to me, I'm… not sure there is."
And of course, Wolf reminded himself, had she known the possibility existed the Abyssinian would've taken pains to prevent it. “Actually… what about your implants? You said they were from some place called Kushan—Ayenni, you recognized that name, right? Could they help?"
“They're well beyond the space that the Dark Horse has currently charted," Ayenni said. “Yara don't interact with them very often. I believe Ms. Torres's experience is different."
“Well… we didn't see them much face-to-face. They're far away, yes. Even if we had, they're mostly cyberneticists. If I was still with the Link, I'd say they might be able to help, but it's no guarantee."
Maddy paused, partway through writing KUSHAN?, and erased the name. “What would you do instead?"
“Hmm?"
“If you were with the Link. What would you do if you were still with your old gang?"
Mitti shifted in her chair. “It would depend. If they weren't someone we considered important enough, the local commander might just… let them die. Or volunteer them for a suicide mission, maybe."
“Okay. Assume you weren't going to do that."
“We'd need access to the Planetary Union's military codes. Those are regularly broken. But… well…" She paused, thinking. And, as she thought, her tail swished a little more quickly.
This, Maddy certainly noticed. “'Well'? 'Well' what?"
“I bet there's a more reliable way to shut the control module down. So I know what we'd do. We'd contact someone in the underworld—someone who could get us the hardware we wanted. My cell generally worked with a syndicate run out of the border worlds by someone named Satari Kai. I never met him directly."
Neither had Madison, although she knew the name—Satari Kai was another Akita, and the namesake of the Kai Syndicate that was active within her own Terran Confederation. “The Syndicate doesn't deal with military hardware, at least not here. Mostly… amusement parks, I think. Small time."
Francisco Vasquez, too, was familiar with the name. “Not that small. They were associated with the New Families, but they split a couple years ago when the New Families became too political. Too interested in the Pictor situation."
“Where I'm from, they're already political. They have a well-funded mercenary fleet—playing both sides of the resistance, I think, although mostly ours. I realize that doesn't help you."
Captain May had already written KAI SYNDICATE on the board. “No, but it's good information anyway. Although…" She turned, glancing over her shoulder at the others in the room. “What if it did?"
“Did… what?" Lieutenant Vasquez asked.
“Helped us."
There was a brief period of slightly uncomfortable silence before Vasquez tried again: “How would it do that?"
***
She found Dr. Schatz in the science lab; the collie's ears suggested immediate, well-earned apprehension. Captain May decided to get straight to the point: “When we were drawn into the… alternate dimension. The mirror universe. Do you remember, there was some kind of…" Maddy was not certain what the actual term for it might be. “A time difference."
There was no 'actual term'; as a violation of the laws of physics, they would've been permitted to call it whatever they wanted. Dr. Schatz, still wary of what might come next, simply nodded. “Yes."
“Not like time was faster over there. Just that it takes too much time to get between the two."
“Yes," he said again. “That's right. The aperture is rotating in four dimensions, which creates a temporal gradient. The angle at which we move through that gradient determines how long it 'takes' to transit the aperture, as you put it."
He had used his fingers to quote the word takes, so that Maddy knew what he meant by as you put it, since she had otherwise done nothing of the sort. “Would it be possible for that angle to be zero?"
“You mean, for us to cross over without the time difference?" She nodded, and Barry briefly warred with himself over how much to confess to the Akita. “No. Not exactly. There are theoretical models that explain how this kind of aperture works, but all of them require a non-zero, positive gradient. Otherwise it would be possible to travel back in time."
She frowned. “But that is possible. We've done it."
The Border Collie stared, forlorn, at his computers, and the far less troubling work he'd been taken from. “I can explain, but that explanation would take quite some time. You would interrupt me long before I finished."
Maddy locked the science lab door. “Here's the problem, Dr. Schatz. We need a way to return to the mirror universe."
“I know how to."
Wait, what? That was simpler than she'd expected. “You do?"
“All it takes is… um, effectively, all it takes is the creation of a kedion singularity, which can be done with any sufficiently large number of particles in the presence of a… uh," he stopped, and gauged her expression. “Destabilizing a sufficiently large reactor would do it. If we were ready when it happened."
“Like the Pictor ship we're investigating now?"
“Yes."
“I don't want to be away from this universe for six months again."
