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There's no such thing as an “ex fighter pilot," as much as Benjamin wants there to be. The white shepherd finds himself drawn into a messy situation, thanks to the meddling of his old friend — and an old friend of the reader, too.

My first story of the year is coming a bit late, sorry! I'll try to make up for it by giving you something easy on the palate. Classic Moreauverse: humans, dogs, space combat, speciesism. We learn what Kalija's been up to since The Mighty Wind Arises. It's kind of a parallel story to "Crash Landing," if you enjoyed that one. Thanks to :iconSpudz: for providing badly needed intel in the battlespace of editing.

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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“Sleeping Dogs," by Rob Baird

There are good ways to wake up and bad ones. Hungover, handcuffed to a pilot's seat, and headed straight for a mountain was definitely one of the bad ones. I grumbled, and felt someone thump the side of my chair. “Welcome back. You're up in two."

“Sod off." My mouth felt awkward and thick. “You can't do this."

“I can. I did."

“I'm in no condition. None."

“The odds are 90% you are, actually. You want out of the cuffs?"

I looked down at my wrists, and the jet-black metal rings against my white fur. And I sighed. “Yeah. What do I have to do?"

Mara, in the copilot's seat, was a cat. They build cats weird. He grinned, and slapped my shoulder. “You really want out of 'em?"

“Yeah," I said again. “What do I have to —"

He leaned over, and I felt a sharp twinge at the needle that Mara jabbed into my arm. He started undoing the cuffs even as the drugs started to hit. “Just be yourself, Benny."

“Fuck you," I managed. Mara tugged the straps of my harness, and gave me that weird human gesture they call a 'thumbs-up.' “I mean it."

“Sure you do. You like getting into trouble, Benny." Mara smirked, and flipped his headset down. “Saber, this is Ajax, we're at Nordic and ready to approach."

I got my own headset on in time to hear most of the reply. “—reference 5-0. Strangle parrot."

“Why?" I asked Mara. He'd flicked the power switch for my IFF transponder off. IFF stands for 'identification, friend or foe.' You use it so people can tell which one you are. You know, when you think there's a chance others might get confused.

“We don't have the latest encryption codes. No use telling anybody we're coming."

Oh, boy. “God damn you," I said. I don't believe in God. None of us do. We weren't created by any gods, we were created by men. But I wasn't about to ask any men to damn us — after all, they were liable to take me up on the offer.

“Later, pupkin. Music."

“God damn you." Better safe than sorry: that was another thing humans said. I turned on our jamming equipment, and waited until the computer told me it was working. “What are we up against?"

“Nothing, I'm sure, Benny. Precautions. Get your paws on the stick. And do what I tell you. Ready?"

“No." I took the joystick in my right paw; my thumb reflexively swept the buttons, making sure my muscle memory was sound. The drugs and my hangover were having an uncomfortable battle somewhere between my thalamus and my cerebral cortex.

“Stay under four hundred if you can."

“Knots?"

“Meters. Come right ten degrees."

I wiggled the stick, and the ship twisted into a right turn. “Four hundred meters?"

“Yep."

“Terrain, terrain." The onboard computer reminded me that there was a mountain in front of us. Many of them, in fact. I didn't know where we were. I remembered a bar, which wasn't uncommon — we weren't supposed to drink, because apparently we can't hold our liquor. But if you practice enough, you can be good at anything.

I remembered a bar, and I remembered Mara telling me something and me telling him to go away so that I could get back to drinking. And then I was in the cockpit. The mountains stretched up to four or five thousand meters. Lots of crags. Kind of pretty, if that was your thing.

“Waypoint six marks the start of a pass. You'll fly that for about twenty kilometers, then make a hard left at waypoint seven. Cut between two peaks, and you'll be over a broad clearing. Get low and stay low. At the next waypoint, hit zone five and don't stop until I tell you."

Unfortunately for Mara's subtlety and for my mood, I was pretty decent at reading between the lines. “Sha ilnesha," I muttered. Mara didn't know Dogspeak. Actually, I didn't know it that well myself, but a simple sentence like I hate you was easy to put together.

“Terrain, terrain."

I hit the button on the joystick that dropped my visor into place. Lots of pieces came together at once. I saw the outline of the mountain traced with a light green mesh. I saw my next waypoint, straight ahead of me and a few meters up. In my peripheral vision, I had a sense of how far above the ground I was, and where the engines were taking me, and what the world around my little augmented bubble looked like.

I wanted to hate that, too. I couldn't admit that there was something to it, really. At all. Not to myself, and certainly not to an asshole like Mara.

As soon as I hit the waypoint the map in my visor switched to the next one. The valley in front of us stretched, yawning an invitation. A challenge. It would've been very easy to let the adrenaline win. Just open the throttle, and lose yourself in that tunnel vision…

Bad dog. I settled down to three hundred and fifty meters, and held in the terrain-follow button on my joystick. The computer projected a course to guide me. Three hundred fifty meters isn't much. You wouldn't even have a chance to hit terminal velocity, falling from a height like that.

“Ten seconds to waypoint seven," I heard Mara say.

By 'hard left' he meant a thirty degree turn. The course projection drew an arc for me to follow to keep us within comfortable limits. Even still, and even with a healthy bank, the g-forces pushed me down in my seat firmly — enough to make it real clear to both of us what we were doing.

And then came the mountains. Sure enough, I could see the outline of the clearing Mara had been talking about. Three kilometers above sea level — high-altitude, but not uninhabitable. The false-color terrain projection didn't tell me much, but it looked flat and grassy. Farmland, maybe. Probably.

Pastoral. A lot of dogs liked farming, and quiet, and nature. I was supposed to. I wanted to, I really did. You can't always get what you want, though. A light went off in my visor, and a new symbol appeared.

S[Pn], with a little circle drawn around it. Son of a bitch. I didn't even know the word for that in Dogspeak. “Mara," I snapped.

“Benny?"

A second copy of the symbol flashed into existence. “Why are there search radars?"

“I don't know."

Search radars meant people were looking for us, and that put the precautions in a whole different light. “Yes, you do."

“It was hinted that there might have been a slight, ah…"

“Slight what?"

“Blockade. Low probability. Twenty percent, I calculated."

Now there were three. I glanced at one of the symbols and found the 'databank' button on my stick. The flight computer could tell what I was looking at — it tracks your pupils, as I understand it.

Type 16-M4 (“IRON PENNY") search/acquisition/tracking radar. Narrowband UHF. Equips the Type-44 Infantry Fighting Vehicle and used for initial guidance on…

My eyes flicked to the end of the sentence.

… the Type-44's typical complement of SM-9 IRO multirole missiles.

It actually wasn't as bad as it could've been, really. UHF radars have a lot of uses, but they're not particularly accurate, and they're easy enough to jam. Also, they're cheap, and I had to hope that anybody with old, cheap equipment also didn't have many SM-9 missiles to spare.

I dismissed the information from the databank and took another look at the terrain. The search radars were off to my left. The right looked quiet. On the far side of the clearing, the right side turned into steep mountain walls, though. We weren't going to be going there.

Mara didn't know any of this. Mara was a cat. They're built differently. Built “to spec," as they say, and if that specification didn't include understanding how radars worked, the odds were they wouldn't ever pick it up.

We were coming to the end of the clearing. Once we dropped past the other side, the radars won't be able to see us anymore. The only question was whether or not they'd have friends. I hoped not. The left side formed a gentle downward slope into a valley. We were going there next. Ten seconds.

Five seconds. The hangover was nothing but an unpleasant, cautionary memory, now.

We hit the end of the clearing and I pushed the ship's throttle all the way forward — “zone five," as Mara put it. I flew on instinct, mentally counting the seconds and waiting to see if anything happened.

I got to three, three seconds, when my radar warning receiver came back to life in a giddy coda, happy to be of use once more. Five or six different transmitters — a couple were too close to really tell the difference. All the same type. At least that made them predictable.

One of the symbols started flashing: the radar's operator was trying to get an actual lock on me and my ship. And Mara, if I had to be charitable. I did some quick calculations on the vectors and figured I had maybe five seconds if they decided to shoot.

And, of course, they did.

I growled, and pointed my nose to the ground. We dropped below three hundred meters, then two hundred. The missile — I could see the bright glow of its rocket motor out of the corner of my eye — lost me for a precious few moments. Long enough that by the time it found me again it no longer had enough fuel to turn around, and self-destructed.

Even still. Even still, the situation had changed. Now they were shooting. One more variable to keep track of. Narrowing my eyes, I settled even lower. Eighty meters, a hair's breadth, kept us from the ground. And as nice as the ground is, for some, nobody wants to meet it doing better than nine hundred knots.

We were so low that the radars couldn't keep up. They had a hard time distinguishing me from all the random objects — “ground clutter," is the term — I was just barely managing to avoid. And I knew that the lower we stayed, the quicker we'd be under their horizon and in complete safety.

Mostly complete. As complete as you can be in a machine made of composites and computers and ill will, with a fusion reactor bottled up almost close enough to touch your very inconsequential, very vulnerable butt. As complete as —

“Terrain, terrain."

A pair of trees appeared, less than a kilometer ahead of us. In the second I had, I neatly dipped the wing and swung around them, missing by a comfortable hundred meters or so. Comfortable to me, anyhow — Mara sucked in his breath sharply.

“Your idea," I reminded him. 'You like getting into trouble,' my ass.

“We'll meet the river in about thirty kilometers. Follow it. There's a bridge, then a waterfall. Then we should be home free."

“Great."

More trees — this time I picked them out with enough notice that I didn't have to maneuver, really. Just had to think about it, and my paw nudged the controls enough to let us glide over the imposing evergreens.

The river was a twisting, rocky thing with steep banks and too many curves to follow at speed. I either had to gain altitude or back off the throttle, and I didn't think altitude was a good idea.

Besides, every time I hauled the ship around a bend in the river it seemed to make Mara even more uncomfortable. Mara didn't know anything about flying except that I was good at it. Or at least, that he'd assumed I was.

“Little higher?"

“No," I told him curtly.

“Little higher?"

“Don't know what else is out here. Don't want to."

“But — Benny!"

Maybe we'd cut that last one a little close — the starboard wing came within twenty meters of brushing the water's surface. “Oops."

I wasn't going to stop. This was the fun part — those neat little bobs and spins and swirls, just like a swallow. Birds had it right: men and dogs did not. Cats didn't either, for that matter. I intended to get my kicks where I could.

The river's course became less dramatic as we both descended. I had a good fifteen or twenty seconds to muse on the bridge ahead. Older model: a single metal arch supporting what appeared to be maglev rails. Probably a cargo line; wasn't any way there were enough people around for passenger service.

“Bridge," Mara said.

“Yeah."

The arch was sixty meters across. Plenty of room. “Bridge," Mara said again. “Climb. We're gonna hit the rail."

That was true. It was level with the cockpit. I could see the signal lamps, and the intricate lines of electrical wires. No people, though. Probably for the better.

“Benny?"

“Terrain, terrain," the computer chimed in.

“Hey — hey! You gotta —"

I pushed the nose over, and we sailed cleanly under the arch, and out into the black, empty space above the waterfall on the far side. As Mara fought for breath, panting hard and making strangled little mewling noises, I leveled off to take stock.

Not so bad. The warning receiver was dark, the terrain was clear, Mara was unhappy and I was pretty certain I was mostly recovered. A good rush of adrenaline will do that to you, and this had been a very nice rush of adrenaline, indeed.

“Benny, what the fuck were you thinking?"

“I dunno. Kinda blacked out for a moment."

“You did what?"

I looked over at him, and shrugged impassively. “Told you I wasn't in any shape to fly. I think I did pretty good, all things considered. Your ship needs work."

“It's not my ship."

“Oh?" I knew the cockpit well; it was an old Martin 552. Officially a “light utility" bird, but lots of PMCs used them because they had powerful engines. It must've been a merc ship, what with the radar warning receiver and the military-grade headset — so if it wasn't Mara's, then my problems were more serious than I first thought. “Whose?"

“You remember where you are?"

I shrugged. “Novy Chernaya. I live here."

“That's a good start. You know there's a Confed colony here, too, right?"

So what? It's a big planet, Mara. “Alright?"

“Well, they put out a call asking for help. You answered it."

“You mean you answered it."

Mara grinned. “We're a good team, aren't we?"

Mara and I went back about a decade, when I was young and naive — in my early 20s, and coming off twelve years of service in the Colonial Defense Authority. Somebody with twelve years of military service and eight years at a corporate job shouldn't have been naive, but that's a thing about dogs, I guess.

They fill our head with training material when we're young, and CODA filled it with protocol and stuff like that, but nobody told me how to behave around people — that's something humans pick up without needing any formal classes. When Mara found me at Havana Station, I didn't know any better.

What's got you down, pup?

Between jobs, I guess.

Yeah? What do you do?

When I told him I was a pilot, his eyes lit up. That should've been my first warning sign. Like I said, they build cats different. GeneMark dogs are all supposed to be part of a pack, working under human control. Trimurti cats are worth a small fortune, because they're designed to be independent. Mara said he could run a mining installation all by himself.

Actually, when we'd first met, Mara told me that was what he did; I didn't find out he'd been cashiered for bad behavior until a year into our 'friendship.' And he wasn't an administrator — he was a futures specialist at a big trading firm, with an encyclopedic knowledge of commodities and a penchant for gambling that wound up getting him into trouble on the corporate account.

I stopped working with him officially when he gambled us into a high-risk contract that saw me clearing atmo with a cargo hold full of missile guidance packages and a dozen starships on my tail. Mara had told me we were carrying 'antiques' because, he said, he didn't want to worry me.

That was the end of our life together, but cats have nine lives — so they say — and he kept trying to start over. Every six months or so he reappeared, roping me into a new job that I took because it paid well; his jobs always did.

“I don't want to be a team, Mara. I'm done with you. Going straight."

“No you're not."

“I am, Mara. I've been straight for seven months now."

“I found you in a bar. Ninety percent odds says you're up for a bit of excitement, my friend."

“I don't want to be friends, either."

The cat grinned, and reached over to pat my shoulder. Then he settled back into his seat. “Saber, this is Ajax. According to the map, you should be able to pick us up, now. If I'm reading it right."

I heard a new voice come in over the headset clipped to my left ear. “Ajax, this is Saber actual. Squawk 2515, over."

I changed the transponder code myself. “Ajax. Flashing, 2515."

“Ajax, contact. You're cleared inbound, vector 0-6-5 and descend, angels five. Fence check and ordnance state."

Whoever was talking had some military experience — or wanted us to think they did. There were more worrying things than that, but I'd get to the unsavory implications in a second. For now, I did a quick check on the computer. “Ajax, fenced out. Switches safe. And I'm clean. Turning to 0-6-5."

“Copy that. Look for a tall mountain at your left eleven with one large peak and then two smaller peaks at your altitude, immediately behind it. Advise when you have contact."

I switched off my mic and shot Mara a glare. “Mara. Why did they think we might have weapons?"

“Maybe it's a precaution?" he suggested.

The last time he'd said precaution, I'd been shot at. “Maybe that's bullshit. What's going on?"

He shrugged. “I told them it might. I didn't know until I picked it up. I'm sure they want to be better safe than sorry…"

“Who?"

“Well, it's complicated," he said. “They pay well."

All I could do was grit my teeth and carry on — I didn't know the area well enough to divert, certainly not when there were people around with missiles and a willingness to use them.

When I called 'contact' on the mountain — very distinctive, even at night — the voice on the radio told me to hook around it and, a few careful turns later, I found myself looking into a wide valley. The lights of scattered buildings glittered in my night-vision goggles.

There was no airfield to speak of, no runway or tarmac landing pads. Instead, I was pointed at a patch of neatly trimmed grass, framed by hastily assembled strip lighting. The aesthetic was not particularly auspicious. Nothing about the mission was auspicious, from the locale to Mara's caginess to the hostile fire. Not many good things start with guided missiles.

