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Season 9: Problems are solved and created, both messily.

Hello, all! I hope that you are doing well! Guess who has been on antidepressants for a couple months now and is able to write things again? (it is I) And what better way to herald this than with some sci-fi smut? This is something that TNG's 'Measure Of A Man' was sorely missing, for the record. 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

S9E1, "Exigent Circumstances"

Stardate 68110

Mike checked his computer for the time, and sighed heavily, rolling to sit upright. “I’m on shift in 30. I should swing by my quarters. Clean up a bit. Grab a new uniform.”

“You could,” Jamie said. “Or you could stay here.”

“You’re not working?”

The mountain lion shook her head. “Siraj is relieving Mitch today.”

Sitting had disturbed her blankets, which she had not replaced, and he let his eyes wander thoughtfully over her tawny body. “It would be a shame to let those tits go to waste…”

“Such a gentleman,” she teased.

“I’m going to, though. I at least need coffee. We—”

A discordant chime cut him off, followed by Mitch Alexander’s voice on the intercom. “Action stations, action stations! The ship is now at State Red. All crew, all consoles, make reports to tactical.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Jamie saw the prospect of sleeping in escaping her. “Maybe—”

“—This is not a drill.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she swore again.

Mike, who was already on his feet, tossed the mountain lion her discarded uniform while he pulled on his own. “Where are you going, anyway?”

“With you.”

He watched her chest disappear behind the decidedly less appealing fabric of her jacket, then began fastening his boots. “Really? I thought you were in flight operations?”

“I was. They changed it last week. When I’m off-duty, I’m damage control.” She shoved the panther in the direction of her door. “Let’s go.”

“At the same time?”

“We’re probably under attack. They’re not going to give a shit, Mike.”

That made enough sense, he supposed; anyway, the distance between crew quarters and main engineering was short enough that it didn’t take anyone very long to get to their battle stations.

Indeed, most of the others were already there, waiting for Lieutenant Commander Hazelton to explain the situation. She beckoned the pair over. “The Pictor. We’re waiting to hear more.”

“Hyperdrive?” Petty Officer Constance had, like Mike Cooper, been off-duty when the alarm sounded.

“Stand and fight, apparently. Lock it down, just in case.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“TJ, you’ll lead the secondary damage control team. You, Meyer, and… Gallardo, whenever she shows up. Still waiting to hear more, so… no exposure suits for now.”

TJ gave her a thumbs-up. “Sure.” He made room for Jamie, who had otherwise been standing conspicuously far from Petty Officer Cooper. “Wait. Were you together?”

“None of your business,” Mike told him. “Commander, anything on the computers?”

“Still waiting to hear more. As I said.”

There was a brief period of quiet. “So you were together.”

“Yes.” Jamie figured that only getting an answer or the ship actually taking fire would shut TJ Wallace up, and they still had to be several minutes out of weapons range. “Happy?”

“Just surprised.”

“He has a nice cock. You should try it sometime.”

This proved to be the line Cornel Gallardo arrived on. TJ gave the vixen a wave. “Hey, Gallardo. We’re waiting to hear more. But we’ll be doing damage control.”

“Waiting to hear more about?” she asked, carefully.

“Well, right now…”

Jamie rolled her eyes at the otter. “Mike had me bent over my desk when the alarm sounded. You know? I wanted him to get off before he had to go on shift. That’s why I’m being such a bitch, TJ.”

“Mm.” He glanced towards the main engineering display, briefly, to make sure there had been no conspicuous changes in the power draw—that they were not about to be told to brace for impact. “I didn’t say that. A liar, though.”

“What?”

“If you were just having sex, I think we would’ve noticed. You had time to clean up. And Mike has his collar open, and he’s kind of favoring one side, because you must’ve bit him pretty hard. So he was on top. Last night, probably? Not long enough for you to get much sleep.”

“Ancroy,” Commander Hazelton muttered—partly from the boldness of his analysis, and partly because Mike Cooper had, with some evident discomfort, fastened his collar. “Why aren’t you Sherlock Holmes when I ask how long to diagnose an inductor malfunction?”

“I dunno, dude. Can’t always be.”

“Only when it matters?”

He shrugged, in his characteristically affable way. “Sometimes a problem just, like, piques my interest. Y’know?”

***

On the ship’s bridge, the situation was already somewhat more pressing. “There are two Parixian warships about a light-year away, captain,” Mitch reported. “It will be several hours before they arrive.”

“Nothing from the Dominion?”

“They’re even further off.”

“A shame. They’d appreciate the prize, I imagine.” Maddy was not quite so predatory, herself, but tried to sympathize with her close friends. “Tactical, how long until we’re in range?”

“Five minutes. If they have support ships, they should’ve launched by now.” Leon Bader was, indeed, slightly concerned about this anomaly. The Pictor were a troubling adversary in many ways—but they were, at least, generally predictable.

“If it is the Utashihal, they may not have any left. Some positive ID would be appreciated, if anyone has something to say…” The Utashihal was the name—so far as anyone could tell—of a Pictor cruiser that had been causing trouble as a commerce raider for several weeks.

Lieutenant Bader read each new tactical digest scrupulously, and he knew that the cruiser was reported to have taken heavy damage in an engagement with the Dominion. “Based on our intelligence, ma’am, it seems likely.”

“How likely?”

“They haven’t deployed any missiles or strike ships. That corresponds with the damage to the flight bays reported by the Uxzu. The sensor data they sent is too fragmentary to be of much use for a positive ID.”

Commander Bradley, sitting next to the captain, tried to play to his role as a voice of reason. “Or it could be a trick.”

“That would be a new one for them,” Captain May pointed out. The Pictor, who enjoyed a substantial advantage in materiel and numbers, were not given to subterfuge. “Keep our shields up and the point-defense system ready. Are we in range of their close-in weapons yet?”

“Almost.”

“Helm, keep our distance.” The Akita took a deep, pensive breath, and then paged the ship’s diplomatic officer. “Hey, doc? We have a Pictor ship that appears to be badly damaged and is not firing on us. It’s that raider we’ve been chasing for a week. Do I ask them to surrender?”

“According to Star Patrol protocols? Yes. Will they accept it? No, captain, of course they will not.”

“Thanks.” She ended the call, and went back to staring at the tactical display. “I mean, what’s the harm, right? CCI, transmit our standard message. If they stand down and disable any remaining weapons, we’ll treat them according to the rules of war, etcetera… all that nice stuff.”

Mitch sent the message, as requested—the ‘nice stuff’ ran to another several thousand words, although all of it was rote. “No response, captain.”

“Warn the Utashihal that if they don’t accept, we’ll open fire and destroy them.”

Spaceman Alexander waited for a reply, ready to say—again—that there had been none. “Uh. Stand by, captain. I’m now detecting significant power fluctuations from that ship…”

“They’ve triggered a self-destruct. Scuttling her,” Dave said, although before anyone could argue for any other cause the cruiser proved his point by exploding.

Mitch winced, as her sensors briefly overloaded. “Yes. That would seem to have—wait—hold on. Incoming!”

Captain May leaned forward, searching the display on the forward viewscreen carefully, as though she could will herself to pick out some kind of signal in the noise. “Tactical?”

“Two—no, four. Five.” They were hard enough for Leon to find in the expanding debris field, and he had the advantage of the tactical sensors. “Five ships on an intercept course. Boarding vessels.”

“Evasive maneuvers! Lieutenant Parnell, keep them exposed to the point-defense cannons as long as you can.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Given the close range, there was only so much Eli Parnell could do, even with their own ship’s powerful engines. “Coming about to 1-2-6 by 4-1.”

“Splash one,” Leon reported. “Splash two. Range is under thirty thousand now. Helm—”

“I see it! Switching—”

Eli handed off fine helm control to the shepherd just in time for him to catch one of the other boarding ships in a snapshot as it crossed into the firing arc of their particle beams. “Interlock released. Good effects on target. That’s two left.”

And now they were inside the effective range of the point-defense grid: visible to only one turret at a time, and nimble enough to dodge the incoming fire. Only luck allowed them to wing one of the two remaining ships, which immediately began tumbling out of control.

“One left,” Spaceman Alexander called out. “I think, but—”

“Firing solution,” Leon cut her off. A more pressing concern was dealing with its partner. “Helm, pattern Lagos-1.”

Eli twisted the throttles, kicking the Dark Horse over at the last second; the Pictor ship sailed past them, thrusters firing wildly, trying to decelerate before it crossed back over the minimum range of their cannons.

It failed: a burst of fire landed squarely, and the hapless boarding ship disintegrated. Bader did not have the chance to announce this, though, before a marked jolt ran through the ship.

Maddy stiffened. “What the hell? Report!”

“The last ship. The damaged one,” Commander Bradley muttered, reviewing the last few seconds of the tactical logs. “They must’ve had enough reactant in their thrusters to get a good angle on us.”

“Not that good,” Mitch said. “They got us almost head-on. That ship took 30 or 40 gees of deceleration real fast. I think their grapples engaged automatically, but I’m not sure there’s anyone still alive there.”

“What about us?”