“That is… doable," the Border Collie admitted carefully. “But there are tradeoffs."
“Explain."
“The aperture's total energy is conserved. If its fourth-dimensional rotation is reduced, then either it becomes more energetic in our physical dimensions, or the overall energy has to go down. But, um. Traveling through an aperture like that is already physically stressful. So we'd need to reduce the total energy."
“Does that make it smaller? So the Dark Horse wouldn't fit?"
“No. It means that the aperture will be highly unstable. Even trying to transit it might cause it to lose coherence. I'm not sure how we'd compensate for that—if it's even possible. It must be possible," he decided; the dog's brain was already trying to work through the theoretical principles.
Maddy saw that, too, although other things the Border Collie said held her interest. “You said it was 'doable,' though."
“It involves modifying our probes to generate a stabilizing impulse, and then following the path they generate when we come back."
“Like a breadcrumb trail?"
Barry had more practice than most at creating the kind of metaphors that Maddy understood, because he had more experience than most at being interrupted and told to try again. “Exactly, ma'am. Yes. They'd need to be precisely sequenced, and our course would also need to be precisely sequenced, but it would let us get there and back with only a minimal temporal disruption."
“What's the tradeoff?"
“That path will become less accurate as the aperture decays. Following it would become… dangerous. We might cross at an angle where we spent thousands or millions of years in-between universes. And we'd only have a few days before it becomes impossible."
“So we'd have to work fast…"
“Yes, ma'am."
“But you could do it?"
“Yes. Yes, ma'am. I think so. I'd need some new tools, but nothing we can't build ourselves in fairly short order. Just reinforcing some of our equipment, mainly…"
***
She ordered him to come back with a proposal by the end of his shift, which also gave her the time to think about how bad of a decision she was contemplating. And, in service of that contemplation, to seek out a second opinion. Or someone willing to challenge a decision she didn't realize she'd already made.
Jack, she thought. The coyote was certainly willing to bend the rules, but he also had a certain degree of pragmatism. Besides which, they hadn't spent much quality time together over the previous weeks, and the ship's computer informed her that Captain Ford was in his quarters.
And, therefore, only a page away.
“Are you decent?"
“Uh. Yes?"
“Well, stop it. I'm outside."
The channel closed and, a few seconds later, the door to the coyote's quarters opened. “So… you are." He was still wearing pants, which the Akita found understandable if disappointing. “Come in?"
She stepped inside. “I need your help with something, Jack."
“I kinda gathered that from your question about decency." He sat down on the edge of his bed, and watched the Akita curiously.
“Yes, well. We're going to fuck, but I need something else, too."
“Which is?"
Madison thought about joining him on the bed, and knelt next to it instead. She dragged her claws along his waist, just inside the fabric of the coyote's pants. “You'll find out later. Off. That's a direct order."
“We're the same rank."
She tugged sharply. “It's my ship."
This being—strictly speaking—true, Jack slid the rest of his clothes off. There was no point in being modest, or in trying to hide that a few centimeters of bare coyote dick were already poking from his sheath. And Maddy had let herself in, he thought, with a certain look in her eyes.
The look was unintentional—at least, it had not been selected for its effect on coyotes. When she ran the back of her fingers along his sheath, his coarse gasp and the way his shaft throbbed perceptibly to the touch was not intentional, either.
But it was so terribly rewarding. Jack remained quiet, otherwise, letting the Akita build towards whatever plan was going through her head as she continued to stroke him, and he continued to stiffen with every heartbeat.
“So," she finally said. Now that she had his attention, she nudged the coyote's legs apart and took her place between them. “Lieutenant Zsolt says you'd blocked the machine shop for spare parts…"
As she spoke, her blunt muzzle came ever-closer to his crotch, and the warmth of her breath grew more and more inescapable. “Yes," he confirmed, his voice more steady than it had any right to be. “Replacements for a bunch of…"
The word shifted into a breathy whuff, as the Akita nudged his prick with her tongue, guiding it between her lips and giving an experimental suckle. This was not something she had a great deal of practice with, and a nontrivial amount of that practice had been with Jack himself; she took her time, focusing on the coyote's novel, salty taste.
Jack was not in a position to judge her experience, save for that she had proven to be a quick study. The slick, warm pressure of the Akita's muzzle did the trick well enough either way. “Replacements for, uh… for the scout ships," he finished. “Parts for the scouts."
