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Intragalactic politics! But, you know, also wolf porn.

This season ends on a cliffhanger, and not just the kind where it takes me forever to actually get something posted. Sorry about that! Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

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

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Tales of the Dark Horse, by Rob Baird

S5E5, "Adaptations"

Stardate 67426

"47 nanozuris and falling. 42. 36."

Goggles hid Shannon Hazelton's narrowed eyes, but not the tooth-baring curl of the raccoon's lip. "Adjust the isometric resonator coherence by .1."

The resonator control panel didn't like it when Kimura tried that. "We're at coherence limits, ma'am. Stability is down to 31 nanozuris. 28. 27." The experiment cutoff was 25 nanozuris, and Kimura knew Hazelton well enough to guess the raccoon would keep going past that.

To the red panda's credit, Shannon considered it. But what was the point? Shaking her head, she switched off the modifications they'd been testing. Immediately, deflector stability jumped back into safe territory. "It's these old electronics," she muttered. Ordinarily the age of the Dark Horse made her systems an intriguing challenge--sometimes, though, they were nothing but a source of aggravation. "Damn it. We need to get the jamming system working before the Pictor show up again."

"Well... we have headroom to increase the modulator frequency," Kimura pointed out. "Maybe that's worth a shot?"

There was only one way to find out, which would be testing the idea. "Maybe," Shannon allowed, but they were already close to the limits at which the frequency could be instantaneously adjusted.

Kimura saw the problem at once when the chief engineer started to explain it. "How do we increase the coherence, then? I was wondering if we could use the LRU to stabilize the field modulation, but when I modeled it the destructive interference is unpredictable."

"That makes sense," Hazelton said. "But you could eliminate that by matching the confinement parameters..." She was beginning to get an idea, in parlance, and hoping she might anticipate Kimura's objection.

She did: "In simulations, yes, ma'am. But, in simulations, you don't have to guess at the LRU's geometry. Losses from component wear, or misalignment, or whatever else..."

"You could measure that with an N/F scope, though."

"Yes," the red panda agreed. "But I left mine at Leonardo."

Hazelton grinned, back in a good mood already. "Funny story about that, Ms. Kimura!"

***

Captain's personal log, stardate 67426.5

It's been over two weeks since Lieutenant Commander Munro returned from her mission in Pictor space. The ship is in top condition--the engineering department and our tactical officers assure me that data collected from the Tempest can already be used to enhance our readiness. Now the question remains: readiness for what_?_

Efforts to contact the Admiralty have so far been unsuccessful. We continue to try extending the range of our communications systems, and relaying messages through our Dominion proxies, but until we hear back from Admiral Mercure, we're operating in the dark. For once, I'd almost prefer to have the Star Patrol meddling, but ...

"Please tell me that we got lucky with the last transmission?"

Dr. Beltran had finished scanning through it: unsurprisingly, given the Dominion, nearly all of the messages were simple tactical reports. "Unfortunately not, captain. There is no reply from the Admiralty, and worse news from Garakhav."

Commander Bradley exchanged glances with the captain. "How? How can news from the Dominion possibly be getting worse?"

"The Pictor attempted to open diplomatic relations with the Neviin Pride. This overture was rejected, according to Matriarch Kenra. Since then, Pictor ships seem to have engaged targets of opportunity: remote Dominion vessels, chiefly, and perhaps one starbase--too recently for the details to be clear."

"And the Dominion's response?"

"Uncoordinated, thus far."

Lieutenant Vasquez wasn't sure if he should clear his throat, or raise his paw, or simply start talking; he settled for the former. "May I speak freely, captain?"

"You don't have to ask," the Akita assured him. "What's on your mind?"

"Based on what I know about the Dominion, we should counsel restraint. The Pictor are trying to bait them into the taking the first shot. They almost certainly don't yet know the full extent of Uxzu territory or the disposition of their fleets."

Dave rubbed his temple. "And the Uxzu will attack. They're not good at being patient. Captain, he's right: the Uxzu should be on a defensive footing... uh. Inwardly offensive? Dr. Beltran?"

Their diplomat smiled, albeit only for a moment before she regained her composure, at Bradley's accurate appraisal of Uxzu character. "Their military should be advised to take precautions against an aggressive foe so that when, overconfident, they finally strike, vengeance can be exacted swiftly. Carrying the hunt within Pictor territory can wait until they are on the retreat--some phrasing like that, commander."

"Draft something and run it by Commander Bradley when you're ready," Maddy ordered. "He can put the right spin on it. Do we know what the Pictor have in the sector?"

Trying to estimate that had been Vasquez's job, complicated by the tendency of Dominion captains to take liberties in reporting the number and skill of their foes. "Based on the number of confirmed attacks, it's likely to be a small task force. Two or three capital ships, splitting up occasionally when they need to. No more than two large vessels have been seen at a time. I'd like to run some further tactical analyses, though."

"Right. Ask Ensign Bader for assistance. He'd like that, I'm sure." This conclusion was a simple one--for that matter, she assumed the shepherd was already running his own analyses. The rest of what May felt, though, was unease. It seemed to her that the Pictor were still weighing their options--they might decide to pull back to their home territory, or they might return in full force. "We need to hear back from the Admiralty. Dave, what about engineering?"

"The new damage-control systems are installed and working at full capacity. The experimental transmitter Dr. Schatz is working on has experienced some setbacks. He says he can be ready for another test in three days, working around the clock."

The Border Collie would do that--May and Bradley were right to assume he was, in fact. It couldn't be sustained indefinitely. "I expect regular reports, Dave. On him, and his sleep schedule. What about the shields?"

Bradley coughed. "Maybe later, Maddy."

She sighed, looking to Beltran and Vasquez. "Anything else? You're dismissed, then--I'd like the message to the Uxzu ready by the next comms window."

Vasquez offered to help; Beltran nodded her assent, and the two left the ready room. Dave called up the message he'd received from Shannon Hazelton, rereading it on his datapad. "How much do you know about the shields, Maddy?"