I powered us down, unbuckled the harness, and twisted around to make my way to the hatch behind the Martin's cramped cockpit. On the other side of the hatch I found myself greeted immediately. “Welcome to Third Chance."

She was a short human, with sharp features made even sharper by the cold white landing gear lights of Mara's plane. And she was holding out her hand. I took it, shaking cautiously. “Thanks — I think."

“Well, we're certainly thankful. I'm Saber. Tabitha Kirk, if you want to be formal. I wasn't expecting a moreau, although I should've guessed Mara would go that way… al-hakhnan goru, right?"

I shrugged. “I don't really speak it. Mara didn't explain much, to be honest. I was hoping maybe you could —"

“Tabby!" I heard a heavy thump from Mara jumping to the ground next to me. “This is Benjamin, the best damned pilot spinward of the Way Beyond. Benny, Tabby is the leader of —"

She cut him off. “Careful, Mara."

I ran my fingers through the short fur of my mane, white like everything else. At least it kept me from showing my age. “Look… I don't want to seem difficult, but nobody's told me anything. The best answer I've got so far was from a Type-44, and I had to evade it."

Tabitha nodded. “The picket. That was all in the brief."

“I didn't get a brief. I woke up half an hour ago strapped in that cockpit." I stabbed towards it with my thumb, for emphasis. “So if one of you could give me a straight answer…"

At least I could appreciate the look Tabitha gave Mara — the sort of what the fuck were you thinking? look that I, also, frequently gave him. “Do you mind a short history lesson?"

“I guess not?"

“How much do you know about Chernokamenya?"

“I live here. In Maroc, on the southern continent."

She gave me an odd look. “That's not Yucatec, is it?"

No, it was not. Moreaus had been created by the Yucatan Confederation — what had become of the Americas, back on Terra. Most of us stuck around. I did not. “It's independent," I confirmed. “UN-aligned but not a voting member."

“Oh. Well, the Black Hills Free State is one of the oldest Confed colonies around. The charter dates back to the late 22nd century. We paid our dues to Congress, kept our own militia — the whole nine yards. Our mines are some of the purest anywhere in the arm. That's the problem."

She started walking away from the ship, towards one of the buildings, and indicated that we should follow her. I did, though not without some hesitation. “Why is that a problem?"

“Dade, Darby and Kitchen. They started out in asteroids, but they've been moving into planetside mining."

I knew DDK, of course. Everyone did — they were one of the huge conglomerates, big enough to have their own private military rather than hiring CODA for the job. “Sure. They want in on it?"

Tabitha nodded. “For a decade, Congress kept supporting us. But DDK is too big, you know? Two years ago, CODA canceled our contract rather than having to fight openly." CODA, the Colonial Defense Authority, was officially chartered to keep the peace. Colonies paid for their protection — no such thing as a free lunch, right?

“I see," I said.

“Two years of low-intensity warfare. They haven't been able to make as many inroads as you think. DDK doesn't have a very competent ground force — that's what you get when you made your money in space. But they've been increasing the pressure, bit by bit. Two months ago they hit the capital of the Free State — hundreds dead, including the head of the government. We moved out here to try to keep the civilians safe…"

“I see," I said again.

We'd reached the building. Tabitha put her hand against the door's biometric scanner, and it swung open to reveal the quiet, humming activity of a small operations center. “I put out a call for pilots and equipment. Mara said he could deliver us a working 552…"

“That explains a few things, then. It's working, from what I can tell."

Mara piped up. “When have I ever let you down, Tabby?"

“No armament, though," I added.

“It would've been a nice bonus, that's all. I told you to fence out because our automated defenses lock onto anything that looks hostile. We can't take any chances, you know?" She tapped on one of the desks, and an older, grim-faced man looked up at her. “This is Benjamin, our newest pilot. Get him quarters."

“Yes, ma'am."

I coughed. “I don't know what Mara told you…"

“He said you're one of the best pilots he's ever met."

Mara beamed. “Which you are! Also, you like getting into trouble, Benny. Secretly. And this here's trouble."

“I'm flattered, both of you. Really. But I'm a civilian — happily a civilian. I fly agricultural patrols and nice, short package deliveries to remote stations. I don't even have my own ship these days." Not since it had been destroyed, on one of Mara's other gambles. I could've bought another one with the contract money, but settled on a nice, big plot of land instead. The kind where you can retreat to, sometimes, and nobody bothers you. Or shoots at you.

“He'll come around," Mara said. “Seventy percent chance he'll come around."

Tabitha looked between Mara and I, and then nodded her head to an open door. “Can we talk privately, Mr. Benjamin?" I followed her, and when the door was closed she sighed heavily. “I was afraid of this. Mara is reliable when it comes to equipment — not so much when it comes to people. Or dogs."

“Sorry."

“It's not about that, I hope you know. The dog thing — I don't have any problem with dogs. But… here's the problem. We're in desperate need of pilots. We have enough planes, and enough weapons — our refund from CODA was good for a lot. I can pay you."

“It's not really about the money," I said. Money was nice and all, but so was keeping all my limbs attached to the same body. “I'm just not a combat pilot these days. Have you thought about one of the other PMCs? Or Starlight?"

The Starlight Faction was a group of notorious malcontents — residents of asteroids and space stations, denied citizenship in the Confederation because they belonged to no official colony. I could sympathize. Tabitha, evidently, could not: “No. Screw 'em. They're in DDK's pocket."

“Oh."

“Look. Can you at least… can you at least hear us out? I'll try to make it worthwhile — I'm sorry Mara got you into this without telling you. If you're willing to hear us out, I'll add a thousand obol bonus to this delivery contract here."

My shoulders drooped. “Fine, I can give you that much. No promises."

“Thanks. Wait here."

Ten minutes later she came back, and this time she had someone else in tow. Another dog, to boot — we were both equally surprised to see the other, I think. “Al-hakhnan —" they stopped suddenly, when I shook my head. “Oh. Hello, in that case."

“Hello," I echoed.

I was a white shepherd, pure stock like all engineered dogs. The other looked like a mixed breed, with dark, speckled fur and one perked ear; its mate was folded awkwardly forward and gave one the impression that the ears' owner was ever so slightly disheveled. She must've been one of the natural-born varieties. “You're the pilot they were talking about? A moreau?"

“We can do that now, yes."

“Trust me, I know."

“Kalija is in charge of our air force," Tabitha explained to me. “She used to fly with CODA. Mara said that Benjamin is a veteran, too."

Wait — Kalija? The Kalija? Is that what she's been getting up to? She looked me over carefully. “Not recent, I take it."

“Ten years ago. After twelve years in — I joined about five years after you did."

The other dog tilted her head. “You know me?"

“I know your name, sure. Any moreau in the flight program knew that much. You flew Intruders. I heard you made CAG, through the grapevine, but that was after I'd already gotten out." I wasn't the only moreau in flight training — there were a couple others with me — but we were so rare that word of the first dog ever to qualify was certain to get around.

“Huh. What about you?"

“Out of the Tempe foundry. Three years steering barges at a GE disposal site until they closed it down and kicked us all out. Joined CODA and flew Valks for twelve years, first on the Billy Mitchell and then on the Sara."

“Were you on the Saratoga for the Owl Cliffs campaign?"

I flashed a very grim smile. “Yes. After that I got into less savory affairs. Ran guns for the Church at Pike and Corai, sniped privateers at the Valencia Transfer, that kind of thing. But now I'm into agriculture. Cropdusting, surveying, hunting… courier jobs, when I can find them. Hell, two weeks ago I took a youth group up into the mountains for a hike."

“And now you're bored?" Kalija guessed.

“According to Mr. Benjamin, Mara signed him up for this without telling him what we wanted."

The other dog twitched her one upright ear. “Are you bored?"

“Not really."

Kalija tapped her claws together. “Here's the deal. We're at a stalemate right now."

Tabitha spoke up, explaining further. “The batteries in this valley mean we can interdict any orbital traffic leaving from the mines. They can't land heavy equipment or take up any ore without being shot down. And while they have the main approach to Third Chance under siege, as you found out, they can't get any closer — the whole valley is heavily protected."

“They need to break that stalemate," Kalija finished. She set a computer down on the table, and tapped it once. A hologram sprung to life: a ship of some kind, with the utilitarian, boxy ugliness that hints at brutal purposes. “This is a mining rig — or it used to be. They use them to crack open asteroids, and to ship them off for additional processing. By 'ship,' I mean these."

Her fingers ran through the hologram, zooming in on a piece of long, complicated machinery. “What is 'these'?"

“Linear accelerators. In civilian practice, you'd toss valuable rocks out to some orbit more convenient for your refinery. In military practice, well…"

My ears flattened. “Orbital bombardment? Using asteroids for military purposes is a war crime. It's forbidden by half a dozen different conventions."

Tabitha laughed, a sound as coarse and sharp-edged as the mining rig. “Sure, if somebody was willing to take them to court. But they'll say it was an accident, of course, caused by their inability to conduct proper reconnaissance due to insurgent activity. Nobody will believe it, but they don't have to — it just has to be plausible enough for Congress to get away with levying a fine."

“You're sure they'd do that?"

“We have independent confirmation from a source at a trading firm on Mars. He was advised to sell the firm's DDK stock short — they're expecting a massive liability in the next quarter."

“One of Mara's friends?" I guessed. “Alright. So what do you want to do? Evacuate?"

Kalija waved her paw to reset the hologram, so that we could all look at the mining ship again. “No. We're going to destroy it."

“How?"

“It jumped into the system four days ago. By our estimates, it will take about five more weeks to reposition the rig in Cherno'an orbit — that's with a lucky transfer, but they ought to be able to make it so we might as well assume the worst. We'll have a short window when it's close enough to hit with ground-based fighters, but not yet in firing position. A few days, maybe. Maybe less."

I was staggered, both by the rashness and the sheer lunacy. “That's why you're looking for pilots?"

“More or less. Sort of. We have about a dozen pilots already, plus another dozen candidates. But they need training. And leadership. There's only so much I can do on my own."

“How many of them have combat experience? Besides you."

“Two," Kalija said.

“Besides me?"

The mongrel shook her head. “One. It's just me and Lotto. Commander Peterson, sorry — he's human; that's his callsign. Not bad, though; don't get the wrong idea. He had six years in CODA as a Kestrel pilot, then a few more years on his own. It's just, ah, well… just that it was about a decade ago."

The situation kept getting better and better. “You've been training them, though, I guess?"

“Simulations. And they do have some stick time, now. I'll be honest, Mr. Benjamin, it's a bit scattered — a few commercial pilots, a few recreational pilots. A couple kids who hadn't been in a cockpit before, but they've learned fast."

“Fucking hell. And the equipment?"

Tabitha took the opportunity to walk me through their inventory. “Eleven Martin-Marietta 552s, seven of 'em upgraded to the 553 variant. We had nine 553s, but… well. We had a couple more pilots then, too, let's put it that way. Six ArkMash Boreas we got in a weird deal courtesy of your friend Mara. Three Kestrels and two Valkyries. A few more random parts planes."

“You have Valks?"

“We got lucky there, yeah. You want to see?"

I followed the two women out the door and to the darkened flightline. Even at night, I recognized the dim silhouette of a Republic F-230H Valkyrie. She was built like a dagger, with a long, slim profile and a sharp nose. And those raked, angular wings with the thrust motivators embedded right in the chord rather than in the fuselage — making room for an even bigger fusion reactor.

Flying a Valkyrie was the next closest thing to being a living god. Even a nonreligious dog like myself knew that. I swallowed carefully, but it was too late: Kalija had noticed. “Yours, right?"

“For twelve years," I said. I thought of the first time I'd ever flown one. And then the first time I'd ever fought with one. And then the last time, my last trap on the Saratoga — not even knowing that it would be my last. And then the decade since, and all the work it took to convince myself I was fine with never going back.

Tabitha had noticed, too. She turned the knife a bit. “These aren't civilian ones. There were two CODA birds transiting when they canceled our contract. The Free State government seized them as part of the refund. Unfortunately, they didn't bother to make sure that anybody could fly one."

“It's easy." I ran my finger along the smooth metal underbelly of the starfighter. “If they're CODA ships, they probably have the new avionics package, too, don't they? They were testing that when I got out."

“We don't know," Kalija admitted. “I flew Intruders. It's completely different."

“You need training," I said, offhandedly. “Right? Training. You're looking for an instructor?"

“Yes."

I sighed, and forced myself to look away from the Valkyrie. Sure enough, it made the decision harder. But not hard enough. “I'll… I'll see what I can do. I can't make promises. Or miracles."

Sure, Kalija said. She claimed to understand.

In the morning, I met my comrades, and immediately began to regret my decision. The two women had greatly oversold what we'd been given. They were eager, yes, but far too inexperienced. The best that could be said was that they displayed some natural aptitude. But of them — ten humans, three dogs and what I think was a muskrat of some kind — none were the type you'd really want on your wing when the shit hit the fan.

And it would. I knew it would. For the first day I sat in the corner of the room, listening to Kalija lecture as best as she could. I knew the mutt's name and reputation: if nothing else, she lived up to them. She knew what she was talking about. They listened…

But there was only so much you could pick up by listening. Kalija talked about energy management and combat maneuvering, but that was all so much theory. And for all her skillful explanations, she never touched on the worst part of it. She didn't on the second day, either, when I had the chance to watch the 'squadron' at work in the simulators — helmets wired directly into their heads, manipulating their brains to replicate the sensation of flight.

“When are you going to tell them?" I asked Kalija, when she dismissed the others.

“About?"

CODA talked a lot about the versatility of the Fleet Air Arm. They praised the reflexes of Valkyrie pilots, and the ability of an Intruder squadron to put ordnance on target anywhere on a planet's surface. It was true that a fleet carrier was an incredible tool of force projection.

Thing was, though, that CODA dealt mostly in ground operations. Somebody was trying to stage a hostile takeover of a corporate compound, and CODA dropped the marines in to secure a perimeter. Somebody was assembling a missile battery, and they sent a pair of Intruders in with their big anti-bunker missiles at the ready.

“You're not talking about atmospheric ops. You want to fight in space. Nobody does that."

Fighting in space was madness. The lack of atmosphere made everything you'd been taught about maneuvering absolutely worthless. The distances and speeds involved render gunnery computers nonfunctional. And if anything went wrong, there was nothing to save you. At all.

When I said nobody does that, I meant it. I'd been drilled in space operations, as we all were, but in twelve years as a fighter pilot I'd been sent out on hard-vac sorties only twice, and both were false alarms.

“Not quite nobody," Kalija said. “I did. You did, right?"

“Not for CODA."

“You said privateers though, right?"

“That's different." Despite all the moving comics and adventure serials, space piracy is a difficult art. Space is really big, and movement can be fairly unpredictable when you get out of planetary orbits and near stations — which tend to be pretty well defended. There are only so many ways to move efficiently between planets, though, and freighter captains loved efficiency more than they loved their own children. The trajectories where ships switched orbits were some of the only lanes with reliable traffic and unreliable defenses.

I made a name for myself keeping those clean, for a couple of years, and that part hadn't even really taken combat training. All you had to do was get out early enough to deploy your heat sinks and fade into the background of space. That took a bit of time.

“You're just waiting around. Eventually your passive picks up some contact that doesn't have a recognizable IFF. That's a violation. You wait for them to go quiet, and hit 'em before they can react. I'd feel sorry for the bastards, but it's the life they chose. I only had to do it once or twice before they gave up — privateers are pretty risk-averse. There was no dogfighting. Ever."

“But still…"

“There's no 'but still' about it. It's completely different. Nobody's ready for that. Are you? Would you fly this op if you were still in CODA?"

“Maybe," Kalija said. “I flew a strike mission in space, once. On a Sanganese artillery cruiser that was threatening our fleet. We got it, you know?"

“If you had a whole squadron of pilots with your experience — that experience — would you fly it?"