She bobbed her head gently for a few seconds, and then took a break to catch her breath. “You'll have to defer it. I need the fabricator," she told him, her words washing hotly over his length.
“Oh. Uh, that's fine."
“Is it?" Maddy asked, pausing and giving the coyote a pointed stare.
He was not certain what he was supposed to do, particularly given that she'd already reminded him whose ship he was serving on. She kept staring, and that part of it finally clicked for him. “No. It's not."
“Mm?"
“We keep deferring maintenance. You told me the flight bay was my—" He had to stop, growling, when May took him back into her muzzle. Further this time, fitting almost half of him in while he gritted his teeth. “My responsibility. Zsolt already con—confirmed—the deadlines for those—"
He twitched between her lips, and as a fresh, tangy spurt marked her palate she pulled away again to lick her muzzle clean. “You'll make do." When she breathed in, his scent filled her nose. It was not at all unpleasant, that tantalizing reminder of what she was actually doing.
As she resumed sucking on him, the coyote growled again. “I'm not fuckin'—making do, Maddy. Captain. If you want the machine shop, wait until I'm finished." That would not happen immediately; she was still trying to figure out the right pace, and Jack retained a certain presence of mind.
For the moment, Maddy thought. She was aware of her lack of expertise—although it was rather fun, feeling the way he reacted to what she did, and she supposed he probably wouldn't object to her gaining a bit more experience in the future. Especially since, by definition, it would remain extensively coyote-focused.
She worked her tongue along his length, lapping inquisitively until he began to tense and she saw his eyes lose focus. His cock pulsed again in her maw, drooling more of that slick, thin precum over her tongue. She sucked him clean, and lapped a few more times until he seemed to be done.
“I'm sure we could…" Maddy trailed off, and worked on making her voice huskier. Softer. “We found find some kind of agreement. Right?" He bit his tongue until she slurped softly along his tip, and lavished it with a slow, gentle, sucking caress that ended in a lewd pop. “Right, Jack?"
“If you want anything from me," the coyote growled, “you're gonna have to do better than a blowjob."
She tilted her head. “Oh? What would I have to—"
May would've been content if he'd agreed to her offer then and there, and she had not quite apprehended the degree to which she'd worked him up. The way he grabbed her by the scruff and tugged her upwards, then, was a pleasant surprise despite her un-captainly yelp.
Jack also underestimated how much force he'd used, although—quick-reflexed pilot that he was—he recovered quickly, using the stocky dog's momentum to throw her down and onto his bunk.
He did not bother asking her to take her clothes off, figuring she'd get the idea when he tugged down on her slacks himself. She did: by the time they started to bunch around her ankles, her boots were off. Then one paw was between her legs, the other sliding under her tunic, and his muzzle was pushed against her ear. “You getting the idea?"
She had already guessed that the tables had been turned, and she did not really have to answer the coyote. His fingers pressed against the lips of her sex: nudging, teasing until they parted, and his probing strokes became rapidly effortless as her arousal slicked his fingerpads.
Sure enough: “you're getting the idea," he told her. But it was her ship, and it would be improper for the coyote to give her direct orders—so he did at least come up with a question to ask. “Gonna earn that favor now, captain?"
Maddy pushed him off her so that it was easier to get her tunic off. She had already decided that they were probably going to end up tied, and face-to-face, and she rather looked forward to the thought of some quality intimate time with the coyote, after—after—
His paw was around her breast, groping firmly. The sheer wantonness of the moan brought a smirk to the coyote's muzzle. Not that he was in the mood to force her to wait. Jack was smart enough to realize that the Akita had something up her sleeve.
But he was also smart enough to realize that it was not going to stand in their way. She was spreading her legs, shifting under him to push herself closer even as the coyote guided himself into position and thrust, smoothly, burying himself to the hilt in his commanding officer.
Feeling him inside her, deep and throbbing, Maddy thought 'commanding officer' was overrated. 'Bitch' was shorter and just as good. Several weeks of long shifts and stress had kept the two apart, and she was all but achingly full of him now: thoroughly, thrillingly stretched around the coyote's cock.
His next thrust was stronger and sharper, and the pace that followed had her crying out in sheer, delighted gratification. Their quarters were soundproofed—incidentally; they had not been designed for trysts—but Jack's paw closed on her muzzle anyway.