“The outer hull is buckled between frames 12 and 18. We might have minor damage to the inner hull.”

“Might?” May looked over at Commander Bradley when he asked the question sharply. From the retriever’s point of view, any impact on the inner hull significantly altered the likelihood that they were in danger of actually being boarded. “Can you be more specific?”

Spaceman Alexander ran her finger over the logs. “The ship switched automatically to the auxiliary power bus forward of the transfer coupling at frame 18, port side. But… no atmospheric alarms.”

Maddy held her first officer’s gaze for a few seconds, and then shook her head, tapping her communicator. “Damn it. Bridge to engineering.”

“Yes, Mads?” Hazelton sounded only slightly more irritated than normal.

“Do you have damage control teams forward?”

“Yes, Mads.”

“Call them back. Secure any essential systems in the port bow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Damn it, she thought, although this time she avoided saying it aloud. “CCI, sound the alarm and activate boarding contingencies. Lieutenant Bader, get a security team together. Until you know for certain, we’re not taking any chances.”

***

“Depressurizing...” Leon watched the numbers drop in the corner of his visor. “Equalized. I’m going to open the hatch now. Be ready...”

Nothing happened when he unsealed the access hatch to the inner hull and pushed it open. Nothing happened when the German Shepherd made his way through, either.

He set his boots to adjust local gravity downwards, relative to his own body, standing perpendicular to the ship’s decks on the smooth inner hull. The others joined him, one at a time.

Sabel gave the sensors in his suit a chance to sweep their surroundings, which also let them adjust to the cybernetic systems in his own body. “The Pictor ship is heavily damaged, but seems intact.”

“Any life-signs?”

“I can’t get through the hull.”

Leon motioned for Jack Ford and Valerie Smith to stay back while he and Sabel approached. There was no further sign of activity even as they drew right alongside. “Captain Ford?” Leon prompted.

The coyote, serving as a kind of marksman, was carrying a plasma rifle with scanners nearly as accurate as Sabel Thorsen’s. “Nothing yet.”

“We’re going to breach the hull.” Sabel started setting the charges in place even as Leon continued explaining. “Then hold back for it to clear. If there’s any sign of activity, light it up.”

“Roger. Val?” he asked, more quietly and on the close-proximity radio instead of the wider net. “You good with that?”

She crouched down, switched on the stabilizers of her heavy support weapon, and waited for them to make contact with the hull. “Yep.”

“We’re ready back here, lieutenant.”

“Here, too. Do it, Sabel.”

The breaching charges sizzled, then flared, then kicked a section of the Pictor vessel’s hull free in a flurry of sparks. There was no rush of escaping atmosphere.

“No pressure?”

“They will be wearing exposure suits, too. The Pictor don’t breathe Terran atmosphere, anyway,” Sabel reminded him. “Nitrogen is toxic to them.”

“Right. Captain Ford, do you see anything?”

“Still nothing.”

Leon entered the ship, sweeping the barrel of his weapon back and forth cautiously. The strength of the impact had, indeed, done the crew in. Their suits—each the size of Leon and Sabel put together—were crumpled awkwardly.

“Some kind of—”

One of those crumpled suits twitched, then came to life, lunging for the shepherd. Then it crashed back to the floor, with Sabel Thorsen’s armored fist driven through the helmet.

Leon realized this at the same instant Sabel himself realized it. “Uh,” Bader managed to get out.

The same instinct had Sabel stepping back, turning in a quick circle while his visor marked the remaining occupants of the boarding ship. “That was it. A proverbial—”

“Not… right now,” Leon said, having also realized how quickly his heart was racing. “You’re sure that’s it?”

“The rest of them are quite deceased, yes.”

He shut his eyes and let his nerves settle. “There’s some kind of feedback loop in the reactor. No. Wait, I should tell the captain…”

“Yes. A good plan.” Sabel patted the shepherd’s shoulder, even if his powered armor meant the gesture was less reassuring than it might otherwise have been. “There is no imminent danger. You can take your time, if it would help to calm yourself.”

Leon shook his head. “Captain, this is Lieutenant Bader. We’ve gained access to the Pictor vessel. There’s a feedback loop in the reactor. They weren’t planning on boarding us. It was a kamikaze attack.”

“Can you disable it?”

“Yes, but the reactor isn’t working anyway.”

“Alright. Any survivors?”

“No. There was one, but Sabel took care of that.”

“Good work.”

***

Captain’s log, stardate 68114.3

We’ve set course for a Koba shipyard to make more extensive repairs to our hull. The Koba are mostly traders, governed by something called the Hetkoba Council—a political body that has, according to Dr. Beltran, previously kept their people neutral.

Increasing pressure from Pictor has forced them to take a side, and they’ve agreed to allow us—as well as a number of Uxzu warships—to use their highly advanced facilities for refit and repair.

“Our main power network has been successfully connected to the shipyard’s grid, captain,” Mitch reported. This had been accomplished, for that matter, without any real difficulty: their hosts appeared to be remarkably adaptable to even the oldest Star Patrol technology.

Captain May was, for the most part, simply grateful for the respite. “Tell Shannon she can shut our reactor down whenever she’s ready, in that case.”

“They’ll be ready shortly. The Koba are standing by for a report on what material we might need to finish our repairs, apparently.”

“Well. Hopefully it’s nothing too difficult to obtain.”

“In the meantime, they say there’s also a message waiting for us. It’s an encrypted data package. I can’t read it. It’s meant for you, captain.”

Maddy tilted her head. “From the Star Patrol?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s direct from the Admiralty. I was able to authenticate the origin, but your credentials are still needed to access the transmission.”

“I’ll take it in my ready room,” the Akita said, although she couldn’t guess at what the message would be about—the Star Patrol was never terribly prompt, so she doubted it was about the destruction of the Utashihal. “Dave, can you oversee the rest of the shutdown procedures?”

Mitch had the message waiting for her when she sat down and logged in to the terminal there. To her faint surprise, it came not from Admiral Mercure, her ordinary benefactor, but from Commodore Deju, a lower-ranking officer in the 23rd Fleet.

To her even greater surprise, the message was about the battle. Linar Deju, a delicately built woman who seemed to be some kind of gazelle from the holographic image, spoke with a lilting tone and an urgent voice.

Captain May: I read with some interest the latest after-action reports from your starship and, in particular, your engagement with the Pictor vessel Utashihal_. I’m reassured to learn that your ship suffered no serious damage, and there were no losses to her crew._

It is with even greater interest, though, that I read about your crew itself—

Here May frowned, and steeled herself for what was to come. Like the Dark Horse, and like her captain, the ship’s crew had a reputation that was less-than-stellar. Commodore Deju shouldn’t have had the authority to sanction May… but then, one could never really tell.

—and, in particular, your apparent possession and use of an Ulver Boarding Contingency Unit. It appears that UBCU-53 has been quite effective at helping you to deal with the Pictor and, now that I review your older records, with other situations as well.

One of my subordinates, Commander Rennes, is an active researcher in counter-Pictor tactics at Starbase Conway. We would benefit greatly from being the recipient of your Ulver unit’s knowledge. I understand that long-range communications with TCS Dark Horse remain difficult given your position.

However, I’ve also been made aware that the Tempest_, a high-speed scout vessel, is embarked on your ship. You are directed, at the earliest opportunity, to detach_ Tempest and return UBCU-53 to Terran space for debriefing along with Lieutenant Francisco Vasquez, Internal Security Division.

The Admiralty does not expect an impact to tactical readiness for your vessel, and excluding transit time the mission duration should be only a few days. I look forward to hearing a report from Conway Station.

Madison pushed herself back in her chair, canting her head. Commodore Deju had nothing else to say. She replayed the message, in case there was something she might’ve missed.

She’d never met Deju face-to-face; actually, she didn’t even know much about her reputation. Perhaps the opposite was also true. If she knew about the Tempest, it seemed logical to Maddy that Admiral Mercure must’ve approved the request.

Besides which, Shannon Hazelton had cautioned that repairs could well take weeks, especially if the engineering team was allowed to complete overhauls that their ship sorely needed. She drummed her claws, and then tapped her wristband communicator to activate it.

“Lieutenant Vasquez, this is the captain. We need to talk.”

***

Six hours later, the Tempest was on its way. Six after that, with the Dark Horse already light years behind them, Commander Munro prepared to lock the navigation console so that she could get some rest.

It wasn’t the first time she’d had to pilot the spy ship by herself—not even the first long-range mission. But she’d gotten used to having a companion who was knowledgeable enough about the ship’s systems to serve as backup.

Vasquez picked up on the meticulous concern with which she went through every step. “Something on your mind?”

“No. Just trying to make sure it’s all in good shape. I wish Mitti was here, honestly.”

“I learn fast,” he promised. “Like, uh… this. This button here? I know I shouldn’t touch that. Oh, and that one—and, uh… all of these, really…” He indicated one of his consoles with a generous wave of his paw. “Those are right out.”

Munro laughed softly in spite of herself. “Fortunately, this should be pretty routine. We’re not going on any spy missions.”

“Technically…”

“Being in Internal Security doesn’t necessarily make you a spy. I don’t think you’re that cool.”