"Shannon was excited. I suppose that should've worried me, Dave?"

"Maybe. She's asked for permission to run another high-current line to the forward sensor array. They want to try doubling the power to the LRU."

"Why?" Rather than answering, Dave snapped his wrist, flinging the schematics of the engineering team's prototype into the air above the table in the ready room. They were dense with commentary, some of which was decidedly more coherent than others.

LT Hazelton: Kedion flux will produce a polarity inversion if the PNE vanes saturate. Need to clamp flux below .075--add HF coupler to the tertiary controller? Neither Dave nor Madison understood the details of the objection, but in broad strokes it made sense.

So did their newest engineer's reply: CWO Kimura: The 3N and 3J lines aren't insulated against kedion spalling. Is there thermal tolerance in the bay if they're coated? Little concerned about that.

S/N Wallace: want that gamma isolator extra-spicy huh? TJ had circled what appeared to be a random component, deep within one of the other subsystems that were part of the experiment. For emphasis, he'd also added some sparks around the words 'extra-spicy.'

May got the idea. "You're worried about what they might destroy in their otherwise-commendable excitement?"

"Pretty much. They've also requested outside observation from the Tempest to see how well everything works. Before I approve the work order, I at least wanted to talk to you about it. I'd ask Dr. Schatz, but I don't want to distract him."

"No, that's fair enough. Why don't you go monitor their next test, just in case?" Maddy tended to be more sympathetic to Hazelton than her XO--but both of them well understood that, when people called discretion the better part of valor, the raccoon did not produce the former naturally and required regular supplements.

"On it. If it looks good, Commander Munro should be able to use the Tempest's sensors to judge how effective we'll be at hiding from the Pictor's sensors. We should approve that mission, too."

"If," she reminded him.

"Trust me. I know."

***

Of both tactical officers on the cruiser, Leon Bader was most adept at using the ship's weapons. Chief Petty Officer Valerie Smith, though, had a minor in military history: when Lieutenant Vasquez wanted advice, Bader had sent him to the painted dog without hesitation.

And Chief Smith was happy to have her expertise called upon, even if her shift had been nearing its end. Two hours of reviewing reports from the Dominion followed, interrupted only by the sound of the door to Auxiliary Tactical Control sliding open.

Mitch Alexander, who had better things to do anyway, intended the interruption to be brief. "Hey. I have some data from the engineering team here..." she held out a chip for Smith to take. "For the test tomorrow, if the XO approves."

Chief Smith plugged the chip in, waiting for the information to start downloading. "What is it?"

"All the EM parameters they're using. We'll rig the Tempest up the same way and observe from the outside, but Hazelton thought everybody should be using the same baseline, right?"

That made sense; reconfiguring the tactical sensors would only take a few seconds when the time came--the data was extremely thorough. "Thanks. It'll be a minute or so to grab all this, spaceman."

"No rush; I don't need the chip back. See ya, pups." The Abyssinian flashed a smile and, tail waving, slipped back into the corridor.

Vasquez watched her disappear. Mitch's tunic was slightly too short, and her pants had been meant for the ship's gym. And her demeanor--the wolf shook his head, trying to figure out how he was meant to respond. "'Pups'?"

"Ah, she's off-duty," Smith reassured him.

"So am I. Sometimes I think I don't really fit in here."

"And you want to?" The painted dog had become aware, thanks to Spaceman Alexander's appearance, that she was also no longer technically working. And the transfer had almost finished.

"I mean... kind of, yes."

She pocketed the chip and powered her console off. "Come on, then."

"Where are we going?"

Valerie was already halfway out the door, and Vasquez had to hurry to catch up. "My quarters. We don't need anything in Auxiliary Tactical, anyway, right?" It had just been convenient, since the displays and controls had been designed for tactical and strategic analysis.

"Yes..." The wolf wasn't completely clear on Smith's intent. Her room, though--private accommodation was one upside of the ship being undercrewed--didn't take long to reach. "And instead we needed..."

"I wanted to get you alone, that's all." She brought up the lights and cleared off space to free up a chair. "I have since you came aboard."

"Dare I ask why?"

"You're ISD, right, lieutenant?"

Using a simple acronym was one of the more polite ways to refer to the Internal Security Department, and he'd made no secret of who he worked for. "Yes."

"Career Star Patrol, then."

"As long as they'll have me."

Valerie's formal training in tactics and strategy hadn't let her size the wolf up as well as she'd wanted, and his behavior hadn't done an especially good job of clarifying things. "But you want to fit in here. On the Dark Horse."

"I don't think that's too surprising," Vasquez countered. "It's an interesting mission, and if it doesn't necessarily look good to the promotion board, I think Admiral Mercure will put a good word in for me."

She tried to think of the best way to proceed. Example. Demonstrate by example. "I had a reputation on my last ship for being a bit of a... a rogue. A bit sloppy with regulations."

"Like Spaceman Alexander, you mean?"

Valerie opened the locker under the cabin's table, pulling out two glasses and a bottle of swirling, opalescent liquid. "Like this."

"Corian brandy?"

It was not from Coria--the name came from the way it glowed like Corian firestone, in proper lighting--but the distillery was one of the best in the Ademixia Sector. "Kenarish," she said, turning the label for him to read.

Vasquez didn't recognize the name, but he nodded anyway, and didn't object when she filled both glasses. "So you have some smuggled alcohol..."

"Right. On the Constellation, we got some rumors about a pirate base. The captain wanted to go after them; Admiral Evans said 'no'--not without proof. But we weren't allowed to investigate, either."

"I imagine you were under pressure to keep the reports of pirate activity down in your sector?"

Whatever else the ISD might be accused of, Valerie thought, at least some of them were perceptive. "Cheers," she said, lifting her glass and allowing herself a sip of the sweet liquor. "I accidentally misconfigured a probe and while we were chasing it down, we stumbled across some interesting signals. It was not good for Admiral Evans' numbers."

"But you cleaned the pirates out?"