Maddy's breath whistled through her nose, and she inhaled her own scent, thick on the male's fingers from where he'd been teasing her scant minutes before, mixing with the lingering taste on her tongue. The effect, as her thoughts rolled from one gloriously filling thrust to the next, was to flood all of her senses with the coyote's eager rutting.
He huffed low growls against her ear—mostly wordless, and when he did speak it was a syllable at a time. “So—fuckin'—good," he groaned, as the slick texture of her soft folds squeezed around his shaft. She couldn't answer, but the giddy yelp that met his next hard, heavy thrust filled his fur with the warmth of a sharp exhalation and that did plenty to encourage him.
She caught her name, also broken up into coarse syllables, somewhere in the throaty rasps that accompanied his building pace. And more oaths. The Akita wrapped strong legs around him, constricting his room to maneuver, and felt him shudder into a heavy, all-embedding thrust.
He held there—grinding firmly, throbbing—before pulling back with an unmistakable squelch. The coyote took her again, and again hilted, but it took more effort, and she felt the fur of her thighs grow damp as his knotted shaft forced a trickle of his pre and her copious juices from the Akita, who was now shivering herself.
Fuck he felt incredible. She wasn't sure if she was quite as close as he was—she recognized the signs by now, the way his ears pinned and he gripped at her with his free paw, humping in firmer and more pointed shoves to keep himself buried, grunting into her ear…
But as his knot kept swelling, and the pressure built on her clit, she found herself riding a rising, ever more demanding, surge of pleasure. The coyote shoved deep and rutted hard—buck, after buck, after urgent, ragged buck. He'd stopped pulling out… then he couldn't, even if he wanted, snarling throatily into her soft-furred ear as his pace dissolved into messy, uneven jerking.
She was almost positive she heard a groaned take it right at the end, when Jack slammed to a rough, shaky halt. Jack did not mean to say it—chain of command, and all—but he was also incapable of thinking about anything but the snug, silky heat gripping the base of his knot, and the exultant immediacy of his peak.
So she definitely heard the coyote grunt an equally unseemly oath, before his cock twitched, and a blooming warmth marked her insides. Being filled was almost enough to set her off—a few purposeful grinds on his knot, timed to the throbs that told Maddy he was pumping another spurt of coyote cum into her, did the rest of the job.
One. Two… three—
“Jack!" Her cry fell on pinned ears, and when her legs drew crushingly tight around his flexing hips the coyote was deaf to it anyway. She humped and squirmed beneath him as orgasm rolled through her, trapped beneath the male's growing weight as he gradually collapsed atop the pleasure-racked Akita.
When they both came to a halt, there was a half-minute of quiet, broken only by their panting breath growing steadier. She did not permit him to let go of her, or to roll to the side, although eventually she did consent to let him prop himself up on one elbow.
Their eyes met. Maddy grinned, and was about to say something when she felt a subtle throb inside her, and her head tilted a few degrees. “Are you not done?" she asked. There was another throb, and a wry, awkward, one-armed shrug from the black dog.
That was where they said turnabout was fair play, she supposed. Maddy squeezed down around him, thoughtfully. The coyote groaned—bucking reflexively, if gently, trying to spare his overstimulated nerves. She had no such concerns.
Instead she rolled her hips, until his knot caught just the right angle to nudge a lingering spiral of tense pressure through the Akita. She did it and again, the rhythm growing firmer, her thighs beginning to shake. “You're not done," she muttered, feeling his cock still pulsing, focusing on how completely he filled her, how deeply she'd been claimed…
How well he'd done his job. Her eyes shut, and then color washed over the darkness as, letting her breath out in a hiss, Maddy brought herself to climax again on the pilot's trapped shaft. She whined through it, tossing her head back, tugging on him hard with her claws.
This the coyote endured—not that there was anywhere else for him to go, and he was keenly aware that he was still spurting into her, even if the faint spasms were intermittent and he didn't think he really had that much to give. Had she said it aloud, he might've agreed that he'd done his job well.
But he let her relax until he spoke anything at all. “What about you?"
“Me?" She was a little dazed.
“You're not done, either?"
“For now." Now she wanted to be able to breath more easily. She pushed him onto his side, and slid her arms around the other canid. “I figured, anyway… you'll let me have the machine shop?"