“Not necessarily, no.”

The vixen raised an eyebrow, looking sideways at him while she kept her attention on the navigation plot. “Are you a spy? I thought you were our Pictor expert.”

“That, too.”

“So that’s why you’re being recalled. Reporting on us…”

Pancho grinned, for a spell. “Actually, if you must know, I don’t really have any idea why I’m on this mission. I know why you are. You can fly the ship.”

“And Sabel?”

“Sabel, they want to talk to about the Pictor. He’s got all the knowledge baked into him from the last war.”

“Good point.”

“I could be here as a heroic sacrifice, maybe. Can you think of a situation where you and Sabel would have to escape, but we wouldn’t already be on the Tempest?”

“If we docked at Conway and it had been taken over by intruders?” she suggested. “We might have to fight a running battle. I haven’t fired a rifle since training at the Academy, but I bet you’re qualified.”

He was indeed. “That could happen. You up for that, Sabel?”

“It is highly unlikely,” the spitz answered. “Conway Station is an extremely sensitive facility. They would destroy the installation rather than allow it to be taken over.”

“Hm.”

“Perhaps, for some reason, if either Commander Munro or I needed to save one another explicitly. Then you might be obliged to sacrifice yourself. Your loss would demonstrate the gravity of the situation to any outside observer.”

Pancho twisted around in his seat to find the spitz regarding him placidly. “Is that a joke?”

“I believe so.”

“I don’t know that I really… get… your jokes. Did Leon teach you?”

“No. Leon’s sense of humor is… as they say, laughter is the best medicine.”

“In that it’s good?”

“It is often confusing and its use in that fashion betrays a misunderstanding of how either humor or medicine work.” Not that anyone else on the Dark Horse thought of Leon as a comic. “We content ourselves with sex.”

“And is that good?”

“I enjoy it. Of course, I don’t have many points of comparison, whereas the crew is abundantly willing to volunteer their advice on my use of language.”

“I think that was a joke, too.” The wolf settled back into his seat. “Right?”

“Don’t ask me. I haven’t advised him on either one,” Ciara said, although it had certainly sounded like a joke—of sorts.

“Who did you learn humor from?”

“Nowhere in particular, if you mean in a deliberate fashion. Dr. Beltran, however, was highly instructive.”

Vasquez was about to say that he had never encountered the diplomat’s sense of humor, such as it might’ve been. They were both native speakers of the same Terran dialect; Beltran, however, stuck with its stilted formal register.

On reflection, though, he had heard her speak with something less than complete sincerity. And when she did so, it had indeed taken the form of wry, sardonic remarks that always required a few seconds to settle in one’s mind.

“You know, that makes perfect sense,” Vasquez decided. “But if you want to broaden your horizons…”

***

Work orders: 2809.1321, 2809.1322, 2809.1323

Authorizing officer: HAZELTON, Shannon (LTC), director, engineering section

Approving officer: ZSOLT, Marian (LT)

- APM reports fault in FN-554 module. Initial diagnostics indicate module may no longer exist. Status of current hardware to be ascertained and replaced if necessary at discretion of technician.

- APM reports thermal irregularity in data integrator subsystem, possibly a result of continued exposure to hard vacuum. Connection of data integrator to cooling circuitry to be verified and tested for compliance once hull repairs are effected. Presence of atmosphere to be ascertained and verified at discretion of technician.

- APM alignment values logged as ‘weird’ shortly before total system failure on 68110.94162. Degree of weirdness to be evaluated as nominal at discretion of technician.

Procedures and results to be logged below.

“Well… like. Why are you here, dude?”

The bluntness of TJ’s question gave Cornel Gallardo pause. With the ship powered down, Hazelton had split the engineering section up into small teams, working to repair the damage from the previous encounter.

Cornel and TJ were one such team, diagnosing the Auxiliary Processing Mainframe—a coprocessor for the targeting and maneuvering computer that also served as a backup, and was generally quite reliable. It had, indeed, failed only upon absorbing the kinetic energy of a Pictor boarding ship.

Travis, who had more hands-on experience with the ship’s systems, took the lead on disassembling the support hardware that would be needed to access the APM itself. He had been in the process of doing this when he mused:

This must be the wildest ship. We’re lucky they don’t realize what they’re doing. And she’d asked what, exactly, it meant to be ‘lucky’ in that way, because while the Dark Horse had a reputation in the Star Patrol, lucky was never one of the words used to describe it.

Then had come his question. Cornel was still mystified by the otter’s angle. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Nobody asks for the ship. Not specifically. Right?” TJ held his paw out for the de-energizing tool.

She handed it to him, and waited for him to neutralize the relay, in case there was a spark—or worse. But there was no drama. “Star Patrol is always moving people around.”

“Where were you before this?”

“In the RAM-D corridor, on TCS Vercingetorix. Patrol, mostly. Search and rescue, that sort of thing…” The vixen took the tool back, placing it carefully on the cart, and waited for TJ to disconnect the module from its power bus. “My second ship. First was the Proxima Centauri, just before she got retired.”

“Wasn’t that a fleet tender?”

“Yeah.”

“And Vercingetorix is almost brand new. So, like. That was a step up.”

It had, after a fashion, been given to the vixen as a sort of reward for her diligence on the antiquated Proxima Centauri. She declined to explain this. “I suppose. What are you getting at?”

“Curiosity! Something put you on this crate…”

“Why does it have to be ‘something’?” TJ had the module out where they could look at it—they were making good time, and his faculty with the equipment seemed at odds with the otter’s penchant for gossip. “Where were you before this?”

“Prison.”

“C’mon…”

“Nah, dude. Okay, this must be the bad one, lemme get it out…” TJ fiddled with the retaining clips, glancing up to catch the vixen’s incredulous expression. “I’m serious. I was on Raven Island.”

“How’d you—what happened?”

“When I was a teenager, I stole a fusion reactor. But, I dunno… eventually they decided I had promise or something. Here you go.” He popped the damaged chip out of place, setting it to the side, and then grinned. “Or they were worried I was gonna, like… escape? Beats me.”

“Huh. For real?”

“For real. Swap this or fix it?”

The chip didn’t merit more than a brief inspection—it was obviously charred into uselessness—so she pulled a replacement off the tray. “I did, uh… I did yell at my boss,” Cornel finally admitted.

“Told ya it was something.”

Swapping the damaged chip was a one-man job, and TJ’s silence left Cornel with no choice but to continue while the otter did his work. “He wanted to route power through the sensor bundle on our port thruster. I told him it was a stupid idea.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s rated for it, but the rating is a lie. It doesn’t into account the reduced insulation thickness. I told him he was going to fry the whole thing, and he got mad. So I called him an idiot.”

“Section lead? So, like, a lieutenant?”

“Senior chief petty officer.”

“You called a chief an idiot?” TJ whistled.

“He came from an older ship. He had a habit of doing things because ‘we always have.’ Anyway. It melted the bundle and then shorted itself into a PTX crystal.”

“Which exploded,” the otter knew as soon as she said it. He handed her the board so she could put the rest of the pieces back in, and began with the next item on their list. “PTX doesn’t like that kind of shock.”

“No, it does not. We had to vent the space and work in hazard suits to install a new one.”

“You had to,” the otter guessed, and got his answer from the way she scowled at the by-now-mostly-reassembled thermal regulator, stabbing it with her probe.

“Yeah. When I went to complain, they asked if I was fitting in, and I said ‘no.’ Kind of a hint, too: what is a 22-year-old doing challenging somebody who’s been in Star Patrol itself that long? Total bullshit.”

“You sound like me. Keep this oscillator, or not?” he held it up for her inspection.

“No scoring… no fuses blown in the traces… I’d say it’s fine. How do I ‘sound like’ you?”

“For one, calling Star Patrol ‘total bullshit.’ It kinda is, dude. But y’know, like… they don’t want you saying it.” This, alongside her judgment of the oscillator, was rapidly putting her on TJ’s good side. “You’re done over there?”

Cornel ran one last test on the regulating circuit. “Yes. So is this also a prison, then? Or exile?”

“If you think that, you’re not right for the ship. It’s not typical Star Patrol. But it is fun. Or… you can make it fun. Like Mike and Jamie do.”

“Is that what it is?”

“Sure! Why not? And can you blame them?”

She could not, exactly. Jamie and Cornel had been on the same transport, for the final leg of the journey that took them to the Dark Horse. The mountain lion seemed like the kind of sharp-toothed dynamo that would make for an enjoyable companion.

On the one hand, she didn’t know what Jamie saw in Mike Cooper. On the other, it went without saying that there must have been something in his own backstory that fit the bill. She slotted the regulator into place; TJ had already taken care of the oscillator.

The otter tapped his wrist. “Wallace to engineering.”

Lieutenant Zsolt answered. “Go ahead.”

“The APM core should be good to bring back online, dude. We’re standing by if you want to give it a go.”

Zsolt, like Cornel, was new. Unlike Cornel, they were technically an officer, and—technically—should have been addressed with something other than ‘dude.’ But the caracal either didn’t mind, or had been forewarned by Shannon Hazelton. “Hold on…”

Cornel’s ears picked up the hum of energizing circuitry. “Sounds good so far.”