She shook her head and sighed. “No. But we don't have a choice. I don't think we do, anyway. I told…" The dog bit her lip, and sighed again, more heavily. “I told my wife I'd defend this place. I'm going to defend it, Mr. Benjamin. Somebody has to. Somebody has to be the good shepherd."

I didn't have a good answer, so I turned the conversation back to something a pilot could appreciate. “How was it, hitting that cruiser?"

“Crazy. Picture this. The 1MC goes off and says we've got incoming on the fleet. They scramble everything. We just barely get off the cat before the carrier starts a repositioning burn. We have a couple minutes to realize what they're telling us to do. Space feels really big right about then."

I nodded. “I know."

“Our escort merged with some Kingdom gunboats. We went in on our own. I'm lining up and my BN — he's this quiet, deadpan guy. I never heard him raise his voice. Then he's in my ear goin' break right fucking now. Two hundred incoming. Two hundred!"

And I realized I could see it clearly in my mind. Not just the call, but the sudden pit in the dog's stomach, and the way she would've looked at her scope and seen it all glowing red with the signals of missile guidance systems. The way she would've seen her death so clearly, balanced on a razor's edge.

“We couldn't burn 'em. But the cruiser we were after was running an AI jamming program, flashing CODA IFF. You know what I did? I did a quick drop, burned like hell, and shut down everything. They went for the cruiser's decoy instead."

“That worked?"

“My BN always said it wouldn't."

“What'd he say then?"

“When we trapped, he threatened to kill me."

I laughed. “Sounds about right. You made it out okay, though."

“Not too bad. Eight ships and four crews lost. Could've been worse."

Could've been.

Eventually, if fortune continued to conspire against us, we'd find out for real. Until then, there was more training. On the first simulated deep-space operation, all of the rookie pilots wound up dead, and four of them threw up as soon as they had the virtual-reality helmet off. Kalija told me not to panic. But she also canceled the followup simulations, and we went back to drilling on atmospheric flight.

Three weeks of round-the-clock training gave me greater perspective, but not optimism. In a meeting with Kirk and Kalija, I explained this as best as I could. The pilots worked well together. They had gained a decent technical sense of their machines. A couple of them even had a decent natural aptitude for flying.

Flying instinct was going to run headlong into survival instinct, though, the first time they saw combat. CODA had found that out, in their simulation-based training — once pilots were out of the sims and in the real world, they overcorrected to even greater caution at the appearance of mortal peril. Kalija clearly knew it, too: she didn't argue with me.

“We have to start somewhere, though," the dog said.

“What does that mean?"

General Kirk set her computer down on the table, and projectors turned the table's surface into a map. “Captain Kalija believes it's time for an operation. We have both the need and the opportunity."

“Combat, you mean?"

“Yes."

Kalija trailed her claw through the map as she explained. “We have a resupply transport coming in at 0600 tomorrow. Technically, they can fly Howling Canyon like we've done — but it's risky, and they've never done it before. So instead, we're going to clear a path for them. Intelligence has mapped the location of the DDK missile batteries that are part of our blockade. They have nearly complete coverage of the approach. If you include MANPADS, the coverage is a hundred percent.

“The weakness is these two control centers, supporting Type 30 radar trucks and Type 93 missile batteries. The Type 93 fires a medium-range SAM, and the new variant has a ceiling of over a hundred kilometers. Our transports will be sitting ducks for those, and the Type 30s are providing enhanced guidance for every other system in the sector. If we disable them, we should be able to mop up."

Kalija proposed splitting the squadron into two strike elements, led by her and Lotto. They would approach from the east, in the radar shadow of Howling Canyon, then “pop up" so the lead ship could quickly salvo their anti-radiation missiles at the Type 30 radar sites; the rest of the squadron would hit the remaining missile sites, enjoying relative impunity. It was a proposal with a minimum of complexity.

It did leave a fair amount to chance, though. It presumed that the radars would be active, giving the missiles something to lock on to. It presumed that there was no additional coverage that had gone undetected. It presumed that the pilots, in combat for the first time, would be able to keep their wits about them.

“You know what happens when you assume," I warned her. “You get your pilots killed."

Back in my CODA days, civilians assumed that fighter pilots were reckless and daring, living by the seat of their pants and their wits — such as we had them. I'm not saying there isn't some truth to that, but the truth was that an orbital sortie was scripted down to the second. Smart pilots don't leave any room for chance.

“We have it under control," the dog promised.

“Maybe. I guess we'll see."

“You coming?" Kalija asked me.

“Do I have a RIO?"

She shook her head. “We don't have anybody qualified. I understand if you want to stay back here. You'll be able to observe almost as well from the command center."

But the temptation was too great. Half an hour later, I was doing a walkaround. Twelve years hadn't dulled my memory of the F-230 a single bit. The checklist came back to me without any prompting. Every static port, every bit of diagnostic equipment, every actuator on the control surfaces — I knew it as well as I knew my own body. Maybe even a little better: there was no technical manual for dogs.

With my harness secured, I had a chance to think about all the shitty merc birds I'd been given — the ones with exposed wiring where a bit of unreplaced machinery had gone, and the paint worn off the instrument panel. The ones where you had to coax the fuel pumps gently, lest they freeze up because nobody could afford the maintenance.

I flipped the power switch for the Valkyrie, and everything came to life at once. Soft, glowing screens greeted me. The lights were soothing, and gentle. .32/.28 NON-READY (LAUNCH SEL NORM) one of them said. The engines were delivering 115% of their design power.

This sounds excessive, but engineers were conservative types and Republic learned early on that they were being too cautious. 115% wasn't even the best part of it. I twisted the rotary knob, just for fun.

12/12 NON-READY (LAUNCH SEL ORBIT* NO NO)

They chose a stately, smooth sans-serif typeface for the computers. You wouldn't have to know that '12' meant 'meganewtons' of thrust from the four motivators on the wings. Of course, the computer knew that we were on the ground: Non-Orbital Parameters, Not Overridden. NO NO.

It was a no-no, too, because 12 meganewtons of thrust, in the form of tightly contained plasma, would carve its own geological formations into Third Chance. In an emergency, you could force the computer to override its better judgment. But not now. “Tower, Viking 1-1, ready for startup."

“Viking 1-1, cleared for startup."

In CODA, I had a second crewman to help me remember things on the checklist. But with enough practice, you could manage anything. Reactor safeties: engaged. Coolant systems: full. Fuel pumps: open. In the Valkyrie's belly, her fusion powerplant started up; my only indication was that one of the calming orange lights changed to green.

.32/.28 READY (LAUNCH SEL NORM)

A head appeared over the left side of my canopy. “Everything looks good, sir," the man said. “At least, I think it is. I just read the manual this morning. It's good, right?"

“I hope," I told him. “Disconnect the ground power."

A few seconds later, his head reappeared. “Disconnected. Everything still looks fine?"

“Fine." He did that thumbs-up thing, dropped back to the ground, and backed away carefully until I could see him again, sufficiently far away for safety's sake. I pulled the handle that dropped the canopy closed, bathing me in reassuring quiet. “Tower, Viking 1-1, ready for takeoff."

“Viking 1-1, cleared for takeoff. Vector 0-9-0, do not exceed one kilometer until you're clear of the outer beacon. Report when clear."

“Viking 1-1, acknowledged." The others were still getting ready, apparently — not exactly a great sign. But we had time. I twisted the throttle in my left paw, reveling in the smooth, frictionless action as the thrusters made my ship lighter and lighter until at last it drifted free of the ground altogether.

Every time I took off I felt certain that I was returning to someplace I'd always meant to be. I enjoyed the quiet solitude of my cabin, don't get me wrong — but I didn't belong there in the same way I belonged in the cockpit.

Not just aloft — some pilots feel that way, like their aircraft is just a necessary evil and they'd fly with their own wings if they could. Me, there was something nice and reassuring to having the machinery at my command. I nosed the Valkyrie out towards the edge of the valley, announced my departure to the controller, and flipped around to wait.

I should've had a full helmet, complete with the computers that interfaced with the new avionics system, but when you're a dog those kind of things have to be custom-made and obviously they didn't have one. I just had the helmet from the Martin, which Mara must've found somewhere in my old belongings.

The newer helmets block out everything in the outside world and replace it with a holographic projection. The plane disappears, the instruments disappear — you can look down and see right through the floor. Think about the terrain contours and you see the world shaded according to its elevation profile. Think about infrared and everything becomes a heat map. It's a clever approach.

The hologram in my own visor was a little more old-fashioned, and I had to do more of the thinking myself, but in its own way that was fine: it kept me from getting complacent, and it reminded me that it was more than ten years since the last time I'd sat in a Valkyrie's cockpit. I tried to make sure everything felt nice and familiar, watching the other ships assemble and drift skyward.

“Saber to all units. Blackjack is active and you are cleared to proceed. Good hunting." The radio protocol kept any of Tabitha Kirk's reservations neatly hidden.

Kalija spoke next. “Blackjack, this is Swing 1-1. Three 5-2s plus one Kestrel. Checking in, angels two, position Baltic. Ident local, whiskey-alpha." Back in the service we'd had the Uniform Data Link to glue everyone together; now they were relying on whatever computers Blackjack had aboard. It was good enough to bring up a little 'WA' symbol in my holographic display. If I stared at the symbol, it expanded into the four fighters in the flight. The other flight, Wheel, checked in next.

Then it was my turn. “Blackjack, Viking. One Valkyrie. Checking in, angels three, position Baltic. Ident local, whiskey charlie."

“Viking, Blackjack. Authenticate delta seven."

As the controller spoke, my computer listened in for the two letters and flashed the appropriate response before my eyes. “Viking, authenticate oscar."

“Viking, good authentication. Radar contact."

And now that everyone was airborne and logged in, I had a good sense of our general situation. Of course, good sense is different from optimism.

“Blackjack to all units. Proceed as fragged."

My orders kept me astern of the two strike packages, watching — sort of like Blackjack, but without any responsibility. The low, winding approach gave me plenty of time to come up with a list of my worst fears about the operation.

Someone could freeze up at a bad time.

Someone could be the recipient of a lucky shot. It only took one.

The radars might not be there. It was easy to move them, after all.

There might be more enemies. Kalija's threat picture was only as accurate as their reconnaissance, and I had no idea how good that might be. They were civilians, for the most part. On a whim, I pressed my mic switch. “Swing lead, Viking."

“Viking, go ahead."

“Do you have any passive radiation sensors?"

A light flashed, indicating that Kalija had gone to a secured, private frequency. “We do — sort of. But the EM baselines are tricky. We got a high-res map about a month ago and a low-res update the day before yesterday. It's not very clear."

Effective passive scanners could pick up even minute electromagnetic variations that hinted at a vehicle or system trying to stay quiet. But good scanners required good maps — accurate surveys of the baseline electromagnetic radiation. Kalija was hinting that theirs weren't good enough, and she was an attack pilot by trade: they would know.

Well, we would have to make the best of a complicated and unfortunate situation. Such was our calling. “Wheel 1-1, Blackjack. Approaching Shanghai." That was an arbitrary point in space, the final opportunity for that flight to commit. Kalija's was 'Beijing,' and she reached it fifteen seconds later.

“Blackjack to all units. You're cleared to engage. Good hunting."

According to the mission plan, I was to gain some altitude and observe. I used the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Valkyrie's array of sensors and computers. It wasn't my job to know how they worked; my radar intercept officer was supposed to handle all of that. Without a RIO, I wouldn't be nearly as effective.

But then, I didn't need to be. And I knew enough to get by. I followed the progress of the two combat flights along their path. Kalija's was the first to engage. With nothing else to distract me, I followed every step of the developing battle.

“Swing 1-1, tally, primary target." So the radar was there, at least. “In hot. Rifle. Rifle."

From forty kilometers away, all I could see was the results on my holographic display. Kalija salvoed a pair of missiles, which showed up as a pair of nameless icons. Both of them hit, or seemed to, anyway.

But now the others were waking up, and the element of surprise was squandered. “Swing 1, mud, left ten." My computer tagged the signal — a ground radar trying to get a target lock — although I was too far away to do anything about it.

“SAM launch!"

“Three, notch, reference 1-5-5." Kalija sounded calm giving the order — a lot calmer than whoever was being shot at had been. “Four, engage that SAM."

“Four — uh. Committing. Contact. Rifle!"

Which might've worked — I thought it did, at least, but with so many signals it was hard to tell from a distance when one had vanished. Kalija shouldn't have needed to remind the pilot to engage, I knew that much. It should've been instinctive. That was why attack pilots flew in pairs, for cover against things like that.

But they weren't experienced enough to have that instinct, as I'd feared. Even with the main radar taken out and one other battery destroyed, there were half a dozen missile trucks looking for payback and the situation was starting to come apart faster than Kalija could keep it together. They were reacting too slowly; making too many mistakes.

It took less than two minutes. I was already starting to drift closer when I saw a brief flash on my holomap. “Swing 1-4, I'm hit! Mayday, mayday —"

The radio cut out partway through. A second later, when I heard it come back, the voice was different. “This is Blackjack. Swing, abort mission. Cease fire and egress to Nordic, reference two-zero."

“Blackjack, Swing 1-1, copy." Then she switched networks, to the command frequency that I was monitoring but the rest of her flight could not. “Blackjack, Swing lead."

“Swing, Blackjack, go ahead."

“I think I can still handle this. I have five contacts, maybe six. Not so bad."

“On your own?"

“Had worse." Her voice was curt, with good reason; I could see the symbol for the other dog's plane nearly merge with one from a surface-to-air-missile. “Gotta get this clear, Blackjack."

A pause. “Your discretion, captain."

I knew what that meant, too. And my substantial distance from the action was beginning to feel a little less comfortable by the second. “Blackjack, this is Viking. Request clearance to push Tianjin and give Swing a hand."

Another pause from the command and control plane. But I was a freelancer, so what did they care? “Viking, Blackjack. Cleared into the AO. Report fenced in, and ordnance state."

Been awhile, huh, Benny? But even as I thought that, my fingers were working the instruments by instinct honed through long years of practice. “Viking, fenced in. Two hundred rounds cannon, two AVM-20, six AVM-50."

“Viking, fly heading 2-2-0, base plus two. Proceed to killbox 5-2-1-7; don't engage north of line delta."

My map had all that plotted nicely. Grid 52 by 17 covered the whole of the area where DDK missiles were known to be operating — a nice, tightly defined square where I didn't have to worry about any civilians beyond the Free State fighter pilots now quickly retreating.

There were plenty of other things to worry about. “Swing 1-1, defending Type-44, bullseye 5-5 for four."

“Swing 1-1, this is Viking. I'm about seventy seconds out, in from your north."

“Swing 1-1. Multiple SAMs in the AO, all tango-4-4s. Blackjack's rosetta is sour."

Back in the service we'd roundly cursed the Uniform Data Link that let us share everything we saw — mostly because it never seemed to work. But it was a damned sight better than nothing, as Kalija now reminded me. “Understood. Standing by for local data, advise when ready. Swing, I'm now twenty klicks north."

“Copy. Link local — wait one. Swing 1-1, bullseye 5-0 for six, SAM launch. Defending." The dog's voice was short and clipped, but remarkably collected. “Trashed. Committing. Rifle."

Now I was close enough to get sight of the little F/A-206 in my visor. I backed off the throttle and checked to make sure my jamming gear was in good order. “Swing 1-1, visual." I could also see the bright flare of her missile hitting home, and a secondary explosion as it found its target.

Kalija, I recalled, had always been an attack pilot. Her Kestrel was low, twisting and turning only a few hundred meters above the ground. It was designed to do that — it couldn't climb as quickly as my Valkyrie, and she probably didn't want to expose herself to any unnecessary fire. “Viking, Swing 1-1. Link local whiskey-alpha 1-1, code kilo charlie."

I typed it in and waited for the reply. “Viking. Kilo charlie, check, seven."