"We did. My captain defended the mistake of a simple turret captain, bless him, but... we agreed that--since our task force was being disbanded anyway--it might be good if I spent some time away from home. Here."

"Right."

"This ship also has a reputation. I thought it could be a good fit. Because I'm... well..." She held up her glass, rocking it back and forth until the brandy sparked and started to glow.

"You must fit in well enough," he pointed out. "You haven't transferred."

"I was doing inventory and it looked like one of the engineers had taken a couple of live rounds from the armory. Obviously, that's worrying. So I did what anyone would do: I took it to the XO."

"What happened?"

"They had taken two rounds, and forged the chief engineer's signature."

"Uh-oh."

"To build a still."

Vasquez blinked. "What?"

"So they could synthesize some solvents."

"Solvents."

"To clean spare parts."

"But--"

"For an alien scanning device."

"An alien--"

"A high-precision electromagnetic scope."

"Uh."

"To give to the chief engineer. On her birthday."

"Her... but..."

"That's why they forged her signature." Valerie took a long drink, eyeing his expression with a grin. "So me and my reputation... I'm suddenly the one normal woman here. Even the diplomat--Dr. Beltran--people tell me she used to be completely by-the-book. Quoting regulations all the time. And now?"

Vasquez had met a Felicia Beltran long-since tempered by her tour on the Dark Horse. "She doesn't seem that way..."

"No. And you, you're ISD. When you came on, I thought... maybe you were a spy, after their last inside man got turned. If Beltran even was an inside man? I don't know. I don't know you, either. And you want to assimilate!"

The wolf savored his brandy. "I'm not a spy, at least. How do you fit in?"

"I believe in the mission, and I've learned that Captain May is our best hope for getting it done. The rest of it, I sort of... well, I put up with it. That's my advice for you."

"Start baring my midriff?"

"Well. Just roll with it. That makes everything easier."

***

"You're late." Ciara had spent the better part of an hour waiting in the ship's mess for her friend. Fortunately their rations were just as palatable after the delay, and she hadn't really wanted to eat anyway.

"Sorry. The first officer showed up to inspect our project. He wanted a pretty thorough walkthrough. We're all good for the experiment you'll be helping us with, though, though."

"Yeah? He was happy?"

"I hope so." Kimura's opinion on Commander Bradley had changed rapidly since reporting aboard. The red panda no longer saw him as a typical, obstructive Star Patrol bureaucrat. None of them were, and it made for a truly refreshing change of pace. "He seemed to understand what we were doing."

"Which is? I haven't been exactly clear about that."

"Optimizing our deflector shields to improve their performance against the Pictor. I'm sort of adapting tech from the Tempest--basically, if we adjust the deflector frequency precisely enough, we can use that to jam their terminal sensors."

Ciara could only guess at the principle of the idea; she had no idea how practical it might be. "Does that work?"

"Kinda. Lieutenant Hazelton has been wanting to upgrade the shields for a while, but we run into the same problem with not being able to shift frequency fast enough. We're using an older sub-system to compensate."

"Does... that work?"

"Right now, it's a little imperfect. We think we're not giving the LRU enough power. Hazelton thought doubling the input energy would do the trick."

Of course, Ciara knew, Hazelton--like May--saw that as a ready solution for many problems. It was suddenly also obvious why the first officer had been compelled to investigate the proceedings. "Does that work?"

"It does! We ran the experiment with Commander Bradley watching. No problems at all! And best of all? We more than make up for it by increasing the shield efficiency."

Munro caught glimpses of the red panda's ringed tail, swaying back and forth. Kiko's mood was a little infectious, and the vixen grinned. "You sound like you're having fun."

"You don't even know it. It's so different from RCL." She was even willing to put up with the food--scarcely noticed the face the other crew gave the synthesizer's new 'recipes,' or the oddly gritty feeling of the 'tofu' she popped into her mouth. "And they said RCL was 'different,' too."

"Lies," Ciara guessed.

"Lies. I almost hope we can't make the transmitter work. What if they find out I'm here and call me back?"

"Admiral Mercure will take care of you, Kiko. I'm sure of it."

"He'd better. It's like I transferred into some... parallel universe where the Star Patrol is actually competent. No way am I going back."

Ciara indicated with a chopstick to where, subconsciously, Kimura had piled enough artificial kimchee on her next bit of tofu to temper the former's disconcerting taste and the latter's disconcerting texture. "Even considering..."

"Even. They could give me a private chef and I'd stay here eating these rations. I hope they're rations, at least." She took the bite decisively, and ignored how long it took her to chew the kimchee into submission. "What about you? Next mission? Get some quality time with your girlfriend?"

Ciara glared. "Alexander? She's not my girlfriend. Just someone who sees me as a... challenge." The vixen had a healthy respect for Mitch's talent with old electronics, and substantially greater bemusement at the way it translated into the Abyssinian's bizarre form of flirting. "And needs better hobbies."

"She is on the roster for the test flight tomorrow, though. Right?"

"The most qualified. You two would probably get along," the vixen suggested, eyes narrowing. "If you were curious."

"Nah. Don't look at me. Point her at Pancho if she needs a new project."

Her friend was too distracted to catch the wink, and took the red panda at her word. "What, Vasquez? He does seem like he could use it..."

"Good luck. He's in his own world."

"Even better, then. Maybe she can take the edge off before our next long-range mission." Otherwise, the vixen was already beginning to brace herself for a lengthy bout of teasing. "Calm her down, or something."

"Maybe." Kimura had known Vasquez long enough that she doubted the odds of success, and it took even less time knowing Mitch Alexander to doubt anything would calm the Abyssinian. "When is that?"

"Not until we hear back from the Admiralty, probably. Lieutenant Vasquez has a list of priority systems we could investigate, if they say the word."

"The Admiralty? I heard we hadn't had any luck contacting them."

"Not yet. We'll keep trying."

"Yeah." Kimura fell silent. "Just remember: I'm required to run our new particle beams. Absolutely necessary. And--oh! Right. It makes no tactical sense to send the Tempest all the way back to Confed space for another crew transfer."