“No errors reported,” Zsolt confirmed. “Nice work. And I think that’s it for that section, isn’t it? Come back here and let’s regroup.”

“Sure. See you in a sec.” TJ closed the channel, and began packing up his tools. “We’re even, like… ahead of schedule and shit. You figure we make a good team?”

“We’ve been ahead of schedule on every shift,” she pointed out. “I guess we do. Like Jamie and Mike—is that your point?”

“Have fun with your work! That’s all.”

“So what you’re saying is that I need to find someone to hook up with if I want to stick around?”

“That’s not the only way to have fun.” On reflection, he shook his head. “But, like, they don’t let us have the fun kind of drugs. Do you want to stick around?”

He’d gotten to his feet, and she took the paw he offered her to pull herself up. “You know what? I guess I do, yeah.”

“Well, then. There you go.”

***

Commander Quorini Rennes was a middle-aged hare, with greying features. Pancho immediately sized him up as someone who had been promoted behind his peers, and hadn’t objected because it gave him time to focus on his work.

A single-minded researcher, who saw himself as bringing unique value to the Star Patrol, and chafed at the regulations that impaired his ability to bring that value. Someone who had been given command of a team, or a ship, or a research facility and proven to be far more useful as an ‘individual contributor.’

Sabel Thorsen immediately sized him up as being 165 centimeters tall, with an internal temperature of 37.2.

Unfortunately for the two of them, it was Sabel’s abilities that had drawn the commander’s attention. “Your insights about how the Pictor have changed could be extremely valuable for us,” he said. “We have a lot to learn from you.”

“Well,” Sabel allowed, “It is my desire to help in whatever way that I can.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s what I was hoping to hear. You see, the easiest way to access that information will be to decompile your neural interface.”

When he had been defrosted on the Dark Horse, Sabel already knew this to be the case: it was part of his core programming. The Boarding Contingency Units were intended to be disassembled after a short period of use, so that their experience could be folded into the next generation of soldiers.

This had never transpired, because the entire UBCU program ended up as something of a disaster. And now, having experienced two and a half years of consciousness, the prospect gave him pause. “I could also provide this information in another format. I have been writing detailed logs after every battle in which I’ve participated. Those should’ve been forwarded to you.”

Commander Rennes nodded. “We’ve reviewed them extensively. That’s why we recalled you—particularly after the last round of fighting. I believe this is your first time actually encountering the Pictor.”

“Yes. And, admittedly, it was a brief encounter.”

Lieutenant Vasquez cleared his throat. “Can I ask what my involvement in this is, sir?”

“Oh, I suppose I hadn’t said. Ah, because this is technically a ‘special project,’ and there is an ISD operative assigned to the vessel, we’ll need the authentication codes. That would be you.”

This was the first the wolf had heard about his being posted to the Dark Horse in that kind of official capacity. Occasionally, ships received an ISD minder—the way all Star Patrol ships were supposed to have a liaison from the Civilian Oversight Division.

Their COD liaison had never reported aboard, so far as Lieutenant Vasquez knew. And—also so far as he knew—he had only been assigned to the ship for his knowledge about Pictor strategy and history.

But he was well-enough trained not to betray his surprise. “Understood. In that role, can I ask… was our captain also informed?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. He doesn’t own the Ulver unit, after all; Star Patrol does.”

“All the same, sir, this one in particular was also appointed by Captain May to run shipboard security for us. I’d like to make sure we have an adequate replacement.”

The hare tilted his head back, considering the question thoughtfully. “That’s not really related, though... this is just about extracting some information…”

“It is if you damage our security specialist. It shouldn’t take long. I just want to put a request in through ISD channels, and get any codes Sabel has downloaded so that we can have some redundancies. Can we reconvene in… twelve hours, say?”

“I’m off work then. It would have to be tomorrow morning, lieutenant.”

“I’m happy to get up early and start the decompilation procedures. I’m sure Sabel is, too. How long would it take to brief me on the Dark Horse’s security operations?”

Sabel, who was not—as it happened—particularly keen to be decompiled, took a moment. “Well… not long. Thirty minutes to brief you on anything that isn’t in my logs, and to answer any questions you have.”

“Tomorrow morning, then. Would that work, commodore?”

Commodore Rennes looked between the two Dark Horse crew wearily. “A word, Lieutenant Vasquez? Wait outside,” he added, nodding to Sabel Thorsen.

Sabel, who had yet to be addressed by name, did not feel the need to acknowledge the request with a yes, sir. He simply bowed his head, and stepped out and into the hallway. Vasquez watched him go with affected disinterest, then turned back to the commodore. “Sir?”

“The thing is, Vasquez, I’d rather not delay.”

A certain degree of useful obliviousness, while not part of his training, had also served Vasquez well. “But it’s not really a ‘delay’ if you can’t start without me to begin with. Right, sir?”

Rennes splayed his fingers thoughtfully, then pressed them together. “It’s true that I do need your authorization, but I had also expected that you would be more…”

As he continued searching for the word, Vasquez smiled warmly. “I hope that you don’t think I’m being obstructive! I don’t mean to impede your work, sir. It’s just that…”

Now it was his turn to trail off, and the hare’s turn to prompt him. “Yes? Your affection for the Ulver unit? Your lengthy period of service together?”

“No. I haven’t really been on the Dark Horse that long at all. It’s just that I don’t want to cause problems in my own chain of command, sir. You know how it is—if you don’t make sure to check every box…”

Commander Rennes, it transpired, either had sufficient experience with the Star Patrol, with the Internal Security Division specifically, or both. He nodded his understanding. “Yes, I suppose…”

“And ISD can be pretty fast in a situation that involves Confed security like this. I’ll escalate my request, and I know they’ll take it seriously. Would that work, sir?”

Rennes sighed. “I suppose. Fine. Have the Ulver come back in.” Vasquez opened the door, and Sabel joined them—still wordless. “We’ve agreed that Lieutenant Vasquez will return with you tomorrow morning, to my office. He’ll be able to get everything he needs from you by then, I trust?”

Sabel nodded his head once. “I believe so.”

“And we’ll need quarters,” Vasquez added. “I haven’t showered since we left—who can I talk to about that?”

Another sigh; this one was significantly less subtle in its irritation. “Petty Officer Carter Burke, on my staff. There will be plenty of rooms on this station, I’m sure.”

Vasquez gave him the wolf’s most winning smile. “Thank you, sir. I’ll get to work, if that’s all…”

“Yes.” The answering expression was not nearly so kind. “You’re dismissed.”

***

“This is not the way to our quarters,” Sabel felt the need to point out. “If you’re lost, I believe the station map I have downloaded and retain in memory is still reasonable accurate.”

Pancho glanced behind him; Burke had already gone back to his work, and was no longer paying any attention to the newcomers. “I know. We’re stopping by the Tempest first.”

“Oh. Very well.”

“You’re taking this better than I would.”

“That’s also a part of my programming. Despite appearances, however, I am… concerned about their ability to reassemble me.”

“I would be, too.”

“I doubt there is much expertise, either. I believe they banned further development of beings like me.”

“For now, yes.”

Sabel hadn’t considered that option. “You really think their goal is reactivating the program?”

“I think they’re closer to doing something like that than they’ve been since your program was canceled.” The clandestine nature of the affair bothered Vasquez, too. It implied to him that the Star Patrol might have been becoming desperate, and desperation could make people do funny things.

“Perhaps, in that case, it would be worthwhile. I could be the noble sacrifice, leading to a whole new generation of descendants…”

“If you’re ready for children, Sabel, there are easier ways to do it. Or… wait. Are you going to tell me you haven’t considered the difficulty involved in creating an artificial womb?”

“Have you?”

“No.”

“Leon would need to become a father, for one.”

“That was a joke, too.”

“A statement of fact.”

The spitz’s expression, as usual, betrayed little emotion. Vasquez inspected it anyway, like an interrogating spy might. “Sabel, how much of your personality is just… an act for the rest of us?”

“I can’t say.”

This was, if unhelpful, also the truth. As an artificial person, who had been at least in part programmed, Sabel did not know where his programming ended and his ‘personality’ began—if, indeed, there was a difference at all.

Ordinarily this offered no special difficulty to him. Now, facing the reality that—outside of the Dark Horse—others were likely to assume the worst, his taciturn answer reflected internal musing he also couldn’t articulate.

Ciara Munro was napping when they returned, but the vixen slept lightly, and was on her feet by the time the two had cleared the ramp. “Your meeting is over?”

“Yes. Are we powered up, ma’am?”

“We can be. So soon, Vasquez?”

“Maybe. First, I need a secure comms channel to ISD. Can I touch a console, commander?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Just not the engines.”

“Thanks.” Pancho sat, logged in to the Internal Security network, and checked to see if any other Division operatives were aboard Conway Station. “Huh. Commander Gorman.”

Munro cocked her head. “The vixen from the Herakles, right?” They’d met, briefly, at the same time Vasquez was transferred to the Dark Horse.

“My old boss. I want to ask her a few questions. I think Sabel can probably explain the rest. Right, Sabel?”