“Sweet." Now that our two aircraft were paired, I saw the missile trucks she'd identified — by herself, and while being shot at. Not bad. “You see SAM sierra-2, bulls —" There was a momentary break while her fighter twisted in a jerking evasive maneuver. “Bullseye 5-2 for about six?"

“Tally, yes."

“You got Kraits?"

Everyone carried AVM-20s, little mixed-guidance, mixed-role missiles with a tiny shaped charge good for taking out starfighters and tanks alike. Except that they were too plebeian for my shiny, noble Valkyrie; I only had a pair, one on each wingtip. “Affirmative."

“Good. I have no good angles down here. Can you engage?"

Sure, why not? “Sure." I flipped the weapons-selector dial; as soon as the two Kraits were active my helmet visor helpfully brought up a camera showing the world according to the image-guided missiles. In high-sensitivity thermal, the Type-44 hovercraft showed up very brightly indeed. “Viking, engaging SAM. In from the west."

“Swing 1-1, bullseye 1-6-0 for ten. Come off north and I'll do a second pass to clean up."

“Copy. Viking, in hot." The Krait's camera and its image-matching algorithms had already identified the hovercraft, and my visor showed a dotted line plotting the missile's course with a dwindling circle showing the probability of a successful hit.

Probability, because Kraits had fairly cheap sensors and guidance. Standard operating procedure was to salvo two of them at a time, especially if you were a fighter pilot like me and didn't like to be too close to the ground. I waited until the dotted line turned solid and the circle started to flash.

“Rifle. Rifle." Two presses of the heavy spring-loaded trigger under my thumb sent the AVM-20s on their way. I turned to the left, as Kalija asked, and waited for her report on what had happened.

“Good kill, Viking." Three left. Without an advanced radar to guide them, the smaller Type-44 hovercraft hadn't known about me. Now they did, and they were angry — my RWR took the brunt of it, judging by its complaints. Even as I watched, though, another symbol disappeared. Kalija was back on the hunt. Two left.

The RWR started to flash, and my helmet blinked a red warning. “Viking, bullseye 0-2-0 for ten, SAM launch, six o'clock." The blinking got abruptly faster, and I wrenched the joystick over to throw my fighter into a sharp right turn. “Defensive."

“Viking, break left!"

Left? I had to trust she could perceive the situation better than I. I cranked my ship in the other direction, letting the g-forces tell me I was doing a good job.

Cheap missiles like a SM-9 were guided by the equally cheap radar on a Type-44, and cheap radars liked to see a nice, big doppler shift — the change in relative velocities between the sensor and its target. A Valkyrie traveling at twice the speed of sound generally obliges.

Turn broadside to the sensor, though, and the doppler shift diminishes as you settle into the radar's 'notch.' Less comfortably, it also let me see the missile climbing towards me.

“Swing 1-1, in from the south. Rifle."

A second later, the SM-9's parent hoverdyne exploded. I took the opportunity to toss out some countermeasures, and when the missile switched to its own internal guidance it found a wealth of juicy targets. In its confusion, it forgot all about me. “Trashed."

And only one missile truck left. It, too, was hidden in a ravine that gave it cover from Kalija's Kestrel. “Same deal as before," she said. She was getting more relaxed. “Hit 'em and I'll make sure they're dead."

“Slight problem. I'm out of missiles."

“Out? You don't have any more Kraits?"

“Negative. Two-zero-zero cannon and six AVM-50s."

I caught the tail-end of the other dog's fatalistic snort. “Fine. If I get close, they should try to take a shot. Can you lock on to that?"

My AVM-50s must've been what CODA had left the Valkyries with when they abandoned the planet. The huge rockets had been designed to hit things a long ways off, and big things, at that. They needed a nice, bright signature — like a missile launch. “I think so."

Apparently it was good enough for the other dog. “Great. Swing 1-1, in from the north."

“Swing 1-1, Viking. Press."

I narrowed my eyes, and my computerized visor zoomed in as far as was practical on the battlefield. Ordinarily my back-seater would've been there to help, but like Kalija I was on my own. The dog's Kestrel dipped into a shallow dive, coming closer and closer to the missile truck.

The hoverdyne hadn't made any effort to hide; maybe they figured it was futile. Maybe they figured that they had nothing to lose, and their only way out was to get rid of the two of us. Either way, they took the shot.

“Swing 1-1, defending SAM…"

She went on, but for a half-second I had other things to focus on. In the brief second of the missile launch, the Type-44 became a big enough target to interest the guidance system of my AVM-50s. I waited for the indicator to flash green, and thumbed the button on my control stick. As soon as I felt the Valkyrie lighten, I banked her into a steep turn so the bulk of the starfighter would shield me from the glare of the rocket motor. “Viking, rifle."

AVM-50s were huge because they'd been designed for long-range combat. Their engines had enough fuel to power it all the way to a target five hundred kilometers off — otherwise it's too easy to run a missile out of fuel and evade it when it starts to glide.

Not that it mattered in this case. In this case, the Type-44 was only a few kilometers away, and straight below us. My missile dove with all the energy of the devil himself trying to get back to hell in a hurry. Two seconds later, Kalija had the result.

“Blackjack, Swing 1-1. Mission complete."

“Blackjack. Swing 1-1 and Viking, RTB."

My entire engagement had been packed into under three minutes. It took a few more until time returned to normal, and the adrenaline started to wear off. That's a tricky thing, adrenaline. Life isn't the same without it. Life isn't even really life without it.

Dangerous thought, Benny, I chided myself. I wasn't at Third Chance for adrenaline. I was there because Mara had shanghaied me, and because the Free State paid well. As soon as I was done, I'd head back to my farm and not leave until spring.

Right? Order some more tempera and get back to painting. You like painting, Benny. You're not any good at it, and you hate the way it always gets in your fur. But you like the painting itself. And when it's done, you…

I put them in the attic and never looked at them again. It passed the time. That was all I needed.

Kalija's Kestrel was just off my nose, thirty meters away and feeling close enough to touch. How had it been ten years since I'd last been in formation with another starfighter? Why was it all coming back? Tempera. Canvas. Soft music, Benny.

Lockheed designed the F/A-206 for their own mercenaries, rather than for a CODA mandate, and the need to have something that others might want to buy was apparent. The other dog had flown Intruders: big, fat things that bristled with weapons hardpoints and sensor blisters. The Valkyrie I'd flown was built like a broadsword, long and straight and deadly.

Kestrels were graceful and sleek, with curving wings that wrapped around their engine nacelles, hiding them and giving the impression that aesthetics alone kept the machine aloft. The canopy disappeared smoothly into a fuselage that slid down to a neat, fluid point.

The way Kalija flew it only drove home the point. The tight, arcing turns, the darting climbs and swooping dives — every action testament to the symbiotic joining of man and machine. Between the design and the dance it was, if I had to be honest, a lot more artistic than my paintings would ever be. And nothing was superfluous, unlike the paintings.

Unlike me?

“Pretty good flying," Kalija told me over the radio.

I checked to make sure we were on a secure channel. “Likewise. They're lucky to have you."

When we landed, I checked my airframe and finished up with an affectionate thump to its smooth metal nose. Kalija and Kirk were going over the results of the mission by the time I found them, putting together the material for an official debrief.

“Solid work." That was Kirk's short summary. “Blackjack is still airborne, and getting no signs of any activity. I'm comfortable giving that transport permission to approach."

“What about our losses?" I asked.

Kalija gestured at the part of the table where she was tallying up the operation's costs. “Two airframes. We lost one, and Lotto has another that needs to be scrapped. We can use the spare parts, at least."

“Crew?"

“Kirby punched out. A civilian gave him a ride back up here — he's getting checked out, but I guess he'll live. The bottom line, Ben, is that we did it. It was close, and it wasn't pretty. But we did it."

Wasn't close and wasn't pretty is what the humans called 'damning with faint praise.' “Due respect," I pointed out, “you did it. At least in that killbox."

“Lotto, too," Tabitha said. “Out of seven confirmed kills, Commander Peterson has five."

Kalija shook her head, dismissively. “We just have to train harder, then." But the shaking was too fast, too defensive; it sent her ear wobbling. “Ben, after the debrief we should sit down and see where they need more practice."

She was nothing if not insistent. The 'sit down' took the better part of four hours, every minute of it earning my keep. We looked at every pilot individually, over every part of the engagement.

In one sense, she was right: the mission was a low-cost learning opportunity, like how predators taught their young to hunt by bringing them crippled prey. On a case-by-case basis, I could certainly accept the need for improvement. Hernandez was too slow to identify the right target track. Boyd turned too early and too hard, bleeding off valuable speed and overstressing his plane. Crawford didn't stay close enough to her wingman.

In another sense, it cast the whole desperate affair in too-sharp relief. Kalija listened to my advice, but adamantly refused to pull any of the pilots. She insisted that all of them were needed, and dismissed the implication. If this is the best you have, captain, then what are you saying? The best the Free State has is cannon fodder?

I couldn't sleep afterwards. Lying in my bed didn't help. Food didn't help. Coffee certainly didn't help, but I took a cup anyway and went for the only place I thought I might find some solitude. Sure enough, with my back against the nosewheel of an F-230H, I closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander for a spell.

“Was it yours?"

I looked up to see who had spoken. Another dog, and one I hadn't seen before. “No," I told her. “But I used to fly them, a long time ago."

“I want to. Ironically, mom doesn't agree. Well, claw-mom."

“'Claw-mom'?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I'm Kalija's daughter. Well… adopted daughter. I'm told her name means something about claws in Nakath-rukhat."

“You don't even know your own language?"

“It isn't mine," the dog said. She had the look of a purebred like me. A husky, judging by the clarity of her eyes. “Do you know what it means?"

“Isn't mine either." I had to laugh at the irony of it — two emancipated moreaus, completely unfamiliar with the language of the emancipated. “I'm Benjamin. Benjamin janato?"

She nodded. “I think. Leyte janato."

“Leyte?"

“Claw-mom and ear-mom were on the Leyte Gulf when they adopted me. I don't remember it, but they say it was kind of awkward. The colony they were defending didn't have enough money to pay for defending all their outposts, and mine was one of the ones they pulled back from. We were going to be destroyed, I guess."

“'Destroyed' as in overrun?"

Leyte shook her head, with the fatalism common in particular to captive-born dogs. “No, no. Euthanized, I mean. Ear-mom found homes for most of them, out at Dawa, but claw-mom said she liked my… spirit. I bit her," Leyte clarified. “How about you? You don't speak rukhat either?"

“I'm corporate. GE, out of Tempe. A high-skill batch, but not high-skill enough to keep around. How come you didn't learn?"

“Ear-mom is lona. You know that term, right?" In dogspeak the word meant 'shaved,' and they used it to refer to dogs who were a little too friendly with humans — as though they wanted to become them. I nodded my understanding. “And claw-mom was exiled from Dawa when she decided to enlist."

Something else we shared in common, then, because I wasn't welcome at Dawa Oasis either. The all-moreau colony presented itself as egalitarian and welcoming, but a certain willingness to buy into the propaganda helped, too.

I guess I understood that. The moreaus who founded Dawa had sacrificed a lot for their independence, and indulged in a well-earned dislike of humanity. They wanted to be different; they wanted their community to serve as a shining beacon for the uplifted animals still in servitude throughout the galaxy.

The result was a fuzzy communalism, and a constant reminder of the strength of the pack, and a concerted effort to emphasize all the ways that we animals were different. Humans were tribal and warlike; Dawa promoted a religious pacifism. Humans loved machinery and technology; Dawa was a farming community with only as much equipment as it took to survive. Humans were possessive and materialistic; Dawa was so insistent on sharing that it took a concerted protest to even get them to acknowledge marriages.

None of it was a particularly kind environment for a mercenary with his own ship and a need for adrenaline. I'd lived there only a few months before the Council gently suggested it might be time to part ways. And I agreed.

“Dawa's not all that," I told Leyte. “Kalija doesn't want you to enlist, though, huh?"

“Not after what happened here. When CODA abandoned the Free State, she took it kind of hard. I think she'll come around… eventually. But right now isn't a good time to want to join. Of course, I do. Look at this…" She gestured to the Valkyrie.

“Can you fly?"

Rather than rolling her head, the way freeborn dogs sometimes did when they were being noncommittal, her response was a very human seesawing of her paw. “In sims, sure. I haven't had the chance to get any real-world experience. Well…"

“Hm?"

She crouched down next to me. “Can you keep a secret? One of the human pilots let me tag along on a recon flight a few months ago. So I do have some stick time. About five minutes," she admitted, laughing. “But it's a start."

It was enough of a 'start' that it should've qualified her for the Free State's air force. Presumably, then, Kalija had forbidden her to do so, and I didn't know what that meant. Was the captain clear-headed enough to realize the risk? Was it just maternal instinct?

My relationship with Kalija wasn't the sort where I could just ask. I kept my thoughts to myself, and focused on doing the best job of training her pilots that I could in the time we had left. Everyone knew the clock was running out: in the secure conference room she shared with General Kirk, big red digits on the wall counted down the days we had left.

The number stood at two days the last time I saw it, when the captain called me in, shut the door heavily, and took a deep breath. “We think we've found a weakness."

Kalija twirled her fingers over her computer, summoning up a holographic view of the mining rig. “This is an updated model, based on new intelligence — a passing ship sympathetic to the Free State was able to re-image it. From ninety thousand kilometers away, it isn't perfect, but…"

“What am I looking for?" I asked.

“They've augmented the existing power supply. This bit of machinery here, towards the stern, was added in the last few months — it doesn't show up on earlier images of the vessel. Dr. Singh?"

The man standing next to her nodded in acknowledgment, and explained further. “We estimated from the beginning that the kind of weapon they've designed would take more power than the rig originally had. Within the margin of error, the additional construction work is about the size and shape of a forty-terawatt fusion reactor and its associated cooling systems."

“Alright. So?"

“As built seventy years ago, the rig has a Kawasaki Electric Model 310E-50 antimatter reactor, designed for sustained deep-space operations away from a fueling facility. They were designed for military applications, but they have a critical vulnerability that pulled them from frontline service. Under high load, the matter-antimatter regulators can enter into a positive feedback loop — the reactor runs away."

I'd heard about that happening to Kingdom dreadnoughts. Antimatter has great energy density, but it's awfully scary. I could guess the result: “And it explodes?"

Dr. Singh confirmed my guess, and added some specifics. “The reactor would have to be over sixty percent load for a sustained period of time, or ninety-five percent load for a shorter one. It never caused problems in civilian service, but warships ran too close to that limit for comfort."

Kalija waited for me to digest the information. “We think that's why they added a second reactor, rather than getting everything they needed from the internal powerplant. That also offers our opportunity."

“They'll need six to eight hours to charge the capacitors for their weapon. If the secondary reactor is disabled during that time, the demand surge will hit the primary reactor, exceeding its ability to compensate. Ordinarily, the safeties would prevent this. But because the fusion plant is taking most of the excess load, I feel it's likely also directly coupled to the power stabilizing units. Disabling it would also disable the safeties."

“We don't think they'd have time to fix them before a critical reactor failure," Kalija finished.

And then she presented the plan. Every fighter they had would take part — all sixteen of them. Twelve were to engage the mining rig's combat patrol, because they almost certainly had one. When the protective screen had been drawn away, the remaining four ships would use short-range missiles to destroy the fusion reactor.

“From close range, they won't be able to interdict them in time," the dog said. “I think. One good hit should do it."

“From four ships. With, what, four missiles apiece?"

She nodded, and glanced with a telling scowl at the holographic map that showed the attack plan. “I think it's likely that only one ship is likely to make it through. And they may not get their entire payload off. But one good hit, Benny. One good hit would do it."

“Where did you see me in all this?"

“We need a real fighter pilot to take on their CAP. Ordinarily, a rig like that would have six starfighters attached. Given the circumstances, a full squadron seems more likely."