"To Research Center Leonardo, say..."

"I mean... anywhere." She shrugged, although of course they both knew what had been meant. "But, as a senior officer--yeah? You like that?" She gave her old friend a wink.

"It's a nice touch."

Kimura snickered. "Good. As a senior officer, your counsel on tactical matters like that is critical. You have to sign off on the mission, after all."

Ciara laughed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "Your devotion to tactical wisdom is noted--as a senior officer. I'll make sure it factors into my assessment."

***

"Elevated energy readings from the LRU," Spaceman Alexander reported. "They must be beginning the test."

Munro nodded. They had an open channel from Hazelton's engineering team on the Dark Horse, although the vixen had kept their own transmitter muted--there was no telling what Alexander was liable to say unprompted.

"Hey, Tempest," Shannon called over. "We're starting."

Mitch indicated the transmitter control, and Munro nodded again, turning it on. "Understood," the Abysinnian reported back. "We show energy readings increasing in the LRU. It's all still within the models you gave us."

"Can you confirm we have no anomalous readings from the isolators, either?"

"Nothing."

"Great. Proceeding, then."

The Tempest fell back into silence. After a minute, Ciara reached over to cut their microphone again. "Do you have an idea about what they're doing?"

That was a dangerous question, although Ciara didn't know that as well as Mitch. "How's your cyclic field theory?"

"Not great. Chief Kimura tried to explain it to me, but it all kind of went over my head."

"Okay. Well, when something like our deflector shield changes frequency, energy is involved, proportional to the cube of the field volume. If you change it very quickly, that starts to build up, and it collapses the stability of the generators. Shannon wants to change it very, very quickly."

"Generating a lot of energy."

"Generating and consuming. The LRU is also a cyclic generator, and it was designed for quick remodulation. So they want to use it to sort of bootstrap and smooth out the other changes. But, uh, the LRU is low-power by definition."

A definition that, Ciara immediately understood, did not matter much to the raccoon. "So it might explode, is what you're telling me?"

"Well, there's a bunch of safeties designed to prevent that."

On cue, Lieutenant Hazelton reported that she was shutting down the repulsor's safety systems. Mitch kept an eye on the readouts, but none of them seemed threatening. Their chief engineer must not have seen anything of any concern, herself: "in ten seconds. Five. New settings are online... now."

"Everything looks stable from here." Spaceman Alexander turned towards her pilot, waiting. "Our turn. If their calculations are correct, when the LRU saturates... ideally, we're gonna see nothing at all."

It was time, then, for Munro's part of the experiment. She reconfigured the Tempest's sensor array to match what they'd seen from spying on the Pictor, emulating what their foe would see. "Ready whenever, lieutenant."

Two seconds later, the Dark Horse disappeared. The speed at which it happened was shocking. Munro ran through their full set of scans, while at her own console Mitch pored over raw data from the readouts. "At least 90 decibels of attenuation. Maybe try increasing the bandwidth?"

"We're at our limits. Can we see them at all?"

Knowing the cruiser was supposed to be there helped. "Just little flickers. Wait..." She applied a filter to the sensor input, and a firefly-tiny dot appeared, racing in a swift orbit. "There. Some minor variance, traveling over the shield bubble. That's what we're seeing."

"That's it?"

"Not bad, vix, huh?"

It wasn't bad at all. "Are you getting our telemetry?" Munro asked. "You've basically completely vanished."

"I knew it would work," Shannon answered--overselling her luck slightly, the two aboard the Tempest assumed, although neither cared given the inarguable results. "I'll see if we can't take care of that ghost... Probably some interference from these old Grant units, if I had to guess, but..."

And it, too, disappeared. "Good job," the vixen said, impressed. "We can't see anything over here. I'll keep trying." She muted the channel, turning towards her companion. "You have any ideas for what to do next?"

"While we wait?" She stuck out her tongue. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Not... that's not--you know." Ciara decided it was as good a time as any to offer a different victim. "Have you thought about your... progress? In this..." she waved her paw in the air between the two of them. "Experiment?"

Mitch smirked. "You're just fun to hang out with, vix."

"And you want to wear me down. Yeah, I see that grin. Look: what about... oh, I don't know. What about Lieutenant Vasquez? He seems like he could be challenging, right?"

The Abyssinian pushed herself away from the chair, rolling her eyes. "He's a wolf. I've told you before: wolves are easy mode."

"You think you can work your..." Ciara debated the right phrase. "Are these feminine wiles, spaceman? Do they even count as wiles? Whatever--you think you can work them on an ISD operative?"

"Wolf," Mitch repeated. "You just have to know their buttons."

"Uh-huh..."

"Oh, you're doubting me? I can give you some pointers when we're back aboard."

"That's not what I meant!"

Mitch ignored her, grinning cheekily. "For now, we have work to do. Let's try recalibrating the lateral arrays. We should check to see if the baseline's changed any. I don't think so, but..."

***

Mitchell Alexander's personal log, stardate 67429.8

The things I do for love!

She pressed the bell for the lieutenant's door, clasped her paws before her, and waited. Vasquez took a minute to answer; his uniform was slightly askew, and Mitch correctly guessed that he'd just barely pulled it on. "Spaceman?"

Her stance accentuated the Abyssinian's comparatively short stature more than usual. Mitch smiled, turning her head up to face the wolf, and produced the data chip from behind her back. "Commander Munro asked me to give you these. Data from the test, sir."

Vasquez was not a computer scientist, and he didn't really know what the vixen might've wanted him to see. "Did she say why?"

She shook her head. "No, sir. Do you mind if I explain the data?"

He thought over how long he had until his next shift. Plenty of time for sleep, the wolf decided, and stepped back to let her into his quarters. "All the information I have on the Pictor is part of the shared database..."

Mitch shrugged lightly, and waited for him to sit down at his computer. She stood next to him, leaning closer when he connected the chip and the data began to transfer. "All told, we ran about twenty scenarios. They're all in this format..."