“Not about the questions you’re going to ask, no. You haven’t told me your plans.”

This was not deliberate obfuscation on Sabel’s part, Vasquez thought. He was distracted—uneasy, even. “Right. But about the meeting, and Commodore Rennes. What they want. Those kind of things.”

“Oh. Yes, I can explain that, I believe.”

A sense of esprit de corps, and their own network for sharing information, also meant that Lieutenant Commander Gorman replied to Vasquez’s message immediately. Half an hour later, he was in Conway Station’s arboretum, staring down from an upper level at a bucolic, koi-filled pond.

Mary Gorman joined him only a few minutes after that. “You missing fresh air that much?”

“Maybe a little.”

She looked him over, and then sniffed. “I’m grateful for it, at least. Been roughing it, Pancho?”

“We came in the Tempest. It’s not really meant for long journeys, especially not with more than two crew. Did Division call me back?”

“What?”

“You know Commander Rennes?”

“Quorini? Special Projects, yes. He’s one of a few on Conway. This is a research outpost, after all.”

“I was brought back to meet with him. Do you know if that request came from ISD?”

She frowned, shrugged, and then pulled a computer from her pocket. “I don’t think so. Normally, they tell me, but… Star Patrol bureaucracy is always a little FUBAR. The war has only made that worse.”

“Right. It didn’t have a Division signature, but Rennes said he needed someone with ISD codes for approval.”

Mary shrugged again. “Not uncommon. They might’ve forgotten I was here. Anyway… no. There’s no requests from our side. It went through the Admiralty. Commodore Deju, I think—23rd Fleet.”

“Conway’s in their sector.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Do you trust me?”

Her frown returned, and took on an apprehensive edge. “Ah, shit. Vasquez…”

“I need two favors from you, Mary. One big and one small.”

“Shit,” she muttered again. “What are they?”

“Big one first. I need you to not ask ‘why?’ about the small favor.” He bore her narrowed eyes stoically. “The small favor is… can ISD override our flight plan?”

“You want your docking clearance?”

“Yes.”

“And you want it classified as a Division secret.” The realization was preceded by a sigh, which was also why she didn’t phrase it as a question.

“Yeah.”

“You’re going AWOL?”

“No. Back to the Dark Horse.”

Now it was her turn to stare, silent, at the pond, and the people—civilians, off-duty sailors; a few children—milling idly around it. “Can you give me a reason?” she asked, finally.

“I said—”

“A reason for you needing to leave in a rush.”

“Uh. A message from our ship, asking us to come back for an urgent mission. I’d want the request classified so that enemy spies don’t have any advanced warning to pass on. How’s that?”

“That’ll work.” She sighed once more, although if he’d doubted what her decision would’ve been the wolf would never have asked to begin with. “Alright. On one condition, Vasquez: you shower next time.”

“Deal.”

“It’ll be done before you’re back in the docking bay. I’d hustle, if I were you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Gorman smiled faintly at the term of address. “You’re dismissed.”

He started to turn from her, then paused. “If you catch hell for this…”

“I expect I won’t.”

“But if you do, throw me into the reactor without blinking.” She had not, herself, moved from the railing. “Please.”

Gorman turned her head, just a few degrees—only far enough that she could catch him from the very corner of her eye. “What are you still doing here, Vasquez?”

He gave up and returned to the Tempest. The atmosphere was noticeably more tense, and he noticed that most of the computer consoles had been powered on. This was because Munro, who hadn’t been able to piece everything together, understood that something was the matter.

They had a transceiver that might be able to reach a subspace relay in range of the Dark Horse, but it drew enough power to require the main reactor. Or there might be information in the ship’s systems that Vasquez might require.

Still, the directness of the wolf’s attitude was jarring, when he said “we’re leaving” before the hatch was even closed behind him.

“Now?”

“Now, yes. We have docking clearance.”

“We… don’t,” Ciara said, growing more confused. “I haven’t even asked the flight coordinator.”

“Check the logs. We have it.”

“Sabel said there was a meeting tomorrow with Commander Rennes…”

Sabel was, effectively, a civilian—at least, he did not have a career in the Star Patrol to be concerned about. The vixen, Pancho understood, was in a different position. “I’m taking over the ship. Internal Security Division business. You are hereby ordered, on ISD authority—”

As soon as she realized what was going on, Ciara held up a paw. “Stop. Drop the—just—drop whatever clever act you’re planning to cover my ass instead of yours. What are you doing?”

“I want May to know what’s going on. And I want Sabel as far away from Rennes as possible until she does. And, uh, I… got an old friend in ISD to forge our docking clearance.”

Commander Munro finally pulled up the logs, and blinked in surprise. “Ordered to depart immediately, huh? I’d better not ignore that.”

“The cover story is that we received an urgent message from the Dark Horse and we’re leaving before it can leak.”

“Sure, that makes sense. Take a seat, lieu—Pancho.” Her fingers had already begun typing in the codes to unlock the Tempest’s computers. “You don’t think they’re going to question that clearance, are they?”

“Probably not, honestly. I doubt Rennes would’ve talked to the dockmaster. He figures I’m an idiot, not a traitor.”

“A traitor?”

“Official Internal Security—”

“Fine. You can tell me the whole story once we’ve reached hyperspace. Harnesses, people. We’re going to do this fast.”

***

“Have you worked with TJ yet?”

“No, not really. Petty Officer Cooper does. I haven’t talked to Mr. Cooper about him, though.”

“Mike,” Cornel suggested. “Your, uh…”

Jamie flexed her fingers, but kept her claws sheathed. Cornel was not trying to cause problems. “We’re just friends. We go back.”

“TJ told me everyone on the Dark Horse winds up here for a reason. Like they didn’t fit in anywhere else, or Star Patrol wanted them quarantined. I don’t think I quite believe that.” But, when she said it, Jamie’s ear had twitched, ever so slightly. “You do?”

“No.”

“You said…” She poked a bit of melon around on her plate before finally taking the bite, chewing thoughtfully. “You said you asked for this transfer. Was it to be with him again?”

“No.” That had been too heated; she tried to backpedal. “I didn’t know Petty Officer Cooper was here, I mean. People keep thinking it was deliberate. It really wasn’t. We used to be, ah…”

Cornel would’ve let her backpedal from that, too, except that the mountain lion’s tail was lashing unsteadily enough that it hit her foot on occasion. “You weren’t going to say ‘dating.’”

“We kinda were. But more, like… we weren’t exactly upstanding citizens. He decided he wanted to try, so he enlisted.”

“On purpose? Spaceman Wallace was apparently in prison,” she added, when Jamie didn’t seem to understand her gist. “He didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Oh. We weren’t criminals. Not really,” Jamie said, although this was a somewhat charitable interpretation of their time together. Trying to keep herself honest, she corrected it slightly: “Well. I became a bit more crooked. Then I got tired of it and thought maybe he had the right idea. I joined up, too.”

“So? That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I don’t think I ever fit in as well as he did. I kinda… chafe at it all. The personnel officer in my squadron suggested I should apply for this posting. I’m pretty sure it was one of those ‘suggestions’ that you have to say ‘yes’ to.”

“Do you fit in here?”

It was now Jamie’s turn to look at her breakfast, and defer any answer while she thought of what, exactly, she was trying to say. Besides Mike, she’d known Cornel longer than anyone else on the ship, because they’d shared a transport together—that was all.

And the most truthful answer to the question was not, in any event, a simple one. She hadn’t even fully hashed the argument out with Mike, and she’d been spending an increasing number of nights in the panther’s quarters instead of her own.

“I like the work. Finding new things and feeling like I’m using my skills for good, that kinda shit. I like it—really! Don’t give me that look. I know it’s corny.”

“Just trying to figure you out,” Cornel said, which was an entirely truthful explanation and meant without guile.

“Mmph. Okay. I love the work. I don’t want to lose it. When someone finds out who I am, or like… was, or whatever… they think I’m just trying to get in deep with the Patrol. Dig up some good secrets to sell. At best, misroute some hardware and cover it up. Like Mike and I used to do.”

“You think when people ask about the rumor that the Dark Horse is an assignment for ‘those people,’ they’re wondering what you did to get here?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Not on purpose. This was all kind of a tangent. I just wanted to know about Spaceman Wallace.” Cornel finished the last two forkfuls of her breakfast, increasingly awkwardly, while Jamie watched. “I mean it.”

“You don’t think that reputation is kind of… I don’t know, insulting?”

“What if it’s true? I didn’t fit in on Vercingetorix.”

“So they put you in quarantine? With the rest of us miscreants?”

“If you want to look at it like that. I don’t think you have to.”

“Maybe.” Jamie sighed; the conversation had already verged into directions that had apparently not been required. “Why did you ask about Wallace?”

“Because I think he wants to hook up with me.”

“Oh. That’s it?”

“Well. That’s not normal, right?”

“Do you want to hook up with him? He’s kind of cute, right?” She’d been telling the truth about her lack of familiarity. The engineering section tended to keep to themselves. She recalled him as being young, though, affable and energetic in the way otters often were.

“It’s not… not tempting,” she admitted. “But we’re coworkers. And in uniform.”