Mara spoke up. “Chatter on the net says the security team on Midas is down six planes. The normal patrols on Gav's Opal have also stopped; that's another eight. Given the threat picture in that sector, ninety percent odds they've been sent here."

I didn't know enough about Midas, or DDK's corporate security, to tell what that meant. “Are they any good?"

“The system has been quiet for about a year, like most of the sector, so they haven't seen any action. DDK mercs in general tend to be self-taught, given their affiliation with Starlight. Seventy percent odds that they're not ex-CODA."

Of course, neither was most of the Free State. I looked over the battle plan again. “Captain, can we speak privately?"

Kalija and Tabitha looked at each other. The dog pointed quickly at Mara and Singh. “You two are dismissed. General Kirk should be present for any strategic discussions, though."

I waited for the others to leave, and used the opportunity to think of a diplomatic response. When the door closed, I coughed, and spoke gently. “I know you're not Mara, but what do you think the odds are?"

Again the pair exchanged glances. Kirk was the one to reply. “Captain Kalija says they're about even. We'll take losses, I know. We both know that."

“Even?" I stared right at the other dog.

“You disagree," she replied, her voice so flat that it was clear we all perceived the truth of the situation.

“Fourteen rooks and three veterans — none of them recent — in a furball with twenty trained mercenaries? In deep space, where, let's face it, you could count our engagements on one hand and have a finger left over. Against a well-defended, heavily armed ship, and an enemy that knows we're coming."

Tabitha Kirk shifted on her feet. “We'll have the element of surprise. They'll need to scramble — they can't be on guard all the time, not with only twenty aircrews."

“They don't have to be," I growled, feeling the same way I had on the first shooting op. You should know this already. I can't be explaining this to you.

“Why not?" Kirk asked.

Then again, she'd been a ground commander, and Kalija hadn't done time in freighters like I had. “You think they don't know about this vulnerability? If it exists, and it can't be corrected, they know about it."

“So?"

“So they'll be waiting for you. Dr. Singh said there's a six-to-eight hour window. Call it eight. They know you don't have anything in the belt. They know you're here, because you took out their missiles. They know your equipment for the same reason."

“They can plan for Martin 553s, but…"

Kalija's ears had gone back. “No. I see what he means. We have to launch from the surface, general. Our energy budget is constrained. They'll know we don't have the delta-v for arbitrary profiles. In that eight-hour window, the ship is only in position for an intercept four times."

“In a six-hour window, only three," I added.

“If we launched this evening, it… it would be tight, but we could come around the moon," the other dog suggested, staring with furrowed brow and tucked tail at the hologram. “That's an even worse gamble, though."

“Why?"

“Can't hide in space. They'd have thousands of kilometers to see that we were coming and either shut down the rig or move it out of the way. They have more freedom to move than we do. We wouldn't have the fuel to change course."

“Plus," I pointed out, “you don't know when they'll start charging. They could hang out in low orbit here for a week. You have to launch after you know they've begun."

“Three chances," General Kirk concluded. “Good God."

“A known enemy, with a known target, coming from a known vector. They have literally every advantage. Calling this 'even odds' is ludicrous."

The dog kept staring at the map. Finally, with a deep breath, she tore herself away. “We can't give up. I won't give up — Benjamin, they're counting on us. We — we have a life here! This is our home."

“You can find a new home," I said, trying to be gentle.

“Spoken like someone who's never had one. But we do."

She probably didn't mean it: it had been said in the heat of the moment. She looked crushed. But it hit a nerve, anyway, and I couldn't help myself either. “Oh, fuck you."

“What?"

“Like I haven't heard the home thing before? The pack thing before? We didn't all get that shiny citizenship form when we served. Some of us didn't have friendly commanders to throw us a bone. CODA's moreau-recruitment-program and Dawa and you, you're all selling the same damn line and I'm not buying it anymore."

She bit back a snarl of her own. “This isn't like that. I'm sorry things didn't work out before, but it's different. We're different."

“And even if I believed you — even if, and I don't — this still isn't a battle plan. It's an overcomplicated murder-suicide. I'm not going to be part of it."

Neither of them said anything. Neither did Mara, waiting outside; my old companion didn't even open his mouth when I stalked past. I guess he'd heard me.

This time, even the thought of a Valkyrie wasn't enough to calm me. Back in my room, I took a heavy seat on the edge of my bed until my breathing no longer tried to break into an open growl. Even then, I couldn't get past it. What the fuck are they thinking?

They were trying to make their own way in a universe that, perversely, was too small for it. I knew their plight, and I could even be sympathetic to it. But my ability to sympathize ended at self-destruction. Why shouldn't it?

Mara sometimes got philosophical, in the long empty silences we'd shared on assignments. He came from the Trimurti Corporation, and was cursed with their quirks as I was cursed with mine. Trimurti wanted their moreaus to be superlative, better than human beings in every regard. Faster. Smarter. Stronger. Better reflexes.

In exchange, they were wired directly into the systems of whatever installation they ran. Doing a good job sent an impulse that triggered the reward center of his brain. At least my masters had never done that. Wired moreaus stayed wired until they were used up. If something happened, if they were disconnected, the company offered them a choice of either independence or death. The smart ones took the easy way out.

Dumb ones like Mara stuck around, and 'got into trouble' as he liked putting it when they tried to replace that vanished stimulation. As bad as I missed flying, times a billion. I put up with Mara because I felt sorry for him, and because he was smarter than I was and his philosophical ramblings tended to be as accurate as his bookmaking.

Mara asked me what I thought humanity would look like if they'd never invented us. Different, for sure. He thought they might've invented better computers, with real artificial intelligence, and maybe smarter robots, too. As it was, they hadn't needed to. Moreaus were living computers, and all we needed was food and a place to sleep.

According to Mara, we were why so much technology hadn't really advanced beyond the days of the first moreaus. Sentient computers and robot drones had been science fiction then and they were science fiction now. Mara thought it meant we shared a common destiny, humans and moreaus; he thought our fates were intertwined. He liked humans. He forgave them.

I didn't.

I'd told him I thought it explained why humans resented us. We were like children who had never left home — useful children, but children nonetheless. Their reliance on us kept them from reaching the full potential of their own species. And so they took their anger out on us capriciously.

Not the obvious examples — like Leyte, cavalierly admitting how close she'd come to euthanasia. Or the times we got shipped to new factories in cargo ships rather than passenger liners, and sometimes didn't make it. Or the rumors you sometimes heard of moreau hunting preserves.

I meant like how easy it had been for Commander Roberts not to submit a request for my citizenship paperwork. Ever since the Battle of Jericho, almost half a century ago, serving moreaus have been eligible to apply and pay for citizenship in the Confederacy the same as any human. But a human has to request the paperwork for us.

Roberts wasn't fond of me, I knew, but it wasn't that he hadn't put in the request because of that. In a way it would've been easier if he'd hated me and it was all some vendetta. It wasn't. It just hadn't mattered to him. He failed to care. Oh, that, he'd said with a shrug. I guess I must've denied it.

And with those blithe, offhand words I'd finally known how little I meant. It wouldn't matter how storied my service record was. It hadn't helped Kalija, had it? Neither had her optimism. In the end, none of that mattered one goddamned bit. I found the closest thing within reach, one of my flight gloves, and tossed it at the wall angrily. That didn't help either.

Instead I went to go do something productive. Third Chance may have been mostly a collection of prefabricated huts and modular buildings, but you don't pack a couple thousand people into those without giving them a way to relieve their stress. I walked past the arcade and the ersatz handball court and the little coffee shop wedged into the back of a parked cargo hoverdyne.

The bar was loud, dark, and fairly packed. Good combination, honestly; our designers never bothered to fix our oversensitive hearing, and with enough alcohol I knew it would fade into the kind of incoherent roar that keeps you from thinking about anything. I made my way over to the counter and took a seat between a dark-haired woman in a scuffed blazer and a slumped, broad-shouldered man who smelled of coolant and whiskey.

Somebody had projected a ball game against the far wall; it hadn't been calibrated properly, and the skewed hologram stretched and distorted the players into odd, slightly monstrous shapes. It still worked as a distraction. The barkeep was following it; when I approached, he nodded over his shoulder to let me know he'd seen me, but waited for the play to be over before turning around. “Hey, nenkie. What're you having?"

“Whiskey, if you've got it." They were, after all, under siege — I had my suspicions that the bar was stocked with whatever the individual colonists had first brought with them.

He nodded, shoveled some ice into a glass, and poured my serving from a bottle with a worn label that confirmed it had not been ordered new for the bar. “One-fifty."

I handed him two obols, and shook my head when he started fishing for change. “Keep it. What did you call me, though?"

“Dunno. Picked it up from the guys back home. Guess it's what you dogs always call each other — yanenkie — an' it stuck. Got pretty common back in Salem."

“Salem?"

The broad-shouldered man next to me looked up. “Mining city. Where most of us come from."

“Not necessarily most of us," the barkeep corrected. “But a lot. Salem, Green Springs, and Chester City were the largest single source of refugees. Most of the nenkies came from Salem or, uh…"

“Triville," said the other man. “We're both from Salem."

I nodded. “Did everyone leave?"

“Just the ones likely to face reprisals. I used to work on the code for the mining lifts; have a lot of useful secrets. Us and the dogs got out. Ellekhnengeru, yanenkie, eh?"

My ears flicked and, head canting, I played it back in my head. “Huh. Must be dialect. Al-hakhnan goru, jananga, that's how I learned it. 'Good day, friend.'"

“'Nenkie' means 'friend'?"

I shrugged. “Maybe. I don't actually speak it."

“Oh, weird. Just English?"

“English and Spanish."

Scuffed-blazer-girl turned around, too. “Spanish? Really? That's cool. I used to teach Spanish. I was a grade-school teacher. You know, before."

This was more conversation than I'd planned on getting into. “I see."

“Now I'm a signals analyst. Funny how that works. What about you?"

“I'm a pilot."

“Freighter captain?"

I shook my head — but thought better of it, halfway through. “Sort of. I used to be a mercenary. I don't do that anymore."

“But you're one of Captain Kalija's pilots?" the bartender prompted. “How's that going?"

I looked at my glass of whiskey, and drank the rest of it down. Not great stuff, anyway; not the kind anybody would savor even without a question like that. I nudged the cup back across the table.

“Good sign…"

“Really good sign," the woman added. She looked to be drinking something serious, too. Jack and coke, was my guess; anyway it was the same deep coffee color as her skin. “You've been making enough noise, though."

I overpaid for the whiskey a second time, gauged how much of it I was already feeling, decided it was too little, and took a healthy drink. “Can't beat time in the cockpit for training."

“I wasn't complaining." Then she smiled. “Maybe just a little. It does make it hard to sleep."

Broad-shouldered man was back to watching the ballgame, but I had the barkeep's interest too. “Is everybody going to be trained in time? We've all been hearing rumors about a big operation. The big operation."

“Probably just rumors…"

He crossed his arms over his chest. “This is only a part-time gig, nenkie. My day job's in the ops center, fixing our maintenance computers. They've had crews going round-the-clock prepping missiles. Unless that's more training."

“Or they just need to keep the siege lifted," the woman suggested. “General Kirk knows best."

“Maybe. I —"

The man on my other side straightened up, and directed an obscene gesture at the hologram. “That was not a legal play. Shit — Ira, you see that?"

He and the bartender focused on the game. I thought that the woman might, too, but it failed to hold her interest and she went for a closer target. “So were you hired as a mercenary, or did you come from the towns like the others?"

“Hired. You don't know Mara Rao, do you? Well, I used to work with Mara. He got me the job." That was much, much too favorable to Mara, and the way the human smiled, I guessed she knew that.

“I bet he didn't tell you what it would be."

“I woke up already in a cockpit," I admitted.

She laughed. “Sounds like him. He got us our computers. He said they were refurbished ones, but…" The human leaned in, sharing a secret. “They still had the previous users' names and everything. Mara helped us scrub them. By the time we heard about that… mysterious… break-in at the Oracle arco…"

“It was too late, obviously."

“Obviously. Hey — what's your name, pilot?"

“Benjamin."

She nodded. “Samiya. Do people call you Ben? People call me Sam. You can call me Sam."

“Ben's fine."

“What's it like being a pilot, Ben?"

The question was more fraught than it sounded — than it should've been. If I was trying to impress someone, I'd go all out. I'd grin, showing teeth, and I'd tell them what it was like to burn at full throttle for orbit; how very much like a living god I felt.

At that moment, though, I felt very much unlike a living god, and I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I shrugged, and told Samiya that it was an exciting job, and I enjoyed it. “That can't be everything," she said.

“It's..."

She didn't let up, and I concluded that I wasn't going to be able to drink by myself. For the rest of my second drink, and part of my third, I tried to deflect questions back on her. What did she do? Where was she from?

She was a native of the planet; her parents had immigrated. Salem, and the Black Hills Free State, was the only life she'd ever known. Worth fighting for, she added, without prompting. In the end she laughed. “But I'm boring. I like my work, but I'm boring. You must not be."

“Well, I don't know; I might be."

“But you're not! Hey, let's do one better, Ben. Tell me a story."

“What kind?"

She thumped my chest with the flat of her hand, shoving me teasingly. “You know what kind. One of your pilot stories. Come on."

In the back of my mind, with the clarity added by two and a half glasses of whiskey, I saw where it all was going. Moreaus get picked up more often than you might think. We're convenient, after all. Easy to persuade and pretty unconcerned with gender. Can't get a human pregnant, of course, and what with our enhanced immune systems we're pretty safe.

And there's that nice little element of doing something debauched, except since we can talk and pay for dinner it's a safe kind of debasement. The kind you might turn into a spring break party story. I went along with it, more often than not. A good fuck is pretty decent stress relief, and... well, it's better than other things humans do to us, right?

So instead of blowing her off, I actually did tell her a story.

Not a complicated story. Sam didn't want to hear about getting thrown into the grinder in the Owl Cliffs campaign. Two weeks of nonstop sorties, flying until we were all trembling and raw, knowing every time we strapped in we were rolling the dice. Waking up for two months afterwards hearing cockpit alarms going off. Looking back on it a year, five years, ten years later, knowing I'd give anything to be that alive one more time...

I knew a kid we called Zit, because his real name was Sitowski and he looked like a teenager into his 30s. He flew Intruders, like Kalija; we met during a surface operation when our squadrons were staging off an airbase on an older corp world with lots of dumb little squabbles. He'd just finished his tour, and we told him to retire. Attack pilots don't live long.

We'd been in a bar, celebrating the end of the tour, and he said he wasn't giving up. He was born to fly. If God disagreed, Zit said, well then he should give the kid a sign. What'd I tell you? he laughed, when nothing happened, and thumped his glass of beer down. It shattered. Zit brushed off our told-you-so jeers, and said that wasn't how signs worked.

The next day the base sirens came on and they asked us to scramble. Zit wasn't in rotation, but he volunteered anyway to prove a point. He came back complaining about an ordnance malfunction; the plane chief went to look. His plane had been hit by ground fire. Five centimeters lower and it would've struck the missile, maybe setting it off. Five centimeters higher and it would've torn the wing open. Instead it bulls-eyed the missile rack, shearing it clean off. Not a sign, Zit said.

Don't be an idiot, we told him. Get out while you still can.

He rolled his eyes, and he said that he meant a sign of what he was supposed to do instead. His new calling. Something more respectable than puffins, one of my fellow pilots said. Sam was looking at me curiously. “Oh, uh. They call Intruders 'puffins'. Pear-shaped, Ugly, Fat Fucker."

“How civilized." But she seemed to be enjoying the story; partway through she'd ordered another jack and coke, and sipped it patiently while I kept going.

There was an argument, when Zit said that puffins were perfectly respectable and we Valk jocks ribbed him for it. Anything was better than an Intruder. Start your own whorehouse, someone had shouted; more jeers seconded the notion. And Zit had said: fine, if God wanted him to do that, he'd make His divine will clear. Zit cashed his paycheck out, and we left the bar for the shitty gaming parlor across the street, and he blindly picked a space on the roulette wheel.