She gestured to the first experiment's logs, and she did so in a way that momentarily brushed her paw against his. This, Vasquez chalked up to happenstance--but the ruddy feline was very close to him, and it took some effort not to be distracted by that. "Are the parameters documented?"

"Hmm..." Mitch scrolled through the reports, paying close attention--both to them, and to the wolf's reaction at her movements. "You might have to ask Lieutenant Hazelton. Or I could do that for you, sir? If it would help?"

Turning the way she did put only a few centimeters between her muzzle and his. Vasquez felt almost certain that this was deliberate, and had anyone warned him about the Abyssinian beyond Smith's "roll with it," he would've understood precisely what was going on. As it stood, he accorded her more decency than Alexander had ever earned. "I'll do that in the morning, I think."

"Of course." She nodded and stood straight, her paw lightly brushing his arm one last time--almost too faint to be called a touch. Vasquez's ear flicked, though, so he'd felt it, and she smiled her most innocent, winning smile. "I'll let you be, then, sir, if there's nothing else?"

"Nothing else, spaceman."

Back in the corridor, she evaluated the encounter with the focus of a mission debrief. Vasquez had reacted--subtly, to be sure, but he'd reacted. He hadn't tried to escalate, no... but he hadn't shut her down, either. No. It would, as she'd thought, be quite easy.

The Tempest's gangway was down, and the interior lights were still on. Ciara leaned around the corner to see who had joined her. "Back so soon?"

"How long is it supposed to take?"

After the successful mission, the vixen's good spirits were all but irrepressible. Unbecoming of an officer as it might've been, she met the Abyssinian's grin in kind. "He didn't bite, did he?"

"He will. I told you, vix: wolves can be very, very straightforward."

Ciara made a point of glancing around the cabin, and then indicating Mitch with the flat of her palm. "And yet you're here. Isn't it supposed to take half an hour or something? I heard that somewhere."

"Just 'heard'? You haven't got yourself tied?" Ciara arched her brows dryly at the feline. "What? You could've gone through a... phase, or something. Right?"

"I didn't."

"Fair enough. It's been a while for me, too." Before the Dark Horse, at least--probably a year or two before that. Something else she could probably use to her advantage, though having now seen Vasquez up close and personal she felt sure that wouldn't be needed. "How are the diagnostics?"

"Fine. I'm almost ready to shut down."

"Good, good. You can do me a favor, right?"

Her eyes narrowed. "That depends on what it is."

"Keep my coat safe." She pulled it off, handed the still-warm garment to Munro, and left the Tempest again for what Alexander figured would be the second and final part of what amounted to an extremely simple plan to nudge Vasquez the rest of the way.

Faced with the Abyssinian--eyes bright, tail swaying, and undershirt clinging tight to her lithe frame--the wolf swallowed, and felt his ears momentarily swivel back. "Spaceman?"

"I was on my way to bed, but I realized something about the data, sir. Can I come in?"

Vasquez, who by this point had figured out a slight lack of sincerity in the feline's motive, nonetheless let her into his quarters. With the door closed, he gestured for her to take a step away from him and, when she understood, she clasped her paws behind her back expectantly. "Spaceman. What's going on?"

"Sir?"

Vasquez knew that she was playing dumb, although not--for the moment--what about. He stood straighter, putting his height to full effect. "This. You could've put on a jacket, at least."

"Oh. Yes, sir."

"So it's deliberate."

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

Mitch began to wave her tail, slowly, curling it in sinuous loops that widened just enough for the wolf to catch occasional glimpses. Just enough for his eye to be drawn to those glimpses, which of course put his attention on her hips, and... "A bet, sir."

His focus did, indeed, take a moment to return to the Abyssinian's face. "What? A bet? Who with?"

She smiled. "That would be betraying their confidence. But... you work in intelligence, right? I'm sure you could figure it out."

Munro, he figured at once, although--as with Mitch's appearance--he understood what was going on, but not why. "And the terms of the bet were that..."

"Something about seeing you naked. Sir."

"Which you took..."

Mitch paused, looked the wolf over deliberately, and lifted her head up to peer into his eyes. "Well... yes." Springing the trap, she skimmed his frame again, like she couldn't help himself, before snapping her focus back. "Of course."

Even gambling that she'd been telling the truth and that was the limit of the bet, Vasquez was perceptive enough to see that it didn't have to end there. He examined her, from her pale, inquisitive eyes to her gently swaying hips to her slim, straight legs.

Feeling herself appraised, and the definite sense that all outcomes were on the table, Mitch became aware their encounter was no longer just about the bet. It had been too long, after all. "Would the decision be easier?" she trailed off softly, starting to pull her shirt up. "Without this--sir?"

Despite the appeal to his authority, the undershirt fell to the floor before Vasquez answered. Not that it really mattered; both of them had made the relevant "decision" well in the past. He only half-decided to grip her sides in his strong paws. He definitely didn't decide on his growl any more than she decided on the answering purr.

Two seconds later and the wall was at her back. His paw and hers were pushing her pants down roughly. She kicked them away in time for the wolf to press between her legs, hips grinding sharply. For the moment fabric still hid the imposing bulk that nudged her.

But her purr deepened regardless. Mitch shoved into him, met solidly braced resistance, and used the leverage to wrap one leg about the wolf's waist. Vasquez got the idea immediately--grasped her taut rear in his tense paws to steady her, and held her firmly to the wall as his free paw dispensed with his pants.

She hooked her other leg around him, now, and felt her short, soft pelt meet the wolf's thicker fur, and the gratifying way it yielded as she tugged him closer. The strength of his imposing frame was suddenly obvious--circling him with her arms was an effort, and with their bodies snug together it was clear how much larger the canine was.

And that put added punctuation on the heat of his sloped tip as it met her lips, and he pushed to sink partway into her. "Slow," she warned shakily. Vasquez picked up on the intended subtext: slow, and not stop. He pushed again, gently, and after a tense second slid properly inside the feline.