With significant effort, Jack recalled where the… roleplay, if that's what it was, had ended. “For that? Fuck, yeah, you can have the machine shop."
“Great. Okay. So, I've fraternized with another officer in my chain of command, then. Right? Uh, and then… I've also traded sexual favors in my capacity as ship's captain…"
“Yeah." The coyote cocked his head. “I guess?"
“So, by comparison—"
“Oh, God," he said, realizing the idea of where things were headed, if not the specifics.
“We're going back to the mirror universe."
Jack blinked. “What?"
“Dr. Schatz thinks he has a way to create a reasonably stable aperture. We wouldn't have long—a week, maybe. But it'll be enough."
“Mx. Rocha—Warrant Rocha. You think that might be the key?"
“Yes."
Captain Ford knew that, at some point on his next assignment, he would need to take the time to list all of the bizarre things that had occurred on the Dark Horse. The aim, of course, would be guessing which one was the oddest. He also knew it would be a fool's errand. “That's it?"
“Yes. But I need your support."
“You have it. Of course you have it. You didn't need to trade sexual favors for that one."
“What if I told you I'd already ordered Zsolt to defer your maintenance?"
“Then I take that back. You still owe me." He narrowed his eyes. “Clean me off and we'll talk."
She grinned. “Nice try. You clean me off, first."
The coyote shrugged. “Heard worse ideas. You gonna tell Admiral Mercure?"
“Not until it works. If that," she admitted. “I… I'd rather not have to figure out how to take out his counterpart, and that's what he's going to want me to do."
“See, now, that's where you're lucky," the coyote said. Their previous excursion into the parallel reality had exposed him to his own counterpart, and Jack hadn't particularly enjoyed the experience. “Being already dead."
“Me? Oh." If she remembered correctly, her doppelgänger had been demoted to command of a garbage scow, and then killed in action. The explanation had been intended as an insult, so some of the details were no doubt up in the air, but not the gist of the outcome. “I guess. You were…"
Jack growled quietly, although he managed to keep his grin about him. He had guessed at the brief dalliance between the two before Maddy told him outright. The other Jack Ford was a bit of a spineless coward, in his opinion. But then… then again, it gave Maddy the idea to take advantage of the coyote she had.
Maddy, who'd guessed where his thoughts were drifting, didn't finish the sentence. “Anyway. We'll make it quick, and then try to put this all behind us. Sound good?"
***
Captain's log, stardate 68081.4
Barry Schatz and our engineering team have completed the modifications to the Dark Horse_. According to our science officer, more testing would be required, but we've run out of time: long-range sensors have detected a formation of Pictor vessels closing on our position, no doubt investigating the same battle we were drawn to._
“I've aligned the ship on the course Dr. Schatz specified," Eli reported. “If that counts as being 'ready,' then we're ready."
“Activate the self-destruct sequence." It felt like the kind of order that should produce more consequential impacts a few new icons on the ship's viewscreen, and a quiet acknowledgment from the science officer. And a countdown, ticking back from two minutes. But no; it was calm, and formulaic. “How long until the Pictor get here?"
Leon checked the data from their long-range probes; they had not increased their speed, and there was no way for them to make up the difference in time. “Another hour, captain."
“And to them, we'll have just… disappeared," the Akita said, without phrasing this uncertain conclusion as a question.
“There won't be many signs of our presence. And they might not have known we were here to begin with, since we arrived after everything was already over. They'll just find the debris from their cruiser. Unless they know what to scan for, the aperture won't raise any concerns."
“And even if they do"—still without turning it into a question, Maddy finished Barry's explanation the way she was hoping it would end. “They wouldn't be able to do anything about it. They wouldn't know how to cross between universes."
“No, ma'am. I don't think so."
“Good," she said. The countdown stood at 30 seconds. “I hope you're right about this. Engineering, stand by to provide damage reports."
“Yes," Shannon said, over the radio. “Of course."
A strange jolt ran through the Dark Horse, as though it had collided with something in every direction at once. The lights dimmed, but only briefly. “Well? CCI, scan for… I don't know, whatever you're scanning for."
“The incoming Pictor ships have dis—our long-range probes have disappeared, captain," Mitch told her. “I believe we're where we intended to be. The baseline radiation signature looks familiar."