“He won," Sam guessed.

“He won. That goddamned kid..."

“What'd he do with the money?"

“What else could he do? Gave up his commission and went to open a brothel on Kaltrig. Last I heard he was happy there."

She burst out laughing. “He actually did it?"

“When God gives you a sign..."

Samiya raised her head to check my glass, and ordered a new one for me without my asking. It was my fifth, maybe. Keeping track was getting harder. “Did you got a sign, too? How'd you get out?"

I was drunk enough to take her interest at face value, watching her brush clear a lock of the short hair that fell across her forehead. Nail polish added a splash of bright coral to her dark fingers. For the moment I could see it, I saw that the polish was starting to chip and come away.

I supposed she'd done it before the evacuation, and it stayed for some semblance of normalcy. The same desire kept me from telling her the truth. I just said that I left because I got tired of it. Wanted more excitement. “Oh, yeah." She didn't argue. “You became a mercenary, huh?"

“Yep. And now I'm here."

“We're all here."

The bartender, Ira, spoke up. “But not right here. Gonna start closin' up. You want anything else?"

Samiya put away the remainder of her jack and coke, and I finished my whiskey more quickly than the nearly full glass should've warranted. I was, though, still deceptively steady on my feet. Fighter-jock reflexes. This would be the point where Sam asked if I had any plans for the evening, like she might've been thinking about catching a show. And I would shrug, and she would make one of those dumb jokes, like about what all I'd been trained to do and how obedient I was...

She began, right on-script. “So… I was thinking…"

“What about?"

“It's still… kind of early, and my place isn't that far away. You want to come back? You could tell me more stories? Or maybe, ah… show me a few things…"

“Is this a 'is it true about dogs' sort of 'showing you things'?"

The human flashed a smile. “I already know about dogs, Ben. That's why I asked."

Yeah: we're convenient. But, either way, it was a chance to forget about everything else that had happened, and the whiskey kept me from being too proud. “Not your first, then?"

Samiya winked, leaned back to look me over, and gave my tail a light, playful tug. “Hell, no. Come on, we're wasting time."

My quarters were close to the flight-line; hers were equally convenient, in a prefabbed building next to the operations center. Even so late at night, there were still plenty of lights on, and more than a few wanderers like us. Nobody batted an eye.

She slid the door open on a bare, clean room: a single bunk and a desk with a few childlike, colorful sketches stuck to the wall above it. “My old life," she explained. “Whatever — it's a place to sleep, right?"

“Sure. A bed's a bed."

“That's the spirit." Sam double-checked the lock, then grabbed my shirt with both hands and drew me towards her. I managed half of a step, tried to take another one, and found her foot in the way.

She took my weight and buckled, losing her balance with me and falling back into the bed. The movement was graceless, and too heavy — the bed rocked, grating sharply into the floor — and I was a little dizzy.

Samiya didn't notice, or took the wrong message. I had her pinned with my substantially larger bulk, pushing her down and into the foam pad of her bunk. “Eager, huh?" she gasped. Her hungry expression suggested a bit of projection. I felt her leg hook behind me, pulling me in against the warmth of her body.

I went along with it rather than protest or apologize. Not that it took much sacrificing. I knew what she wanted. My hips bucked sharply, shoving us together and bringing another gasp from her. Not quite rough, but definitely more… animalistic. Nobody picks up a moreau 'cause they want it taken slow and tender.

And yeah, when I thrust again she moaned and squeezed her leg around me. And when I growled, Sam sighed approvingly. “Yeah, you are…"

I licked at her neck, working my broad tongue lower until she began to shiver. When I inhaled, and focused on it, I could let my mind fill with her scent. Faintly perfumed, something floral — but natural, mostly, the same sweat I tasted on her bare, dark skin.

“H-mn! Stop, hey." I'd nipped her shoulder — through her clothes, and not hard enough to hurt. Still, she pushed me up, and wriggled awkwardly free of her blazer. “Only one I have." When her thoughts had a chance to catch up, she stripped out of everything else above the waist, too.

I allowed myself a frustrated growl for effect, but let her get my shirt off as well. Samiya grinned, the task accomplished, and fell back. Her fingers pushed into my white fur, patting it down and into place.

I felt her hand behind my head, guiding me back to work. As I teased her with my tongue, lapping from her collarbone to her breast, the hand disappeared. She squirmed. There was a bit of awkward pressure here and there, as she worked against my weight and the haze of the whiskey, but when her leg brushed my tail I felt skin instead of fabric.

Her fingers pushed insistently into my jeans; when that didn't work she quickly got the belt off. She remembered to undo the button over my tail, too — so it really must not have been her first time with a moreau. The moment her hand touched my sheath I snarled, and pressed my muzzle heavily to her breast, and by that point I didn't know if I was doing it on purpose or not.

Sam was stroking my shaft. She was squeezing, feeling my length stiffen and throb at the warm skill of those soft fingers. She tugged at me, guiding me in. I was pushed against smooth skin, a bit too low, smearing her thigh slick with the precum already starting to spill free. There was normally a part where they got all coy and fake-modest and let me be the one to tell them to get on all fours and I waited for it, even as she spread her legs wider and her fingers searched I waited for Samiya to mutter hey-uh-do-you-think-maybe —

The sloped tip of my cock found bare flesh, wet and hot and unmistakably yielding and before I could dwell on missing steps I bucked reflexively, and as instinct sank me smoothly into that nice, enveloping warmth I let out a equally instinctive growl. Samiya's groan answered it. Then I pushed the rest of the way in and held there.

Not long. Just until I felt her hands on me, her fingernails pricking the skin beneath my heavy white fur. Until I felt her grope my rear, urging me closer. I pulled back quickly against the resistance of her grasp, overcoming it easily, reminding her I was no human but a strong animal, barely tamed — certainly not tamed by her.

That was what they always wanted. They wanted that feral energy, and the raw moan my next thrust tore from her just confirmed it. Fine by me. My own need pushed past my whiskey-softened inhibitions and I let her have the quick, fierce tempo it demanded.

I drove into her hard and fast, my rocking hips slamming her pussy full of that taboo canine endowment, throbbing hotly, stretching her out to make every moment of the illicit coupling worthwhile. The more she gasped and moaned the louder I growled, and now and then I added a little nip for good measure to the rough nuzzling I gave her neck. She squeaked; grabbed harder with her tense fingers.

Her walls, too, gripped me in maddening heat as I stroked my cock swiftly into her folds. I had a pretty good size advantage on her, after all. But her own dripping arousal and the steady spurts of my precum did their work. The sloppy, wet squish became more and more pronounced the longer I rutted into her, making its lewd promise about just how messy the end itself would be.

When it happened. Not too far off. My knot throbbed and filled out. Samiya's moans took on a throaty, telling huskiness. She sucked her breath in in ragged gulps with the shock of each penetration, each slightly more difficult thrust that plunged her just that little bit more full.

That was what they said about dogs, of course. Not just the shaggy fur she was grabbing for in desperate handfuls — soft and plush against the sweat-dappled skin it brushed and teased with the rhythm of our frantic coupling. Not just the canine body temperature, the warmth exquisite every time I slid deep inside her. Not just my growls and huffing grunts.

No, the knot. The thick bulge taut against soft human flesh, clinging to its obscene girth like an accepted challenge. They'd heard about it and when I started really fucking them and they knew they were going to take it that's when the last of the pretense slipped away.

That's when they'd be crying out to me, when I'd hear them gasping good boy! as though I was a uniquely skilled housepet. The last few seconds of begging me to fuck them like an animal as they reveled in debasement like they were the ones being debased. Fuck me like a dog! Like a bitch in heat!

Samiya stuck to her giddy moans while I stuffed her, though she pushed back obediently into my strong, humping thrusts. My knot slurped and strained and — “Ben!" She gasped it with that pointed, sharp lurch that joined us. I lost my tempo in the need to finish but somewhere in those rough, uneven strokes I heard her shout it again.

And she squeezed me, her legs locking and her folds pulsing and fluttering in their snug, clenching grasp. I couldn't pull back, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but push forwardly reflexively and snarl for the human as I suddenly came. My knot kept me hilted and I throbbed and twitched and pumped my seed deep.

Sam shuddered right along with me, riding it out as I drained my load into her and the heat of those copious spurts of dog cum spread further in. She hugged me. I was fighting for breath, tremors of pleasure still coursing through me with every pulse of my release, and what I felt was the tender embrace of her arms.

“Mmm." My head dropped to her chest, and it gave her the opportunity to whisper right into my ear. “That was good… you need that too, Ben?"

A rather pleasant sort of lassitude was threading its way into my head, making friends with the whiskey. I nodded agreement. Samiya had started petting me, carefully, favoring every bit of my fur in turn. That, too, felt pretty nice.

Even then I knew it wouldn't last. If nothing else I'd wake up in the morning sober. And Sam would be done with me, and I'd still have Kalija to deal with. For then… for then, I let the human do as she liked. And when she told me that her favorite thing about dogs was how nice they were to cuddle afterwards, I thumped my tail obligingly.

I woke up the next morning and immediately regretted it. Nothing good came from waking up. My head ached, and I wanted to close my eyes — but every time I did, the room spun precipitously. The room…

Fuck. This is not my room. I was the only one in it, but it wasn't my room. I assembled the previous night piece by slow piece. I remembered meeting some human woman at a bar. Sam. Samiya. Schoolteacher. Good job, Benny. Got into some trouble, didn't you?

Nah. Not trouble_, is it? More of the fuckin' same, though. Keep saying you're done with that. Glutton for punishment, Benny._ People wanting to get something out of me, and when they had it…

Mara was probably the best I could hope for. At least when he took advantage of me, I got paid. I decided I might as well do the most decent, least awkward thing and be gone by the time Samiya got back. If I'd had any lingering doubts about what we'd gotten up to, my matted fur made them pretty obsolete.

Humans were happy enough to use dogs like me, but they never wanted us to stick around afterwards. Sometimes it was so their spouse didn't find out. Sometimes it was so I didn't get the wrong idea and try to join in for breakfast.

Most of the time it was the same reason I didn't want to stay. The morning after was a pretty brutal reminder of our shared debauchery. Them, for hooking up with a dog like they couldn't get a real human. Me, for letting them treat me like that in the first place.

But you keep letting it happen. I shook my head, and pulled my pants on. Too late: the door opened. Sam let herself in. “Hey. You're up."

“Sorry," I muttered. “I'm goin'."

“Take your time." Her hair, short as it was, glistened wetly, fresh from a shower; I could still smell the fragrance of the soap. To anyone else, any human, it covered up all the more complicated scents nicely. “Don't work for a couple hours. How's your hangover? Do you nenkies get hangovers?"

“We get hangovers." The morose tone of my voice said the rest.

“Ah, yeah. Then like I said, Ben, take your time. I've got nowhere to be."

“Yeah, but… I should leave."

“Why?"

I had one arm through the sleeve of my shirt. “Uh."

“It's fine if you do have places to go, if that's what you meant. I wasn't trying to keep you." She laughed, as if that might really have been my concern.

“Uh. People… um. Most people don't really want me to stay."

“Why? Bad morning breath?"

“That, and it… keeps things simple."

Samiya was both smart enough, and cagey enough with the answers, that she must've understood. She patted me on the shoulder. “Doesn't need to be complex. I'm not asking you out, and I'm not chasing you out."

I wriggled away from her hand and pulled my shirt on, saying nothing. It wasn't pure stupefaction — movement made my head reel — but I also didn't know how to respond.

“Hey. Ben." She gave me another pat once I'd tugged my shirt down. “I know you're a dog. I'm sure other people have treated you pretty awfully for dumb reasons. Not saying it's my fault, but on the other hand…"

I was still confused. “Not your fault, Sam."

“Not exactly. We've just… we've had moreaus in the Free State for too long to have hangups like that. I guess I forget it isn't like that everywhere."

Now I felt guilty. I trudged back to my own quarters, hating every new step and the way it roiled my stomach. But it gave me a plausible excuse. If I beat myself up for the hangover…

Mara had paid a visit; there were two bottles of flavored water sitting on my desk, and a syringe. He hadn't gone the full intravenous route; maybe he only did that when he could stick around to make fun of me. And I didn't know what the syringe contained. But what the hell? He knew I liked to get into trouble.

The drugs cleared most of the fog from my brain, and a good chunk of the nausea. That left a pounding headache, doing its best to make sure I didn't forget that I still had a pulse. Mara could be helpful, when he wanted. Sam, I mused, might've been willing to help out too.

I hope she doesn't think I don't like her for some reason. It wasn't that I didn't like her, just that I didn't know what to make of it. Things were easier when they were normal, nasty as it was. Humans didn't like us — they barely put up with us. I knew that. Everybody knew that.

I heard a knock at the door. Kalija stepped in and tilted her head at the sight of me flopped in my bunk, bottle of something sweet and orange tilted awkwardly to my muzzle. “Hey, captain," I told her.

The way she sniffed — and her ear half-lifted at what she smelled — was a bit skeptical, but she didn't appear to be bearing me any particular ill will. She just looked weary, probably like I did.

She pulled the desk chair out and sat down. “General Kirk was up all night thinking about things. You made an impression on the general, I have to say."

“Not a good one, I guess."

“Well, she scrubbed the mission. Take that how you will."

“I do think it's for the best."

Rather than growling at me, or fighting back, the other dog shrugged weakly. “Maybe. Your assessment wasn't inaccurate. You have the advantage of… distance. I said it like an insult earlier, but I guess it does give you a different perspective."

“Maybe." I did her the courtesy of sitting up, much as it punished my aching temples. “I never wanted to be part of this."

“I didn't either," Kalija said, and shook her head at some troubling memory. “My wife thought we should settle down. I hoped this would be the place. But you're right, Ben; that's not your fight, and I shouldn't have tried to make it yours."

Awkwardly, I found myself thinking about what Sam might've thought if she heard about what I said. I stalled for time to avoid further introspection. “What will you do now, then? You'll leave?"

The mutt's ears swept back for a moment, until she could steel herself. “I don't want to, but I suppose… I suppose we don't have any choice. We can disperse away from Third Chance, at least. We only have a couple of transports. Maybe we can sell the fighters… try to buy something else. Maybe try to negotiate with the corp."

“Might've been easier before you took out all those tanks."

Kalija shot me a glare that finally hinted at everything she was keeping bottled up. “I don't regret that. If I thought we could fight, I'd still be fighting. But you… you were right about that, too. Sixteen ships and a few cadets? What chance do we have. But it's tempting, damn it! I want to bloody their nose, those bastards…"

“I can understand that."

“I have a question." It looked to be a difficult one: she paused before asking it, and it flattened her ears again. “If you had thought we could win — not saying that plan, but any plan… if you had, would you have joined us?"

Now it was my turn to splay my ears. My turn for an awkward, contemplative silence. Kalija's question covered more ground than she could have guessed. “I don't know."

“I think you would've. I think you know we should fight, rather than running away. We shouldn't have to run. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise. I don't think it'll convince you, either, when you're back running palettes of fertilizer to some commune somewhere…"

It didn't even rise to the level of an attempt at reverse psychology. She was being honest. “It won't be the same, no." And I didn't blame her for her anger, or her disappointment, at least now that she was being practical. I would feel the same anger if I had to leave my land — but I'd get over it. You would, wouldn't you Benny? No? Well, too bad — what the fuck are you going to do to help them, anyway? “Never did get into freighters, to tell you the truth. At least cropdusting and surveys, I get to have a little excitement. Freighters are boring. Just…"

“Safe," Kalija guessed. Then she saw my expression. “Ben?"

The Free State had asked me to help train them. For guidance, nothing more; a more responsible Benjamin would've kept his muzzle shut, but I used the excuse of advice as a fig leaf to keep from second-guessing. “Freighters. Here's a thought. You and I trained in space combat, right?"