“You can take the uniform off,” Jamie said. “It’s just clothing.”

“I think it’s supposed to be more than that. Metaphorically, and all. Philosophically.”

“You think sleeping with Wallace would make you less willing and able to… save the universe, or whatever we’re doing?”

“Not that extreme, maybe.”

“Okay. Then you think he’s gonna fuck the knowledge of Star Patrol’s 16th General Order for Sentries out of your head?”

“Aren’t there only thirteen?”

“Are there?” she asked, shrugging. “Mike gets pretty wild sometimes, you know?”

“Uh-huh. Objectively, you’re right, I just—oh.” The ship’s bell had begun to sound. “Wonder what we broke this time.”

The chimes stopped. “All hands, prepare to recover an inbound vessel. The ship is now at State Gold. Flight operations personnel, make reports to tactical. Petty Officer Meyer to the bridge.”

“Bridge, Meyer. Acknowledged.” Jamie closed the channel, and tapped the top of her coffee mug, snapping an iris embedded in the rim nice and watertight. “Half an hour before my damn shift, too.”

“They need your expertise,” Cornel suggested.

Jamie stuck out her tongue. “Nice try. They don’t want to rotate personnel halfway through landing. It’s fine, it’s fine. I like Siraj. No—since you’re about to ask—not enough to fuck him.”

“I wasn’t going to ask. Besides, you have Mike for that. Petty Officer Cooper, I mean.”

The cougar smirked. “Hey, you have my permission to try the otter, Cornel. Maybe you won’t regret it.”

***

Captain’s log, stardate 68120

Munro, Vasquez, and Sabel Thorsen have returned—_without _having fulfilled the request made by Commodore Deju. This request, which would implicitly risk the life of a member of my crew, makes me want to—[unrecoverable]

Computer, overwrite the previous 60 seconds with white noise. Uh… now delete the previous 60 seconds. Create a splice point for later, and then replay the last ten intelligible words without appending them to the log.

[unrecoverable]—convene a meeting of my senior staff to gather their advice before reaching a conclusion as to the correct and reasonable course of action.

“I find this extremely troubling.” Maddy looked at the others, as if waiting for them to challenge her. “I don’t understand how the Admiralty even thought I would agree to it.”

“They didn’t, ma’am,” Vasquez said. “Your agreement wasn’t required.”

“It damned well is required. They want me to give up one of my crew.” But, of course, that wasn’t how the Admiralty saw it, and Maddy was willing to acknowledge that complication, too. “What are our options?”

“Can we get a message to Admiral Mercure? I can’t see him authorizing it.”

“I think we can try, Dave. But what if he did?”

“I can’t see it being a valid order. And you outrank this Rennes figure,” the retriever added. “You’d be on solid ground to assert the military necessity of not letting them kidnap Sabel.”

“Sure, if I’d been there at the time. Vasquez acted on his own initiative. Now we have to justify that, too.”

“I figured you’d want to know, ma’am.”

“Because I did. And because if I didn’t trust your initiative, you wouldn’t be in the room right now.” But May was concerned about the possibility that she would be forced into a position that required finesse and political clout, neither of which had ever been the Akita’s strengths.

“Maybe ask the lawyer,” Captain Ford spoke up, finally.

“Who? Beltran?”

Dave shook his head. “The cook, Hasan Saleh. Ex-JAG. Do you know him, captain?”

“I’m a coyote. We have a sixth sense for things like that.”

It was not an especially satisfying explanation. “Alright. Uh. Well, Captain Ford is right, though, Maddy. We could see what our options are.”

“I doubt it.” Her mood had grown increasingly dark. “But if you want to try, suit yourself.”

They had no better alternatives, at least in the near term, so when she dismissed the meeting Dave headed down to the mess hall. There were no other crew present, but he found Lieutenant Saleh behind the counter, tidying up.

The jackal nodded, rather than saluting. “Commander. How can I help you?”

“Dinner, I guess. What do we have tonight?”

“The reconstituted pizza, as usual, but I also had the synthesizer try its hand at some cornbread. Tonight’s fresh meal is chili, if you’d like a bowl. Ah, that nod! Take a seat at the counter, then. I like your sense of adventure.” This addition came as the chili was already being ladled out, and Dave no longer had a way to politely change his mind.

When Hasan set the bowl down in front of him, he stayed put, watching the retriever closely while Dave looked at the chili and tried to determine how much could be judged by sight. “I don’t suppose I want to ask about the ingredients?”

The answer was ‘you do not,’ but Saleh gave him an affable shrug. “Always depends on how strong your stomach is, sir. They did let me bring on plenty of fresh produce.”

“Hmm.” Dave finally took a spoonful, which—irrespective of its origins—was at least tasty. “How is this getting reviewed?”

“No complaints. But, considering my competition…” It was not possible for the jackal to fail down to the level of the typical fare produced by the ration synthesizers they would otherwise be using; they both understood this. “You look like you’re enjoying it.”

“Hmm,” Dave said again. “That fresh produce will hold you over until the hydroponics are all set up?”

Hasan leaned forward, putting his elbows on the raised lip that separated his kitchen from the counter space, and rested his muzzle on his paws. “Who got into trouble?”

“Really?”

“I know you’re busy, but we don’t talk much, sir. And you know the cultivation bays have been running for weeks now. Is it the spy? Pancho seemed kind of tense when he came by for coffee.”

“Do you know Sabel Thorsen?”

“Husky or something, sure. Security. Nice guy.”

“He looks like a spitz, on the outside, but he’s a cybernetic organism. Artificially created by the Star Patrol, a couple hundred years ago.”

The jackal’s ears quirked forward while he recalled every conversation he’d had with the spitz. “He doesn’t seem that old. And you said Star Patrol made him? That’s a direct violation of the Garden Act.”

“Yeah. He predates that. The Ulver Boarding Contingency Unit was a stopgap program in the last Pictor War. We won the war without them, and it didn’t work out, and most of them were destroyed without ever waking up. We accidentally activated him in 2807.”

“He doesn’t seem that young, either. So… Sabel’s got into trouble?”

“The Admiralty sees him as a tactical resource. They want to download everything that’s in his brain and see what he can teach them about the Pictor. The problem is: they can’t guarantee that it would be a nondestructive process.”

Hasan nodded. “And, learning that, Lieutenant Vasquez helped him escape and brought him back here?”

“Exactly. Vasquez says that, according to the Admiralty, Sabel can’t refuse the procedure even if it might kill him. That was part of their design, apparently. An Ulver unit would be activated, fight through an engagement, and then get deactivated so that their experience could be used to train the other models waiting to be woken up.”

“Huh.”

“So the plan was that they wouldn’t be awake… or alive… for more than a few hours. Not enough time to have any self-doubts.”

“Huh,” Hasan repeated. “That’s sort of fucked. If you don’t mind my saying it, sir.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re all in agreement on that point. What I want to know is if we have any recourse, legally speaking. You can’t just up and deactivate a person, can you?”

Hasan Saleh was silent for an uncomfortably long period of time.

“Can you?”

“You understand that I wasn’t an ethics and natural rights lawyer, right? I worked in procurement.”

“Yes. But you went to law school.”

“What did you go to school for?”

“History.”

The jackal leaned forward again, hoping it was not too obvious that he intended to set a trap for Commander Bradley. “You don’t just study ‘history.’ I bet you studied ‘pop culture in the empires of North America during Terra’s late 20th century’ or something like that.”

“Naval strategy in the first century before and after the creation of the Star Patrol,” Dave admitted. “I understand that law is specialized, but you must’ve come across something. You’re going to understand it better than I can, that’s for sure. I’m just asking for that kind of opinion. Nothing more.”

For the moment, Hasan was satisfied with Dave’s understanding that ‘a lawyer’ did not simply understand every precise nuance of every codicil—the Terran Confederation had tens of thousands, after all. “Fine.”

“Sabel must have some rights. He’s not just a machine.”

“Why?”

Dave blinked. “‘Why’ what? Why would he have rights? He’s a living being. He’s sentient. Even if he was created by Terran scientists, he’s still an intelligent individual.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t follow.”

“The interactive map at the shopping mall talks with you—even recommends you where to grab dinner when you explain what you’re looking for. I’ve seen a trained Draxabillian parrot play a game of chess against itself. Do you expect that Confed law cares that something can tell a joke or recite poetry?”

“But the shopping mall map isn’t—“

Hasan held up his paw. “So? You think people haven’t fallen for a simple robot before? How well do you know what ‘anthropomorphism’ is, commander?”

The Golden Retriever sighed, puffing his muzzle out before he began to massage the side of his neck. “I have some idea.”

“To be governed as an intelligent life-form with self-determination under Terran statute, you have to be a statutory life-form recognized as possessing self-determination.”

“That seems tautological.”

“It is. There’s a list. A council of experts determines who goes on the list. You’d need to ask them to make that determination.”

Even if said council was willing to agree—and given the Confed’s notorious bureaucracy, he had his doubts—Dave was under no illusion about how quickly they could be expected to do so. The idea itself nagged at him, though. “That can’t be all of it. What about aliens? The Diplomatic Corps would never stand for having some ‘council’ approve every first contact.”