“I have data from the probes we took into the aperture," Barry added. “The breadcrumb trail is still intact, but already starting to come apart. It will become unresolvable in approximately 342 hours. We'll start having trouble piecing together a course sooner, though—probably within the week."
“Well. What are we waiting for, then? Engineering, how's the ship?"
“Minimal damage to our secondary systems, Mads. No more than a couple shifts to fix it."
“Our hyperdrive?"
“The drive looks fine. We're running one more set of diagnostics."
“Thank you. Good work." Torres had given them the last known coordinates of a Kai Syndicate outpost. “As soon their checks are done, engage at maximum speed. Everything the reactor's got, lieutenant. You heard Dr. Schatz—we'll have to be snappy."
***
“Will you do me a favor?"
Mitti nodded to Liron, of whom she'd made a more or less constant companion while the two of them tried to figure out their next steps. “Anything I can, sure."
The maned wolf handed over a computer, which they'd borrowed from the Abyssinian a few shifts prior. “I recorded a few letters on here. In theory, they've been uploaded to the ship's main database, but I don't really trust that. If that doesn't work, can you…"
She took the computer, and slid it into the pocket of her coat. “Of course," she said again. “Is there anything else? Plans, or…"
“No. My will is up to date. I don't care what happens to… my body, you know," they said, gesturing aimlessly at their own form. “This old thing. Space it. And I've been wearing this uniform so long it ought to be burnt, or something. My partner won't want it. Oh!"
“Yeah?"
“If you ever meet, apologize to him for me. I mean for me, not for you through me. Right?"
Mitti smiled gently. “I might apologize, too, if it's all the same."
“You can. He won't listen, though. He'll blame me, and you can tell him he was right. I won't mind." Liron smiled, too. It had been a bit of a gamble, thinking the Abyssinian would be the one to ask, but given her upbringing Liron figured they might not have been the first to have that discussion with her. “Anyway, if it comes to that."
“I'm… optimistic." She was not so optimistic as to think Liron was being unreasonable, or to try to talk them down with any platitudes about the mission's success being a foregone conclusion. “Are you?"
“Well, if it's as simple as you say it is, I don't know what could go wrong."
“The toilet the Uxzu put in this thing might stop working first," they suggested. Fortunately the Uxzu had built it robustly. Unfortunately, the bomber's tiny crew space did not include anything like a shower. Liron had not made the suggestion of burning their uniform entirely in jest.
A paw rapping on the bomber's metal hull drew their attention. It was Captain Ford, who was trying to get the scout ships ready to deploy by the time they reached the Syndicate base. “Got a minute?"
“Yes, sir," Liron said promptly.
“Why are my launch rails gone? The power regulator's disabled and tagged out." And his command codes, which were good enough to override anything on the Riverjacks for which he was responsible, would not override the lockout—only the engineering department had that authority.
“That was me," Mitti volunteered; Lieutenant Hazelton had taken the Abyssinian under her wing. “When they trigger, there's a significant power transient. I'm concerned that it might be enough to confuse the… the device," she finished, gesturing at both Liron and the control module.
“It probably wouldn't be an issue," the maned wolf said. “If you have to launch."
Jack nodded, and glanced back at the rest of the hangar. “What about the airlocks? That's a separate system, right?"
“Yes. They're part of the life support circuits. Category 3 subsystems," which Liron figured Jack knew meant multiply redundant and insulated from a whole host of potential failure scenarios that Star Patrol designers took with paranoid sincerity.
The coyote did know that. He nodded again, and tapped his communicator to page Konstantin Kamyshev, currently on alert and sitting in his scout ship. “Bubbles. Make your plane safe and let's get a tractor. We'll move 'em both to a shuttlepad."
“No cat?"
“Catapult's bent. C'mon, let's get started. Just in case."
“Right. Shutting down."
After Jack closed the channel, Liron cleared their throat. “You should move the spare plane first. That way, if you have to launch in a hurry, you still have the alert-5 Riverjack waiting on the rails."
Tactically, it was sound advice. “We'll move fast."
The coyote had just barely left when Mitti's communicator chimed: “Ms. Torres, report to the bridge, please. The captain wants to talk to you."
“On my way." She glanced around the disassembled Kahil—Liron had continued working, mostly out of a desire to keep their thoughts occupied—and shook her head. “I'll be back as soon as I can."