“Yes."

“Where'd you take Advanced Space Ops? Lion's Claw or Young Station?"

“The Claw. What are you getting at?"

They called Advanced Space Ops 'Star Wars,' after an ancient moving picture. The picture portrayed space combat like something out of the early days of aviation, full of banked turns and gunfire. In the dark ages, my instructor said, people believed some really stupid things.

Space combat was nothing like that. It was, in fact, so ridiculous that nobody really undertook it. My training was all about basic evasive maneuvering, and trying to frustrate another starfighter long enough for our defensive picket to take them out with lasers or something practical.

“At the Claw they taught strike ops, right? You said you attacked a cruiser. Let me guess: your squadron, with a squadron of Valks for missile cover and defense against their gunboats."

“Yeah…"

“At Young, we focused on escorting Intruders like yours."

“So?"

“Fighters on fighters. We never planned on hitting anything bigger." That, too, was a simple matter of practicality. Anything more massive than a corvette, and the odds were good that a Valkyrie just didn't have the firepower to take it out.

Kalija tilted her head. “True from the mercs, too," she walked through her thought processes aloud. “They'd be going after drones or light ships hassling a mining op. Even unarmed, one of our freighters could do a lot of damage. But that rig will have something for antiship operations."

“If they had time, and a good firing solution, sure."

“'If'?"

I nodded my head to the door, hinting at the direction of the operations room, and together we pulled up the planetary map. The idea in my head was starting to take form. Still plenty stupid: my old fighter pilot self had never really retired, apparently.

In the end it amounted to a feint. The Free State had three lighters in good enough shape to get to orbit. We would launch all three, on a trajectory that made it look like they were trying to escape. DDK wouldn't know what was on them, and I hoped the corporate bastards figured that they couldn't afford the risk.

“Every ship in your squadron will fly escort. The course will point them out towards the belt, where they'll appear to be planning a rendezvous with a deep-space transport. Mara has a friend on the Borodinskoya Srazhenya, a VSRO-flagged bulk carrier."

Tabitha Kirk listened impassively. Kalija took the next step. “Considering the size of the sortie, we assume the corporation will interdict us. They'll have plenty of time to guess our path, and they'll know that we don't have any other assets. They should dispatch their entire combat patrol."

“When the two have merged, the MV Patapsco will break off and begin a run straight at the DDK mining rig. She's the fastest ship. And, ah… I'll have a Valkyrie docked to it, so we can add in the thrust from those engines, too. The fighter screen won't be able to catch us in time — and because we'll be coming in from the direction of the furball, the rig will have a hard time plotting a firing solution. This close to the atmosphere, they can't use atomics, lasers won't put enough impulse on the freighter, and their antiship rockets risk catastrophic damage to their fighter cover." I was pretty happy with this deduction of mine.

“They'd sacrifice the fighter cover," Kirk said. “If they had to."

Kalija shook her head. “It's too risky for them to operate without it."

“And remember," Mara added, “that they've pulled in other assets from around the sector for this operation. Losing those would expose their other operations to risk. I estimate 85% odds they won't fire on their own ships."

Kirk walked in a circle around the hologram — and the rest of us, standing there. “Benjamin, you'd pilot the freighter. You'd be able to escape in time?"

“Plenty of time, ma'am." In fact I had the safest job. As soon as the Patapsco's course was programmed, all I needed to do was escape. A quick retroburn to drop into the atmosphere, and I wouldn't even risk taking fire from the dogfighting.

“What about your squadron, Captain Kalija?"

“We'll recover to the VSRO carrier, refuel, and return to the Free State when we have the chance. This wouldn't be the first time the Soviets and the DDK have come into conflict. They were happy to help show them up," she added, grinning.

“We're expecting losses?"

Kalija's smile dropped as quickly as it appeared, and she gestured to Mara. The cat pressed his fingers together tightly. “It wasn't ever gonna be nice, Tabby. Eighty percent odds you lose six ships. Fifty percent you lose twelve. Even with the whole squadron on escort, you'll be outgunned."

“The mission as a whole has better chances than our previous idea," Kalija said. “But we shouldn't be naive. It'll cost."

The general dismissed everyone but Kalija. Mara went for the mess hall. I settled for pacing, out on the flightline, where Captain Kalija found me thirty minutes later. I knew what was coming from the set, stern expression the dog wore.

“We're up?"

“We're up. General Kirk just approved the operation. I've given the orders to begin fueling the ships — shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. Then we just… wait."

“Maybe they'll want to negotiate. You never know."

“It's true." Kalija stopped next to a parked Kestrel, waiting for me to notice and do the same. Nobody else was around. “Something else, Benny. The general picked up on the other complication. We never told her, but she saw through it anyway."

“Which one?"

“Without the freighters, we have no way to evacuate everyone here. If you don't succeed…"

“We will," I told her. Mara hadn't been willing to say the odds on it, but so what? I could make my own damned odds without the cat. Even if there wasn't anyone around to hear, I found I believed what I was saying. “You asked if I'd fight with you if I really thought you could win. I will. You will."

The dog opened her mouth a few times, trying for words. “I know you don't speak Nakath," she said at last. “But at least it tends to be direct. Can I be blunt in English?"

“Of course."

“You're going to survive. Things would have to go very, very badly for you. It sounds tough, piloting the freighter, undocking your Valkyrie… But you won't be under fire. They won't be able to hit you. You'll make it no matter what happens."

I could've offered another platitude, at that point. If I could trade places with anyone in your squadron, I would. But she wanted bluntness. “Yes. I expect."

“It's fair. You're a mercenary. We're not paying you to die."

“No."

“Will you take Leyte with you?"

That wasn't what I'd expected. My head cocked sharply. “Your daughter?"

“Taru lives a few hundred kilometers from here. I wanted Leyte to stay with her, but she's headstrong. Yes, yes, I know: like me. Now that this is… it… I don't want her here. She deserves a better life than this."

“I told you I think we can manage the operation, captain."

Kalija's smile was sad, if accepting. “I hope so, but fear otherwise. I don't want the risk, either way. Please, Benjamin. If it's money, I'll pay you, I —"

“It's not the money. I… I understand. I'll take her along."

Leyte didn't object, which came as no surprise considering her enthusiasm about flight in general. I took her back to my room and handed her a computer with the Valkyrie's flight manual. “A quick primer. You won't have to do anything, but —"

“I've read it."

So close to catastrophe, I didn't need to be impressed by idle boasts. “Read it again. Just make sure you understand the safety systems. We'll be fine. It'll be like a… like a more expensive amusement park ride."

“I know, Benny. Don't sell me short, c'mon."

“You'll read it again?"

The husky rolled her eyes and held up the computer, making a dramatic point of pressing her clawed thumb to turn the first page. As long as she took it even slightly seriously, I was willing to avoid arguing. For my part I flopped onto my back on the bed to wait.

But there had never been a point in trying to sleep. I grabbed another computer and scrolled through the mission briefing — the one I'd helped design. The one all those pilots I doubted would have to follow, trusting in me. Leyte read the manual in silence, and I reviewed the briefing over and over until my eyes blurred.

“Sirens," Leyte said, startling my vision back into adrenaline-crystalized clarity.

I swallowed heavily. “Get suited up."

She left, and while I grabbed my flightsuit from the closet and pulled it on I listened to the loudspeaker with one ear. General Kirk's voice was calm. “Pilots, man your planes for immediate takeoff. Element leads, check in for final briefing. T-minus, fifteen minutes."

Helmet in hand, I stopped by the operations center, abuzz with nervous activity. “Checking in," I told the general.

“Orbital intel confirms they've shifted inclination into a firing position and the weapon is being charged. Based on the EM survey, Mara says he thinks they started about an hour ago, when they were below the horizon."

“The plan is the same?"

Kirk nodded. “Nothing has changed. Good luck, Benjamin. May God be with you."

The MV Patapsco was powered up and ready to go: ninety meters of ugly container-hauling freighter with a sleek F-230 secured to her dorsal docking clamp. I had to climb a ladder up the side of the freighter's heat-scarred hull — plenty of time to reflect on just what, exactly, I was doing.

What I was doing, though, was a mission. I understood those. I double-checked the connection between the two ships, and then pulled myself into the cockpit. Leyte was already in the back seat, helmet on and harness fastened.

“Ready?" I asked her.

“Hope so," she replied. “How about you, Ben?"

The longer I thought about the plan, the more it seemed like a mistake. “No. But I'm committed, so I guess this is it. I'm going to start us up."

“Alright," she said.

It gave me something to focus on, a comforting routine. It was always the same. Power. Reactor safeties. Fuel switches. The Valkyrie came to life precisely as I expected, not a single piece of equipment out of place — except her pilot. I lowered the canopy, secured my helmet, and checked the mic. “Can you hear me?"

“Yep."

The other two freighters were being flown autonomously. We'd talked about putting passengers on them and decided that the risk was too great. Easier to let them fly a preprogrammed course, even if it made them sitting ducks.

“Control, Viking 1-1, ready for takeoff," I said.

“Viking 1-1, cleared for takeoff on orbit program delta."

For the ascent phase, I had nothing to do: the Patapsco had the orbital calculations programmed in. I checked to make sure the flight computer was set properly, received a pleasant acknowledgment from the ship, and turned the autopilot on.

All three freighters took off at the same time, while the attack pilots on the ground continued to get ready — they'd catch us easily enough, and it helped maintain the ruse. Fighters waited until they knew the ships they were escorting had made orbit, rather than flying alongside where they could only cause interference and distraction.

“This should be simple," I did my best to reassure Leyte. “Except for the waiting."

“I know," the husky answered. “I've read the mission plan."

“Have you, then?"

“It's in the computer. So, yes. And you didn't ask, but everything's okay back here."

The Patapsco's main drive kicked in, and the acceleration pushed me back in my seat before I could turn around to look. I had to settle for the cockpit mirrors. “Sorry. I was a bit distracted. Glad you're alright."

Seeing that I was watching her, Leyte flipped up the visor on her helmet and met me with those sharp, clear husky eyes. “That's not what I meant. I mean the flight systems. There's no data link, that's all. I connected us to the local net."

“You know how to do that?"

“Told you," she said, and dropped her visor.

I had to take her word for it. The Patapsco kept climbing, and the sky beyond the cockpit faded to darker and darker blue. “Control, Viking 1-1. Program delta-one is complete." The flight computer flashed, waiting for my authorization.

“Viking 1-1, go to commence delta-two on schedule."

I gave the computer my permission, and we went back to waiting. A hundred kilometers below us, the others were taking off. Watching the symbol for each ship appear on the map, it was hard not to wonder how many of them would be returning.

It's not your problem, I told myself, to see how it sounded. It sounded awful. All sixteen symbols were now active. Not a single pilot had stayed behind, even knowing the odds. By the third and final phase of my ascent, when the engines backed off, the Free State's meager squadron was under full power, climbing to take their position with the freighters.

“Hey, Leyte." As long as we're here — and since you know how this works and all. “Do me a favor. Can you see our target?"

“No. Still below the horizon. Two minutes."

That was as planned, although I did glance into my tactical hologram to check for myself just in case. I hadn't really expected Leyte to be able to use the Valkyrie's sensors, after all. “Ah, well."

“Indirect synth has mixed radiation, your one-ninety. I threw a transform at it, but between the aliasing and the interference it could be starfighters or solar flares. Track kilo is a probable, 1-9-2, plus fifteen."

Behind my visor, I blinked. Where did you learn that? But, sure enough, there was a fuzzy target labeled behind us. “Huh. Got it."

“Blackjack to all units, sunrise." Our controller was now aboard a starship in a different orbit, at an inclination that kept the mining rig from intercepting it. That also meant they had a limited time on station before losing their direct line of sight, but that would be plenty long enough for the operation.

“We're linked," Leyte told me, before I could do it myself.

“Blackjack, new picture. Pop-up group. Bogeys, reference alpha, null plus seven hundred, 2-5-5 mark 4-7. Maneuvering for new track."

“Tagged," Leyte said, and told me what I already knew. “Forty-seven degrees is the rig's inclination." 'Bogeys,' in the plural, indicated contacts that were not known to be hostile, but neither of us were under any illusions that they might turn out to be tourists or joyriders.

“Blackjack, active units switch reference. Inbound track is assumed hostile. Swing and Wheel, commit group bullseye 1-7-0."

“Wheel 1-1, wilco." Kalija added her own acknowledgment shortly thereafter.

And then, half a minute later, said they had the targets locked: “Swing 1-1, judy, contact 1-7-0."

“Wheel 1-2, tally twelve plus, inbound."

Twelve became sixteen, and then twenty. The corporation's mercenaries had taken the bait, for what it was worth. They were still a good ten minutes away, but even as the distance closed they were clearly shifting their orbit. The only thing to figure out was whether they were going after the squadron, or us.

Five minutes to intercept, and the ambiguity vanished. “They're on us," I said aloud; only Leyte could hear.

“Figures," the husky replied. “Easier to go after the defenseless."

What remained was a careful dance. The enemy fighters were maneuvering to minimize their time in contact with our squadron: ideally they would pass through without a chance to exchange fire, allowing an unmolested attack run on the freighters. Kalija and Peterson adjusted their trajectory to match. Each commander was trying to anticipate their opponent's next move.

Only we stayed on course.

As the clock ticked down, the margins for open maneuvering began to shrink. Here, at last, we had good luck. The two groups would be within range for nearly seventy seconds. Under fire, the mercenaries would have to decide between pressing their attack on the freighters and delaying it to remove the threat our fighters posed.

I wanted them to delay. The longer they did so, the less time they or the mining rig would have to do anything about me and the Patapsco. Of course, the longer they delayed, the longer Kalija and Peterson needed to hold out.

Two minutes before intercepting us, the attackers merged with our squadron. Everything went to hell at once — dozens of new signals flashing into existence. Missiles. Countermeasures. The first fifteen seconds cost us three ships, and the mercenaries two.

Seeing an opportunity to wrap everything up cleanly, they broke off their attack on us and went for the fighters. Now that everyone was maneuvering erratically, another thirty seconds went by before the next friendly contact winked out. I set my jaw. There was nothing I could do.

Nothing except my mission. “Blackjack to Viking 1-1. Commit."

“Viking 1-1, committing." I was surprised at how easy it felt. More than that, at how much I'd been anticipating it. One switch flipped control of the Patapsco over to my joystick. I turned us onto our new course, and opened the freighter's throttle as far as it would go.

Nothing happens quickly in space. For a few seconds, little changed in our apparent trajectory. In the mess of the dogfight, our intentions went unnoticed. I counted to twenty in my head, then set the Valkyrie's engines to full power.

“Hold on, Leyte."

Twelve meganewtons of added thrust doubled down on the freighter's new heading. It also made us the brightest target around. “Blackjack to Viking, new picture. Bullseye 6-5 mark 7-0 for nine hundred, track inbound, hostile."

Six ships were trying to disengage from the melee and pursue us. “Blackjack, Viking. Contact."

“Blackjack to Swing 1-1, commit track 6-5 mark 7-0."

“Swing 1-1. Negative. Blackjack, Swing's engaged, defensive." Kalija and her pilots were fighting for their lives. There would be no help coming.

I hoped that neither of us would need it. Between the Patapsco's stardrive thrusters and the Valkyrie, there was no way they could catch us in time. And it meant six fighters who were no longer engaging our outmatched friends. That's good news, even. Right?

We still had a job to do, anyway. “In ninety seconds, we're going to disengage and fire our retrorockets. It'll be rough."

“I know," Leyte said. “I told you, I read the mission. You think they'll stay on the freighter, or on us?"

“With luck, the freighter." They'd probably realize the futility but hope for a miracle, as pilots were known to do. “Not that they can do much. Sixty seconds." I took a deep breath, checking our course again. The projection in my visor had us slamming straight into the rig.

“Collision alarm," the computer spoke up. Right on cue.