Hasan straightened up and went to check on his latest concoction—what came next didn’t require much nuance, perplexingly, as far as the Star Patrol was concerned. He could explain while working. “Aliens have presumptive self-determination. Diplomats have wide leeway, as I understand things. But, commander, whatever Sabel is, he definitely isn’t an alien. You’re not going to get anywhere arguing that one.”

“So what are our options? Legally, I mean.”

“Ha-ah.” Hasan lifted the lid of his chili, inspected a spoonful, and began fiddling with his spice injector. “We agreed I couldn’t advise you like that. You wanted my opinion.”

“Fine. What’s your opinion, lieutenant?”

“The gods of admiralty law aren’t going to save you.”

“Then…”

“Then you might have to do something a lawyer definitely shouldn’t advise you on.”

***

“What, here?”

TJ shrugged. “Who’s going to bother us?”

“Anyone who needs access to the space?”

“It’s flagged for damage control,” the otter pointed out, although he was also trying to decide—from Cornel’s objections—whether she actually needed much persuading. “Nobody’s stopping by.”

“They might…”

He tapped his wrist. “Mike, it’s TJ.”

“Hey, Teej.”

“We’re going to run some atmospheric tests in junction 31-Alpha-Alpha. Can you lock access out, just in case?”

“Sure, Teej. It’s done. Cooper, out.”

TJ looked at Cornel expectantly. She didn’t answer, at first. “So, like. With atmospheric stuff, we might purge the logs afterwards, too. So it doesn’t show up as an anomaly or anything, since we were just testing.”

Cornel thought it over. Then, she nudged the tool cart away with her foot, so that it wouldn’t get in the way. Then—

At that point, TJ had already gotten the message, and the otter had her pressed up against the wall. His muzzle was hot against hers, and close, and Gallardo briefly considered reflecting on just how many people TJ had kissed before concluding that, either way, it meant he was very good at it.

And, close as they were, when he arched into her hips with a firm, purposeful grind, she was given cause to reflect on what else he was liable to be very good at. The swelling in his pants was already significantly less than subtle.

Nor did she have to voice any proposals explicitly, because TJ had already started to undo his pants. Cornel did the same, although, in truth, the vixen had less experience in the practice of disrobing just enough for a quickie in a disused hull compartment.

So the otter beat her to the punch, and by the time she had one foot out of her pants his paws had spread open her jacket and he was feeling up her front, cupping her breasts and spilling a ragged growl into her muzzle. Or—no, she realized belatedly, that was her growl; TJ was making a sort of husky moan.

Her fingers found his shaft, folding around it and squeezing. She’d meant to judge his size, but her touch was rewarded with another moan, a firm buck of the otter’s hips, and a slick warmth running down his twitching prick and over her fingerpads.

TJ, for his part, held their deep kiss until she squeezed him again, and he sensed—correctly—that she was trying to tug him closer by the dick. He pulled back, steadied his breathing, and grunted something hoarsely to her.

It sounded like turn around, because it was, and Cornel rasped back: “I’m not a dog, you know.”

The time for banter had passed. He did the job for her, twisting the vixen around. “Close enough,” he said. Which he knew must’ve been true, because her tail was lifted, and when he shifted around to find a better position she adjusted her own stance helpfully.

There was no fumbling. He didn’t need to guide himself to her. Cornel felt, in the same fluid movement, a teasing pressure nudging her and then a slick, stiff heat sinking up, and in, and in, and—Christ, she gasped, and her legs were quivering by the time he’d gotten himself all the way into her, his body flush against hers and his groan washing her folded ears.

He pulled back halfway—or so, TJ’s need for precision fell away when it no longer involved actual engineering. Instead, he pulled back until he no longer felt like denying himself, which turned out to be roughly halfway, and—also roughly—he bucked to the hilt again.

Cornel had thought that the otter’s generous precum might prove a necessary aid, but once he’d gotten through the first thrust it was clear that her own arousal would’ve done the trick. His movements were easy, full, and fluid, and they had a driving, purposeful energy to them.

Further thoughts on the vixen’s behalf lagged behind flashes of fuzzy sensory glow. Each time TJ rocked her full of sleek otter dick, a ribbon of stretching, gratifying pleasure came with it. His groans into her scruff were another kind of giddy warmth. His paws groped her chest eagerly—

He did that a second time, because the way she squirmed and moaned into the wall was rather intoxicating. And TJ knew it meant he could pace himself better than Cornel could. In fact… he slid one of his paws downwards, between her legs, and no sooner had he found her clit and started to rub than the vixen shuddered, and he bucked forward and pinned her with his hips lest she lose her footing.

Cornel experienced this as a new source of exquisite, building tension, and then a solid presence that spread warmth over her back and accented the hefty male buried deep between her legs. The idea that she could surrender to that tension followed, and as he thrust again and again the idea yielded to blissful certainty.

Head to the side, muzzle flat to the wall, she let out a shivering moan as pleasure rolled over her in insistent, steady, demanding waves. TJ stayed deep, and he felt so thick and filling in her that the vixen could’ve sworn she perceived every vein and ridge over which her soft folds clenched.

The otter stayed deep because, while he hadn’t been certain of her balance before, now one of her feet was kicking erratically at the floor and TJ was quite sure she wasn’t up to the task of balancing on the other. Gentleman that he was, he fucked into her with short, firm strokes until she was no longer quite so shivery.

He began to pull his fingers away, though, and while Cornel might’ve been unsteady on her feet she definitely had the presence of mind to stop that nonsense. She put her paw over his. He got the message. The vixen flexed her leg, got control of her muscles back, and planted her foot again.

TJ got that message, too. He resumed his thrusting, no longer quite as concerned with pacing himself. With Cornel bracing herself, he could focus more deliberately on her slick walls spreading around him, and on the deliciously carnal reality of hilting himself over and over in that wet, enveloping heat.

A somewhat illicit reality, as well, although that was enticing in its own way. There would be cleanup, at some point. The responsible move would be pulling out to finish on her back—Star Patrol uniforms were waterproof, anyhow.

The counterpoint, though, was that he wanted to fill the vixen properly. Like—fuck, he wanted to rut her from behind until he bucked to one conclusive halt, ramming up and into her slim rear, grabbing her hips and growling into her scruff as he unloaded, and—

Oh, Cornel thought. Oh, he’s close. Pondering the counterpoint had rendered the otter’s thrusts less fluid, and his huffing pants were taking on a characteristic depth. Then she wondered: is he a biter? Then she twisted her head, meeting his lust-dazed expression.

“In me.”

“Hrf?”

“Do it in me,” she ordered, and saw the look in his eyes shift. He groaned and rocked hard up and against her, and every stroke that followed was more of the same: rough, powerful, and oh-so-urgent. Cornel started to tease her clit again, at first just because TJ himself had stopped, and she wanted the extra stimulation.

Then, and very rapidly, because the vixen felt she could get off again. Possibly even before he did, although the way TJ was grunting she wasn’t sure. In any case, he had the same idea, but he was distracted and she batted his fingers away to do the job herself.

Yes, she concluded. She could definitely climax again. A canine lover would’ve already been locked in her, swelling knot wedging its bulk as an anvil against her own fingering. TJ’s heavy, solid thrusts, each plunging as deep as he could go, grinding and desperate, were as gratifying in their own way.

Cornel thought something like a little more and overestimated; he was just starting to pump back on one of his shaky thrusts when she went over the edge again, the pleasure welling up and taking solid root the same place as the otter was. Then there were teeth in her scruff.

He didn’t mean that. He only wanted to keep from deafening her with the groan he knew was about to tear from him. But he bit down anyway, tugging her back as he reached his peak in her. Abruptly. Unstoppably. Viscerally. All of this was predictable.

Messily—that was predictable, too. She gasped, somewhere in the heights of her own bliss, at the way his cock jumped. The first gushing splash was hot and strong enough to perceive more or less distinctly, and even if it hadn’t been the slick, squishy sensation of the otter’s followup thrust was telling enough.

The knowledge that their impulsive and somewhat ill-advised rutting had come to its mutual end with him releasing in her, in every sense of the word, sent an exhilarating shiver through her. Unbidden, but enough to prolong the spasms of her own orgasm and destroy her ability to keep her yelping quiet.

Fortunately, those logs could be scrubbed, too. TJ slowed to a halt. Mostly. Fuck. He was still twitching. She didn’t know if he was still adding to the slippery, alien warmth filling her insides. But he might have been. TJ, feeling her begin to move, relaxed to ask around a mouthful of vixen: “are you—”

“No,” she gasped, not in answer to the unfinished question are you trying to get off again—because she was—but because he’d let go. “Teeth. Bite.”

He bit. More deliberately, because this time it was a direct order and not primal instinct, and the sharp pressure took care of what the vixen’s fingers didn’t quite manage. Cornel quivered. It was rather fainter, not the white-hot, blotting ecstasy of her second climax, but good enough. The otter had begun to soften, anyway.