She gasped at the penetration, and he groaned as her folds parted around his cock. He stopped a quarter of the way in, paused... then pushed a third time, and--as Mitch sucked her breath in, trembling, unable even to purr with the shock of how thoroughly he filled her--he didn't stop.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she whispered breathlessly, and glanced downward. There was nothing left--every throbbing centimeter was stuffed into her, claiming her so decisively she marveled there was no visible bulge to contour the wolf buried in her cunt.

He began to thrust even while she was managing nothing but those panted oaths. Starting carefully, he thrust himself into the slender, squirming cat, hilting every time so that when his knot started to swell it wouldn't take her by surprise.

Gradually Mitch recovered, at least enough that she could do more than gasp and shudder as thick canine flesh stroked and pumped within her. She tightened the hold her legs had on him, and pushed to meet his smooth rhythm. No sooner had she done that, though, than he growled, and bucked faster.

Faster, and harder. With her help their hips met roughly in a stronger and stronger coupling. He was still in control, she thought, until the time he plunged in firmly and instead of pulling back he swiveled, working a growing bulge against her walls experimentally.

It didn't catch--but it would, they both thought. And for his part, that certainty had Vasquez grabbing her rump in both paws, holding her steady, and starting to pound her. Fucking her quickly, still, but the speed gave way to strength as need took over.

This. This is what I was missing, Mitch marveled. The forceful urgency as desire took over for a canine--his hips jerking, fighting the resistance of her body to his knot by driving her against the wall, his eyes wild and sightless.

He still had plenty of that frantic energy when he hilted for the last time. Taking him had started to verge close to painful territory; Mitch forestalled crossing that boundary by locking her legs around him and squeezing hard. The big wolf snarled and thrust to meet her, holding fully embedded.

And he was tied now, he could tell. Mitch could too, even if he kept swelling, stretching her out more and more as he humped and grunted deeply into the Abyssinian. Now there was no pain, just the steady, buffeting teasing of his knot that pushed her blissfully close to the edge--even as his rhythm faltered, seized, and started again in sharp, powerful shoves.

He was blind to her lust-glazed expression, deaf to her eager cries, senseless to everything but the tight warmth gripping him as he took his last erratic bucks and froze in pleasure, claws digging in, holding her just as still as he claimed Mitch in a messy gush of wolf cum.

His snarl had been ambiguously wordless, his sudden motionless slightly less so--but the throb flexing his massive shaft against her walls and the flood of heat that followed left no doubt about what had happened. She ground herself desperately until his knot caught her just so, until she felt pleasure bubbling up, clenching her nerves taut...

Orgasm rolled through her a few seconds after his own had hit, leaving her bucking futilely on the tied wolf, spasming on his twitching length, her body drinking in every spurt of canine seed he pumped eagerly if somewhat pointlessly into her womb.

He kept rocking, pushing her up against the wall in gentler, slower shoves while he emptied himself. Fortunately for them both he recognized that his knees were about to buckle--staggered back awkwardly, but successfully, to collapse with the Abyssinian on his bed.

Mitch had enjoyed the feeling of power she'd had over him while he was rutting her--while she saw the sequence of events as the culmination of some inevitable plan. Now, though, her limbs had gone watery. And, panting on his chest, she was content to simply enjoy the moment.

So was Vasquez, though he wasn't sure Smith's advice really applied. He was not, presumably, supposed to counter the feline's choice of clothing by fucking an impulsive load into her. How had he even gotten there? "So the terms of the bet were..."

"Didn't really agree on them." Her slurred mumble mostly vanished in his chest fur.

"This was just... fun?"

She summoned the energy to lift her head, trying to determine if the wolf was actually confused. "Wasn't it?"

When she slumped back down her hips shifted, and his thoughts snapped back to where he was. Buried hilt-deep in the soft, snug warmth of a willing mate--the slick, potent proof of his conquest dammed for the moment by a knot she kept impulsively squeezing.

That was, on reflection, more than fun. Definitely more useful than rank. He bucked a throaty-purred shudder into the cat.

Yes. Roll with it.

***

Others on the crew were still actually deciphering the test results, and continued to do so long after the pair had fallen asleep. Dave Bradley was one of them: "From what I can tell, it was a stunning success. Is that accurate?"

Shannon Hazelton was proud of her work, and of the team that had made it possible. "We knew we could do it, sir. Yes--everything looks like what we expected... maybe even better."

"How long would it take you to implement the modifications?"

"The test configuration will work. I'd like to put some new regulators in, if we keep this permanently active. But there's no rush." At worst, she expected some additional wear on the power conduits, and those needed constant maintenance anyway.

"Put the work in the schedule, then. And, ah. Thanks." He raised his voice: "that goes for all of you. Good work."

"It's a hell of a team, sir."

"Seems that way. We--"

"Action stations, action stations. All crew to State Gold."

Spaceman Ahmed's voice had called them to general quarters; the bridge was currently being watched by Elissa Parnell, whom he was due to relieve as soon as he left engineering. Dave tapped his wrist at once. "Bridge, report."

"A distress call, sir," Parnell explained. "From a Dominion convoy--they're being intercepted by the Pictor. Contact is unavoidable--they have about an hour."

"How far away are we?"

"We can make it in ninety minutes or so, sir. Ah--captain on deck!"

The channel closed, presumably as Parnell became occupied in briefing Captain May. That made Bradley's question more of an urgent one: "Your modifications are ready to see action, lieutenant?"

Within reason--an answer that would've taken too long to properly explain. The raccoon settled for something simpler: "Yes, sir."

***

"Localized distortions are reflecting back into hyperspace, ma'am. High-energy weapons, at least--maybe reactor explosions."

"Action stations," May ordered.

"Helm, tactical: set systems for transition contact," Bradley added, waiting for their acknowledgments and confirming the status at his display. "Ready, captain."

"Drop us out of hyperspace."