“Just lost another plane." Leyte's grim observation added a certain urgency to my mental countdown. Out of sixteen ships in the squadron, eleven were left. “No. Two."

“We'll get out of this," I muttered. “Thirty seconds."

With five seconds to go, I cut the Valkyrie's throttle. Now the only thing that could go wrong was a failure to separate from our mothership. But it worked flawlessly: we disconnected, I pulsed my maneuvering thrusters to give us some clearance, and the Patapsco accelerated away from us with a singleminded purpose to her mission.

“Blackjack, this is Viking. Our ship is away. One four zero seconds to impact." I wasn't going to stick around to wait, though: I pointed us retrograde and added some throttle to slow our orbit. It gave the pursuing fighters an opportunity for payback, but they didn't take it.

That was that, then. Re-entry would be simple enough. We'd have plenty of distance from the rig when it went up. No shockwaves in space, after all; only the radiation to worry about, and the Valkyrie had lots of shielding.

“The rig's moving."

I checked the tactical display. “They can't get out of the way in time." The Patapsco had been programmed to maintain an intercept course; I could clearly see its own trajectory shifting to match. The two lines still met.

“You're sure?"

“Yeah."

And then I saw what they were doing.

“Blackjack, Viking."

“Viking, go ahead."

My eyes were locked on the readout from my sensors. “Blackjack, the target is rotating about its axis. We were aiming for the stern. The stern's not going to be there."

“Viking, we still have a projected impact. Stand by."

I bit my tongue and watched the two ships come closer and closer. Our controller's prediction was accurate — they were going to hit. Surely. It'll be close, but — there it is! Come on! Come the fuck on!

The Patapsco struck amidships, slamming into the rig's superstructure and tearing a good chunk of it completely away. The freighter's icon vanished, replaced by a shower of debris. Most of her was still intact, probably, but not enough to be identified. The rest of it sailed on by; there'd be a hell of a meteor shower in a few days.

Stand by, Blackjack said again.

But the next voice was Kirk's. “This is Saber actual. Imaging says target is damaged, and in an uncontrolled clockwise spin. The reactor appears to be intact."

“Saber," I said. “This is Viking. Can they fix that?"

Uncomfortable silence. Seconds of it. Too many: five or ten, at least. “Saber. Yes. All units, abort. Blackjack, get our guys out of there."

Our guys. There were nine remaining. “What are we going to do?" Leyte asked.

“We can't press an attack," I said. “Not with what we have left." They might not even be able to run, but they certainly couldn't fight their way through the enemy fighter cover. And, I realized, all the heavy weapons had been removed from the starfighters in exchange for more light missiles. “But we've bought time."

“There has to be something," she insisted.

We were fresh out of kamikaze freighters. Nine harried fighters and me, and I was headed back for the surface in a hurry. One Valkyrie couldn't make a difference, anyway. Not in the furball, and not against the million tons of mining rig looming ugly and defiant in my tactical display.

Besides, we'd probably missed our chance. They'd have the reactor scrammed and the damage control parties fighting to get every safety system back online as a top priority. And even if I rammed it, we weren't likely to get through the shielding. Better to land, try to recover, and...

Wait a second. “Saber, this is Viking. I need to speak to Dr. Singh."

It didn't take long — everybody must've been watching us, with bated breath. “Speaking."

“Doctor, the reactor's probably shut down. What about the capacitors?"

Singh kept the channel open, in breach of radio protocol, and I could hear him humming for a few seconds. “Ah! Yes... I think. With any safety systems compromised, damaging the capacitors could cause a chain reaction. Yes."

“What would they do to stop that?"

“The easiest way to discharge them would be to fire the weapon. I imagine they'll do that as soon as they're angled at deep space." Firing it at the planet was a nonstarter — they only had one chance to use the rig before being sanctioned, and they wouldn't waste it recklessly.

“Until then they're vulnerable."

“This is Saber actual. Technically, yes. But they'll be clear of the horizon in less than four minutes, and our strike package can't make the intercept."

I didn't even need to run the numbers. Twelve years in a cockpit, and you learn calculations like that by heart. I knew how a Valk moved as well as I knew my own stride. “I can."

“Viking — Ben — there's no support available, and Dr. Singh is shaking his head. He says... if that reactor goes up, you'll have fractions of a second to get clear. Which means you wouldn't."

“Understood," I said.

For the first time in a good, long while I wished I had Mara around to give me the odds. He'd told me once that he overstated them, to keep me confident. We get in a lot of trouble, after all, he'd laughed. But you like that.

“Saber, this is Viking. I'm committing." I flipped the Valkyrie over, pointing the sharp nose in the direction of the rig's course, and pushed the throttle forward to the stop. I heard Kirk acknowledge me, and in the quiet that followed, my brain flashing a delayed alarm. Oh, fuck. “Leyte."

“What?"

“I... I told your mother I'd keep you safe."

“I know."

I felt my ears flatten in my helmet, as far as they were able. “I'm sorry." Silence. But I didn't know what else to say. “I —"

“You made the right choice. I'm with you. Let me help."

Not the answer I expected; not the answer I wanted, either. “Leyte..."

“Are we doing this or not? You said you were committing."

I realized there was no point in the argument. Further apologies changed nothing. She thought she knew what she was doing, and even if she didn't it was better than being on my own. “Fine. You're up. Talk to me."

“The mining rig is track kilo-four. Intercept in 1-6-0 seconds. The six bandits following us earlier are at your twelve, ten up, constant range. Low threat."

“Primary target kilo-four; profile."

“Going active. Good contact, left twenty, down five. Range 8-2-5. EM nominal. No signals."

One of the few things going for us: the rig was too busy, or too damaged, to have its defensive systems up. “The capacitor banks are in the fins to either side of the bow. Two matched pairs. We need to be able to hit those."

“Hold on. I... can do that, I think."

“You think?"

“The sensors are still a little blurry. It wasn't like this in the sim."

“It's pretty far away. You're doing fine," I added belatedly. “Take your time."

Not that we had a lot of it, but I wasn't going to get anything out of stressing her. “Okay. I see them. Good match to the profile in our database. Um. They're actually inboard of the fins. The fins are for radiative cooling."

“Good work. Now we have two questions. One, can we hit them? Two, can we hit them from behind?"

“You want to cross over the rig, turn around, and shoot?"

“I'd rather not fly into an explosion, so yes."

Leyte went quiet for another few seconds. “First question: yes. Second question... do you trust me? In the sims, the pilot always trusts you."

“We're not in a sim."

“That's why I asked. Throttle to 70% for fifteen seconds."

I pulled it back, and our rate of acceleration slowed down a bit. We didn't slow down — inertia's good for that — but it did what Leyte wanted, because fifteen seconds later the husky told me to throttle up again.

“Okay. First, those six bandits earlier are now at decreasing range, right ten, up thirty. They can't get us in time."

“Tag 'em anyway."

If I looked in that direction, they were highlighted by a dimly glowing box; the Valkyrie's sensors would periodically reassess the fighters to keep Leyte and I informed. “Done. Now: if you flip ten seconds before intercept, you can get a clear line of sight on the port ventral bank. The catch is... the window's under sixty milliseconds. Right now, that intercept is going to be at nine kilometers a second."

“Understood."

She cleared her throat. “And in the sim, ah, a missile takes a hundred milliseconds to come off the rail."

“Quick lesson for you, then. When we flip, we'll salvo the missiles immediately and you can program them for an appropriate delay. We won't be burning. A body in motion stays in motion, right?"

“Oh! Good point, right. Thanks."

“You can do it?" We had sixty seconds to the maneuver.

Fifty-five. Fifty. “Done. How accurate can you be when you point us at them?"

Leyte was behind me, so she couldn't see me grin, but that was a challenge I was ready for. “Watch me."

“Right." She switched on the radio, taking over and letting me focus on flying. “Viking 1-1, in hot, thirty seconds. Stand by radiation shields."

I'd get to that too, but I still had work to do. Fifteen seconds. There's a button on a Valkyrie's joystick that unlocks the computer-aided control restrictions. When you hold it, the cockpit lights go red. You're supposed to disconnect the limiters cautiously.

Me, trouble-loving dog that I was, I mashed the button in, counted the last seconds down, and hauled us around sharply. The mining rig expanded quickly in my field of view. It was an ugly thing, as befit an ugly mission. “Leyte?"

“Ready. Shoot."

I pulled the trigger. The missiles dropped away. A few seconds later their motors fired, and as soon as they were clear I twisted us around, put our stern to the rig, and firewalled the throttle. An unwinding circle in my visor tracked the time to impact.

We didn't have much of it, and there was a lot of distance to cover. “Three. Two."

At one, I found the bank of switches under my left paw and flipped them by instinct. “NARA-4. Hold on." Nuclear and Radiological Amelioration, at its maximum strength. The skin of the Valkyrie turned white. Reflective shields dropped over the cockpit and our exposed sensors.

It wouldn't really matter; that kind of obliteration generally happens at the speed of light. Realizing I was still alive meant we'd made it. My only regret was that we were blind — we'd had the best seat in the house, except for the six corporate fighters on our tail.

And they probably would've swapped places, given the chance.

We had four missiles, and all four hit — sixty milliseconds is nothing to a Valkyrie crew with a nose for it. Four high-explosive warheads, and a lot of angry kinetic energy, slammed straight into the exposed capacitor bank.

To its credit, it didn't go up. It didn't have to. The capacitors discharged instead, right into the rig's power grid. It tried to energize the coils of the railgun, whose safeties were still engaged… but they'd been designed for the load of a mining installation, not a weapon of mass destruction. A fraction of a second later, while my finger was still holding the NARA switch, they failed. The power line fused — open.

With the regulators gone there was nothing to stop the antimatter reactor from trying to oblige the demand on it. The rig's damage control teams wouldn't even have had the time to realize what was happening, let alone to keep it in one piece.

Antimatter reactors are as powerful as you can get, but not terribly efficient. They throw out a lot of energy that you can't really harness. Neutrinos, for one. Leyte was telling me that even with our radiation shields in place, enough of the tiny things managed to get through that we could detect them. It gave her what she needed for a rough estimate.

“Six exajoules," she said. She was quick with numbers. “Plus/minus two."

Annihilating forty kilograms may not have been efficient, but it sure made up for that in dramatic effect. “How's ambient? You want sensors back?"

“We should be fine."

There were no caution lights flashing, either. I switched the NARA protection off, and the starfighter's imaging sensors came back to life. I couldn't see anything. “Where's the rig?"

“Six exajoules," the husky repeated. “Give or take."

“Anybody else?"

“Nobody in the mood. I can't see those six bandits that were coming for us, and the ones merged with our fighters are disengaging."

“Don't know where they think they're going…" Unlike our ships, they didn't have a friendly carrier waiting. It would be a long trip back out to the belt. Shoulda stayed there in the first place. “What about our guys?"

It'll cost, Mara had said. Out of sixteen ships, there were only transponder signals for seven.

We were the first to land. I took us back to Third Chance; there didn't seem to be any reason to stay clear of it, now that the corporation had lost their big guns. It wasn't what Kalija ordered, but I'd already given her plenty to be mad about.

The field was clear when we touched down. No sooner had I killed the engines and secured the reactor, though, than I started to see the figures emerging. From the empty revetments where they'd been watching, and the barracks, and the offices.

General Kirk stood in front of an audience that had swelled to the hundreds by the time I got the canopy open. I hopped to the ground quickly, hoping to avoid their attention. Kirk waited until Leyte had made it out, too.

“Welcome home," Kirk said. “Passing along a couple high-priority messages from command. You," she pointed to my companion. “You're grounded. You, Mr. Benjamin…" The general took a deep breath. Then she hugged me, and the crowd surged forward, and if she said anything else I didn't have a chance in hell of hearing it.

We turned out again — every last person in town — eighteen hours later when the recovery freighter entered orbit and the seven remaining starfighters made their final approach, joined by a pair of escorts. None of the pilots, not one, managed to get to the ground before they were lifted back aloft by the hands of the grateful throng.

It took half an hour before I was able to break free, and another ten minutes before the others joined me in the operations center. A battle map was still up, although thankfully quiet, but Kirk had added in a different report: communications traffic in the sector.

“The word's out. A Starlight-aligned agency called it first: 'terrorists attacking the mining installation Vulcan Webb-Burkhardt were driven back with heavy losses.' Unfortunately, the rig, ah 'sustained damage and needed to be scuttled.'" Kirk used her fingers to quote the word 'scuttled.' “Confederate news is calling it an 'incursion' by DDK that was 'checked' by — wait for it — 'forces loyal to the government of the Black Hills Free State.'"

It wasn't exactly a subtle difference in wording. “If you're the government, maybe they won't ask for the planes back, captain."

Kalija jerked her head away from the news report to glare at me. “We're not on speaking terms."

“I can't blame you. But you should know —"

“What did I just say?"

“— She did an amazing job. Sharp as a tack. Incredibly brave, and a natural in the cockpit. You should be proud she takes so closely after you, captain. That's all."

The dog narrowed her eyes. “We're not on speaking terms," she repeated, but looked away to hide the slight grin that crept across her muzzle. “General Kirk, please convey my thanks to Mr. Benjamin."

“Mr. Benjamin," the human said slowly. “Captain Kalija conveys her thanks."

“I'll lift our speaking embargo later. General, we have a couple of visitors waiting outside. Captain Artemyena and Starshina Bykov, from the Orion navy — guests who just, ah, happened to be aboard the freighter as military observers. They think they can be of help."

“Very well. Ben, you're dismissed."

Mara was hanging around outside, too. He was trying to make conversation with two stony-faced sailors, but seemed happy for an excuse to break away. So did the sailors — a human man and an officer who looked, to my eyes, an awful lot like a wolf. The Confederacy wasn't the only civilization to use moreaus, of course, though the Soviets were so reclusive I tended to forget.

“They know it won't be the last we hear of the miners," Mara explained as we walked off. “So we share a common enemy — from what I could get out of comrade fuzzy there. Humans are so much easier to talk to."

“Oh, yeah. Cat's best friend."

Mara chuckled. “Don't go too far. Speaking of that, Tabby wants to be ready, with or without help. There's a 35% chance DDK hits back inside three months, and a 90% chance they do it within the year. Once the Free State has a real civilian government again, they'll need a real defense force. I know that you're retired, but if you ever had the hankering…"

I could hear the Valkyrie calling. Why bother denying it? “Hey, Mara?"

The black feline glanced over at me. “What?"

“You told me once that you played up my odds. To, uh, give me confidence."

He laughed, patting my shoulder. “Oh, that. I did. Yes."

“What were they really, on that mission? What did you really think?"

We had reached the end of the hallway, and were at the door that led to the outside. But Mara stopped. The smile faded, and he became utterly serious. His paw stayed in place. “Doesn't matter. You want to know something, Benny? Every time I gave you the odds, good or bad, I was betting on you, too. Always."

“Even this time?"

“Even this time. Turned out good. Heck, I could buy a yacht and 'retire' just like you." Then he laughed again. For a moment I thought the spell had been broken. And then I thought about what my friend was saying, between the lines of his mirthful capriciousness.

I nudged the door open. The flight line was still obscured by a tumultuous crowd, and though the first stars were coming out there was no indication they had any intent of stopping before the dawn. One of the revelers broke free, jogging over to meet us. “Hey!"

“Hey, Samiya," Mara said.

Sam grinned at the two of us, although her next words were aimed at me. “Ben. I have to say… you told me you were a pilot. I didn't know you were that pilot."

“At the time, I didn't know I was that pilot either."

Satisfied with the answer, she laughed, and hugged me and then Mara. “Well, welcome back. And thanks. I'm glad you're here."

She rejoined the crowd; I had half a mind to do the same. “I could retire, Mara. We both could. Or…"

“Or?"

“Or maybe we could stick around?"

“Yeah. And, you know…"

“Get into some trouble?"

“Exactly."