“Don't worry about it. I've got plenty to do."
Irrespective of what Liron said, Mitti still blamed herself for the maned wolf's plight. She figured, though, that the best way of fixing it would be making herself useful to the captain.
On the bridge, she found the Dark Horse still in hyperspace, with the viewscreen displaying the remaining distance to the star system she'd recalled as a Syndicate base of operations. “We found a matching beacon close to the coordinates you suggested," Maddy said.
“Broadcasting signals we can pick up in hyperspace?"
“Yes. Long-range transmitter. It looks like the Syndicate is still operating there, is the point."
“That's… well, it is a relief, but not a surprise. It's a stronghold of theirs, and they're playing both sides of the resistance. Nobody's going to attack them."
“We'll be there in an hour. What else do I need to know?"
Mitti was caught between her desire to be helpful, and her lack of any direct familiarity with Satari Kai. “I've never worked with him directly. The rumors are that the Syndicate will do anything for a price. I'm sure they'd be able to break the encryption on the control module. Absolutely positive."
“What kind of price?"
“Well, for us, it was generally parts or equipment. Or, um… the Syndicate would ask us to hit a convoy or a mining outpost allied to a competing criminal faction."
Maddy made a mental note of the possibility of entanglement. “We shouldn't go to any of them first, though?"
“No. Most of the time, it was some upstart warlord or local mob boss who had some muscle and wanted to make a bigger play. Nobody significant. Nobody with power, you know?"
“So Satari's comfortable where he's at. Is he going to betray us? Pretend to decrypt the module and then sabotage it or something?"
“I don't think so, no."
“They'll be reasonable? Open to negotiation."
“Yes, ma'am. I think so, anyway."
With any luck, Madison thought, Satari would want something simple—platinum, or deuterium, or another material they already had in their cargo hold. With any luck, they could be back home within two days. Back in their universe. Which: “do they know about us?"
The Abyssinian paused before answering. “I… I can't say. I didn't know, but… General Beltran did, and your entrance probably shook things up a bit. Satari Kai is well-connected. He… I'd expect he'll know something, at least."
But TCS Dark Horse exited hyperspace to find themselves alone. The beacon, though active, was alone. Another four hours of searching, through to the end of Captain May's shift, brought up no further signs of what might've become of Satari Kai, his Syndicate, or the beacon's owners. She handed the task over to David Bradley, and went to take a brief nap.
Commander Bradley ordered probes deployed, and scrutinized the returns carefully. CCI, he figured, would be the first to pick up something—but another set of eyes couldn't hurt, after all. Thirty minutes went by, and then another thirty, with nothing to show for it. But we can't be the only ones around here, he knew. Somebody else should be monitoring this beacon.
Jamie Meyer was, indeed, the first to notice 'something,' although it came with a loud chime that summoned everyone's attention anyway. “Hyperspace signatures, sir. A ship just appeared—they're adjusting course. Constant bearing; decreasing range. Intercept in no more than… twenty minutes."
“Hold our own course for now. On screen, please."
It was what Dave Bradley would've called a Rappahannock-class assault vessel—a heavy warship, three times the length of the Dark Horse but designed first and foremost as a combat freighter meant to support planetside operations. The Star Patrol had not made many of them, which made its appearance distinctive.
Mitti Torres, who had come up to see what was going on a few minutes earlier and spent most of the intervening time pacing nervously, perked up and peered at the viewscreen. She did not know Star Patrol ship classes. She did know that something was amiss. “Uh. Sir? That's not the Syndicate."
“What do you mean?"
“That's not their logo. That—um. Sorry, Jamie—can you zoom in? On the insignia?"
Jamie did so. The Kai Syndicate's mark was a stylized hibiscus flower, posed before two crossed swords. A skull adorned this ship, instead, with a trident held in its jaws: silver, with blood-red tips. A spotlight picked out the emblem, and only the emblem; the rest of the ship was jet black, and almost featureless.
“I don't recognize that insignia, and I don't recognize the ship, but it's not the Syndicate."
“Lieutenant Bader, what can you tell me?"
“They haven't opened fire, yet, but they're definitely aware of our presence, sir. We're picking up targeting scanners. And they're… heavily armed." Far more than an assault supply ship had any right to be—it was extensively modified. “That must be… four or five dozen ion cannons, all told. At least."