Mitch took a deep breath, closed one eye--and hissed anyway, as soon as her console came to life. "Multiple contacts, dead ahead. A mix of Dominion and Pictor vessels."

The Dominion convoy was, by far, getting the worst of the fight. Ensign Bader counted four Pictor destroyers, each roughly the size of the Dark Horse, plus a battlecruiser that outmassed her by a factor of ten. And at least a hundred of their attendant strike craft. "Captain, your orders?"

Mitch and Leon both waited. Protocol mandated they at least attempt to open hailing frequencies; May was not, in any way, interested in protocol. "Target the nearest capital ship. Let's try to get their attention."

"Targeting contact Mistral-7, aye," the shepherd dutifully answered. "Firing solution ready. They're at 60,000 kilometers and closing, bearing 0-1-5 mark 0-2-7."

"Attack pattern Beta-2. Lock torpedoes and fire." And, on the off chance that didn't get their attention, she felt the lighter ships were deserving of love, too. "And ready particle beams for the corvettes. Whatever firing arcs are clear of friendly ships."

One step at a time. "Firing torpedoes." Half of her forward tubes, as the Akita had requested. Artemis missiles were designed to split into eight submunitions, and then eight more. Half of those had only inert payloads, acting as decoys, but between the four he'd launched there were still 128 thermonuclear warheads for the Pictor to intercept.

The bridge crew already knew they probably would--60,000 kilometers gave plenty of time for point-defense systems to do their work. They carried dedicated anti-capital-ship torpedoes, too, with their own evasive flight computers, but Leon had needed to guess what May wanted.

And she'd wanted to get their attention, which the torpedoes would necessarily do. Keeping his eye on their track, he switched to the next task. "Firing solutions on thirteen Pictor ships."

"Fire at will, ensign. CCI, sitrep--how's the Dominion?"

"Judging by the wreckage, they've lost at least two ships already. Three more are heavily damaged." Mitch heard Bader call for helm control; watched the Dark Horse swing sharply onto its new course. "I don't think they were warships, ma'am. Probably a supply convoy."

"Nine Pictor ships disabled or destroyed," Bader cut in. He'd missed the other four completely. And: "first torpedo salvo was trashed. Distance now 42,000 kilometers."

"They're onto us," Mitch added, to lend some further urgency. "One destroyer and the battlecruiser are changing course for an intercept."

May looked at her first officer. "Should we back off?"

The retriever twisted his map about, examining it from all sides. "The attack ships are still harassing that Dominion convoy for the moment. We can get in close."

"Good. Full power to the forward deflectors. Helm, ahead flank."

As Parnell pushed the throttles to their stops, Leon Bader watched the countdown on his tactical computer tensely. 0:02. 0:01. He fired before RELOADING COMPLETE had the chance to specify which tubes; the shepherd knew that already.

"Incoming!" Mitch raised her voice chiefly at the size of what proved to be a continuous barrage of Pictor missiles: a dozen more every few seconds, it seemed to her.

Between low-powered shots from the particle beams and the Dark Horse's own defensive grid, they could manage 20 or 30 a second--but only at long range, and that advantage was vanishing quickly. The crew trusted more in deflector shields than in luck--Ensign Bader doubly so--but he crossed his fingers anyway. "Brace for impact!"

One actual missile and twenty missiles worth of debris spattered the forward deflector, which sizzled angrily. Maddy winced. "Report!"

"Shields at 81%. Structural integrity is stable."

"Return fire!"

"Torpedoes are away and locked on, captain."

The fox, as the saying went_, knows many tricks; the hedgehog only one_. Oversaturation was the Artemis missile's single trick, and one of the only tricks missing from the heavy torpedoes Leon had fired. They had a complex AI, and ample maneuvering capability. And sophisticated countermeasures, aided by the intelligence Lieutenant Commander Munro's scouting mission had gathered.

And an antimatter warhead to back up the kinetic energy of their powerful thrusters. Both torpedoes meant for the destroyer hit, obliterating a full quarter of its central hull like the armor hadn't even been there. A last-minute evasive burn spared the larger battlecruiser from one impact.

The other seemed to have left the warship intact, but at least momentarily compromised, and in the precious time it took for the incoming missiles to switch to their own guidance, Leon was able to disable most of them. "Shields holding at 55%. One ship destroyed. The cruiser is..."

He wasn't sure. Mitch wasn't sure, either, but they were still getting readings from it and it didn't appear to be adrift. "Their weapons are still hot," the Abyssinian decided, as the Dark Horse crossed off its beam.

"Bring us about, then."

"Captain, I'm picking up some kind of... hold on..." Mitch swallowed hard. "Their main reactor's going critical. They must be trying to scuttle it."

"Evasive maneuvers! Shields to--"

May did not get a chance to finish her order before the Pictor ship rendered it pointless. Not that there was anything Ensign Bader could've done--their deflectors were already at full power. His sensors, like the ones at the CCI station, overloaded into uselessness.

Impact, though, was surprisingly mild: barely a shudder from the debris at the leading edge of the explosion. And that made it all the more shocking when the lights went out. Maddy brushed aside the notion she might've been dead, but was thankful to hear her own voice anyway: "report!"

Mitch shook her head, although none of them could see it. "I'm not sure. We still have artificial gravity, I guess, but main power is offline. Shields, weapons..."

"Shouldn't the emergency backups have kicked in?"

"Yes, ma'am, but... I don't know. My controls aren't responding."

The Akita tapped her communicator. "Bridge to engineering. Engineering, come in." Nobody answered. "Options, people. We're sitting ducks for the Pictor right now."

"Escape suits," Dave suggested. "We might need 'em, but... they also have their own radios. We could use them to keep in touch."

"But they'd make it impossible to operate the controls on the bridge." May grunted. "No. Give me a different option."

Using the light of her own communicator, Mitch found the latches for her console and pulled it open. Some of the power relays were still glowing, at least; that was a good sign. The station should have switched over automatically, but--in case it had not--she pulled the cable and plugged it directly into the auxiliary power socket.