Ten or fifteen seconds later, while she was processing that, he slid from her with a lewd slurp that dramatically failed to give her enough warning for the even lewder splatter that followed. His musky load hit the floor, generously splashing her bare foot and its booted companion.

That obscene gush might’ve been the worst of it, except that being fucked like a dog (close enough) had hilted him all the way up inside her. Between his forceful humping and her fevered squirming, they’d managed to work him good and deep. She turned, so that she could lean on the wall, and even that was enough to drool another helping of runny otter seed along her silk-furred thighs.

Cornel gave up, sliding down to sit with one leg outstretched, aware of but unconcerned with the pearly mess running from her lower lips to join a spreading pool dammed imperfectly by her butt. TJ eyed his handiwork, aware of the impetus for regret he did not actually feel, and took a seat next to her.

“We got, uh. Rags and stuff. On the cart.”

“I know.”

“Cool,” he said. She did not sound regretful, either, which among other things heightened the likelihood that an encounter like that might recur. This wasn’t a requirement, as such; at least, TJ and his friend Mitch Alexander had long established a mutual willingness to burn off any unresolved sexual tension the other encountered.

But it was nice to find new partners. And, beyond that, to help someone fit in on a new ship. The otter was nothing if not committed to this degree of being welcoming.

Twenty minutes earlier, Cornel would’ve dismissed that explanation as rather self-serving. Now, having experienced it, the vixen was not quite so sure. Above her, the wall was stained with the saliva from her lolling tongue, and from where a few particularly excited yelps had marked it similarly.

“Fuck, I needed that.” She shut her eyes, letting her head fall back against the bulkhead. TJ’s breathing was significantly calmer. “Did you not need that?”

“I have two paws,” the otter said. “And a decent imagination.”

“Yeah, so do I. But I also left most of my toys and stuff. They didn’t give us a lot of baggage allowance when we transferred.”

“Should talk to the doctor. I bet she could hook you up.”

Cornel opened one eye, looking sideways at the otter. “I’m not sure she’s qualified for those kind of high-energy, uh… tools.”

“Sure, but I am. Oh! And Mitch is.”

She laughed, closing her eyes again. Whatever argument to propriety or convention she might’ve had evaporated with every slow drip of cum that bridged the mess TJ had made of her insides and the mess she was now making of the floor. “You know, the truth is? I’m almost considering it.”

“That’s the thing about being part of the crew,” he said.

“How’s that?”

“I dunno… out here, all we got is, like, each other—right?”

“I’m not sure that’s really what’s meant by that.”

But the otter grinned. “You’ll see.”

Cornel started to ask will I? when her communicator chimed. “Petty Officer Gallardo and Spaceman Wallace, report at once to the captain’s ready room.”

“We’re on our way.” She pinned her ears, closed the channel, and glared at TJ, taking the opportunity to pose the question. “Will I?”

“Only one way to find out?”

***

“We have a message relayed through the Ui-te Rangiora to the Koba. The Admiralty is willing to forego charging Lieutenant Vasquez with dereliction of duty for abandoning Conway Station.”

“And in exchange?” Dave prompted.

“We return, ourselves. They’re willing to convene some kind of review board to listen to my objections.”

Jack Ford’s ear flicked, although the tone in Captain May’s voice did not require the coyote’s sensitive hearing to detect. “I’m guessing they can listen from out here.”

“They can, but it might take some time.”

“I’ll accept the charge, ma’am.”

Vasquez had spoken gently. So did Maddy, answering him. “I don’t think that would be appropriate, lieutenant. Even if it comes to that.”

“If it’s not a review board, the next step might be a court martial.” Commander Bradley felt he had to point this out; May’s actions had been taken up by the Admiralty before without reaching that stage—not always with favorable results.

“I know.”

“I suppose if we don’t stage a mutiny we’re going down with her,” Jack said. This comment was directed not just at Bradley, but at the others in the room.

“The Admiralty notes that Lieutenant Vasquez implicitly disobeyed the direct order he was given. They haven’t accused me yet,” Maddy added, although she was as surprised as anyone else at that. “But they do also point out that even the review board would deprive the Star Patrol of much-needed assets at a critical time for our war against the Pictor Empire.”

“That makes us a ‘much-needed asset’?”

The Akita shrugged. “Don’t kid yourself, Dave; I don’t think it gives us the kind of leverage it sounds like it should.”

“That’s unfortunate. Have you talked to Sabel?”

“Yes. He believes that the Admiralty is correct: his tactical insight would be a valuable tool in fighting the Pictor. He also notes that sacrifice is inherent to service. Star Patrol could ask any of us to give our lives if necessary.”

“That’s horseshit.”

“Jack?”

The coyote snorted. “You need more words, captain? We had a choice, when we signed up. Nobody ever asked Sabel.”

“Legally, it might not have mattered. I spoke to Hasan Saleh. He used to be a lawyer. The Terran Confederation defines personhood very directly. Through a list.”

“I’m guessing Ulvers ain’t on that list, Dave?”

“No, sir.”

“So, legally, he’s—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Captain May’s voice rarely had that kind of coldness, and it brought the conversation to a halt immediately. The others looked at her, waiting. “Normally, I’d be asking you for advice. I’m not asking you. Not right now.”

Dave, more than any of them, knew what was coming. He nodded. “Understood.”

“I don’t give a fuck what the law says. This is not a question of law, it’s a question of what’s right. No admiral, or judge, or politician, or priest is allowed to rule on what Sabel is. He’s a member of my crew. We’re not giving him up. How’s that mutiny looking, Jack?”

“I said ‘if,’ captain. I’ve fought with Sabel. I couldn’t look him in the eye if I didn’t think we were on the same side. So… if we gotta pick one, me and the auxiliary group are going down with you.”

“Let’s hope you don’t. Are there any other objections? Dr. Beltran?”

Officially, Felicia’s loyalty—and responsibility—was to the Foreign Ministry. “In truth, captain, I should not be here. But I am. Make of that as you will.”

“Can you help me play this with our allies?”

“To the best of my ability, yes.”

Now Maddy was running through a checklist in her head, of all the things that would need to be done—and quickly. “Who did Shannon have working on the long-range transmitter, Dave? Spaceman Wallace?”

“Yes. He’s detailed to a repair team at the moment, with Petty Officer Gallardo.”

The name was not immediately familiar to May, who had not yet had a chance to acquaint herself with the newest additions to her crew. “They came on in the last group? Where from?”

“TCS Vercingetorix. But she was transferred off it.”

That name, she did recognize—a new ship, and an obvious reward for more conventional crew and would-be officers. “Get her up here.” In the worst-case scenario, Hazelton would allow Maddy to use TJ for her own projects, she knew.

The others, she believed, could already be counted on. Leon Bader, when paged, answered her question about whether he’d run any simulations on Star Patrol tactics and weapons with one of his own: “is this about Sabel, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I have.”

Reassured enough to smile, she closed the channel, and by that point the two engineers had arrived. Both of them looked somewhat more flustered than she might have expected. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Cornel Gallardo, who had been given all of thirty seconds to clean herself up, shifted uncomfortably, facing the expectant looks of the officers around the table. “Er… not as such, no.”

“You’re new on this ship.”

“Yes.”

“I wish I could give you more time to find your footing. But the truth is that we may need to be… we may be heading into some very uncharted territory. Soon. So, I don’t need the messy details. I just…” Maddy did not know how to ask if she could expect someone to be more loyal to her comrades than the Star Patrol itself.

Cornel, in turn, found her belief that she did know why she’d been summoned to the ready room wavering. “I think I follow you, ma’am?”

“You do?”

“You… want to know if we’re…” What did she want to say? Reliable? Responsible?

Madison explained without requiring the sentence to be finished. “Star Patrol wants us to turn over Sabel Thorsen so that he can be… dissected. TJ, I need you to rig up some kind of system we can use to contact Admiral Mercure and put a stop to this. If we can’t, we might be going rogue.”

Cornel blinked. “Sure,” Teej said, before she could argue. “No problem.”

“And you understand, Ms. Gallardo?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She did, at least to the extent she was going to be along for the ride, either way. Lest this seem unconvincing, she summoned up a more complex reply: “Out here, all we have is one another, ma’am.”

TJ had not known why they were talking to Captain May, but he also had not particularly cared—she had long since, in his mind, earned his trust. Instead, he patted Cornel’s shoulder. “See?”

“Good. I appreciate the both of you,” Maddy pronounced. “You’re dismissed.”

“Hopefully, none of this will matter,” Dave said, after the door had closed. “Some kind of misunderstanding.”

“Once you’ve convinced yourself of sufficiently exigent circumstances, you can also make anything seem necessary.” The Akita lacked her first officer’s optimism, for the simple reason that such a request had been made to begin with. “I’m not sure where the misunderstanding would be.”

“Am I allowed to hope there is one?”

She nodded. “You’re all allowed to hope that—I do. As long as there’s none within this room. Turning over my crew so Starbase Conway can do science experiments on him is not negotiable.”

She did not need to look around the room to ascertain that there was no such disagreement. She did, anyway, and the others met her gaze with the confidence they’d come to expect from one another. Maddy sighed, and tapped her communicator.

“Attention, all hands. This is the captain speaking…”