Dave clicked his tongue apprehensively. “Captain to the bridge. We've made contact with a vessel in the right area, but it's apparently not the Syndicate."
“On my way. See if they feel like talking, in the meantime."
“Right. CCI, hail them." Bradley paused for the order to be carried out. “This is Commander Bradley, aboard the TCS Dark Horse. We're looking to find Satari Kai. I was told that this would be a—"
The viewscreen flickered, and was replaced by what should have been a familiar view: a Star Patrol bridge, much like their own. The lighting was far dimmer, however, and the cheetah facing him—cast in an off-red spotlight—was clad in some kind of haphazardly patched armor instead of a uniform.
“Ah, that… I was told that this was territory owned by the Kai Syndicate."
“Was," the cheetah answered, her eyes narrowing. “Unfortunately, Satari Kai is indisposed for… ever. I hope whatever you needed that bastard for wasn't very important."
“It… sort of was, yes. Who am I speaking to?"
“Marian Almeida. First mate of the Powhatan. You're a friend of the Syndicate's, I take it? An ally, at least."
“No. Not exactly. We've never met him or the Syndicate before. We need to disable a Union control module that's taken one our crew hostage. It was on a fighter craft we captured."
Dr. Beltran spoke up, lest the Dark Horse be thought of as a ship of beggars. “Obviously, we are willing to negotiate for whatever it might take to fix this situation. If you are able to help."
“Stealing from the Union, eh?" Almeida asked. Dave couldn't tell if the cheetah sounded impressed or not. “And not many who look like you or your ship around these parts. You're a wanderer, too?"
“After a fashion, yes."
“Hmph. Well, if you've got something worth trading, I suppose we can wake Jenny up, eh? I'll—"
“Mute the channel," Mitti hissed, while the other woman continued talking. “I know who they are."
Dave glanced towards the CCI station; Jamie had already switched off their audio transmission, just in case. “Which is?"
“Brigands. Criminals of the worst sort—we didn't deal with them. General Beltran forbade it. 'Jenny' is not their name; it's an alias. They're… Uxzu, we think. Maybe something else—some alien we've never met. When their ship shows up, it leaves a path of destruction in its wake and then disappears. That's what I've heard."
They had muted themselves, but not cut the video feed. Almeida grinned, showing off jagged fangs. “Something you'd like to share, kittycat?"
Torres waited until Jamie nodded again to indicate the audio channel had been reopened. “Explaining a little about you to Mr. Bradley. He had not heard of you before."
“Not heard of us?" She scoffed. “Aren't we the scourge of all civilization? Come now, 'commander'—you don't wander these parts and not have heard of her majesty and her majesty's black ship, now."
“Her majesty? A pirate queen, then?"
“Arr, matey." That was a new voice, aboard the Powhatan. Then her teasing inflection changed immediately, and she dropped the accent she'd affected. “You better have a good reason for waking me up, Marian."
“The Dark Horse. It matches the signature of that ship from the Union intel reports we nabbed a few months ago."
Well, fuck, Dave thought. Almeida had been acting—they'd known what the Star Patrol cruiser was all along. His sudden realization distracted him from the sound of the bridge door opening. The retriever's brain was racing, trying to figure out the other implications. On the viewscreen, Almeida was explaining to her own captain that they were looking for Satari Kai.
“Bad luck for them, huh?" the pirate queen said, and snorted. “Alright, transfer the holo feed to my console. Let's see what they want."
Was this an ambush? What are they going to do with us? They could probably get back into hyperspace, Dave figured, but—looking at the tactical report Leon Bader had put together—the pirate ship severely outgunned them. So if the Powhatan was quick enough on the trigger, then…
Nobody else on the bridge had said anything. Dave glanced up from his console to find that Captain May had joined them. Her attention was elsewhere—and then, when he perceived that, so was his. So was everyone else's: the pirate queen was not, as it happened, an Uxzu.
Nor was she some alien.
The two Akitas stared at each other without saying anything for the better part of thirty seconds. Dave heard his captain open her muzzle a few times, beginning to speak and thinking better of it. Which left it up to the pirate, whose own muzzle quirked in the exact kind of grin Maddy often adopted when she felt a plan starting to come together.
“Well, now. This is a surprise."