A familiar hum rewarded her. The light of the CCI display was now the brightest thing by far on the bridge. "Good news?" May asked hopefully.

Mitch got back to her feet, and--on seeing the diagnostic screens--immediately wished she had not. "Everything's down. Every unhardened system is completely dead. Shields, FTL, the computer, comms... it's like the whole power grid cut out."

"Can you can get sensors back online?"

"Maybe." There was just enough reserve juice to start one of the ventral scanners. "Yes. I'm not detecting any weapons. Or... anything, for that matter. We're in a slight clockwise roll, and with the bow angled six degrees off our velocity vector."

"The Pictor?"

"Debris, captain, consistent with Pictor hull construction. The others must've left. I can't see the Dominion ships, but they're probably hidden from this pod. We'll rotate into..." A 'low-power' warning flashed twice, and the telemetry vanished. "Sensors are dead again. Wait. Somebody's--"

"Somebody's rerouting my power," Shannon Hazelton's ghostly voice finished. "If that's you, Mitch, you better cut it out."

"Yes, lieutenant. That was me. Sorry."

"Need it for internal comms right now. I have two DC parties I'm trying to coordinate from main engineering."

"What happened?" May asked.

"Long answer or short?"

The Akita realized it was not, in fact, the question she'd really meant, and tried again: "Can you fix it?"

"Long answer or short?"

"Short."

A worrying pause ensued. "I'll call you back, Mads."

Maddy settled back in her seat, and was grateful for the fact nobody could see her close her eyes tightly. She, herself, didn't really even notice. "You said we weren't being shot at, spaceman?"

"Not from what I could see. We might look dead."

At least they still had their internal radio. May took a deep breath. "Mr. Thorsen, be ready for possible boarding actions. Coordinate with Ms. Smith. And Captain Ford, actually, while you're at it--or. No, belay that." The thought occurred to her as soon as she'd said it, though, that the coyote might be a valuable resource used elsewhere: "Hey. Captain Ford, are you there?"

***

"Yes." Jack decided, though, that clarification was in order: "But I don't know where 'here' is. The launch system seems to be down."

"Everything's down," May told him. "Do your sensors work?"

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I think so. Not very well through the hull. It seems pretty quiet... I might've seen an FTL drive activate, but I can't swear to that. Do you want me to check it out?"

"Is that an option?"

"Commander Kamyshev and I are both ready to launch and plugged into the ship's power grid. If we isolate the bay, his scout's reactor should be able to provide enough power to hold the door open."

"Safely? You'd be out there alone."

"Right now, we don't know what we're out here with, captain," he countered. "I'm willing to take the risk, if you want."

Considering the exigent circumstances, she did. Jack switched the engines on and, when the shuttlebay finally slid open, he drifted from the lightless deck and into space.

Despite her name, the Dark Horse was painted in the same blue gunmetal as most Star Patrol ships, albeit heavily patched with the repairs and upgrades of her deep-space mission. The cruiser was not, in any case, dark by nature, and seeing her that way was extremely unsettling.

He focused on a combat sweep first. Nothing was approaching them. No targeting scanners triggered his scout ship's countermeasures. The Dark Horse was drifting near the center of an expanding ring of debris. The main battle seemed to have been resolved, too.

Satisfied that they were safe--for the moment, at least--Jack brought the Type 7 around and turned its sensors on his own ship's hull. "Charger-1 to Dark Horse. Anybody home?"

"Internal radio only, boss," Kamyshev called back. "Lights are still off here."

Suppressing how surreal that felt, too, Jack tapped his personal communicator. "Bridge, this is Jack Ford. Can you hear me now?"

Mitch Alexander's voice was fuzzy with distance and interference, and barely comprehensible. "Affirmative, captain."

"Your hull integrity looks good. I'm picking up radiation from the Pictor reactor, but all within reasonable tolerances. I don't see any breaches or visible damage from out here."

"And on long-range sensors?"

"No contacts. Debris, decaying energy from the battle, and... I think some FTL residuals. I'd guess the Pictor left when the battlecruiser went up, and the Dominion must've taken the opportunity to do the same."

"Nice of them to make sure we were alright," Commander Bradley said, even the low-bandwidth connection carrying plenty of the dryness in his voice. "Can you scan their ships for survivors, Captain Ford?"

"Judging by the debris, it's a lost cause. Honestly, commander? With how the Dark Horse looks right now, I don't blame 'em for thinking we were the same way."

***

Back on the bridge, Captain May forced herself to remain seated only because she knew the alternative was nervous pacing. The chirp of her communicator brought the Akita's ears to full perk. "Bridge here. Tell me something good, Shannon."

"Well... I'll try, Mads, but no promises. Here's the deal. There's some kind of interference pattern in the power grid. It must've come from the deflector, somehow--I dunno. Our filters aren't equipped for it. I gotta shut the core down and bring us up from scratch."

"How long?"

"Ten minutes to cycle it... twenty before the big systems start answering. We can be back to full power capacity in an hour and start making repairs while the reactor's still warming up."

"There's no other way?"

"I don't think so, Mads."

"Go ahead," the Akita said reluctantly. "Spaceman Alexander, keep Captain Ford real chatty, please. I want to know if anything changes out there."

The ship's bridge went dark again, although this time emergency power kept at least some of the lights on. And the short-range radio, though Captain Ford had nothing to report.

Alexander stared intently at her console, tapping her claws every now and then on the black screen--hoping the appearance of activity might communicate to her captain that the Abyssinian would report the moment she had anything to say.

This worked only until the lights came back to full power, at which point the Akita prompted Mitch for updates every other minute while she tried to keep her tail from betraying too much open frustration.

As it happened, May's single-minded focus gave Leon Bader--whose console had been the the first to reactivate--enough time to sift through the mess of information. "Captain, we have deflectors again. The best I can give you is about 13%, but they're online."

"The point-defense grid?"

"No, ma'am. Our weapons are still disabled. But I can access the targeting array--it seems to confirm what Captain Ford said. We're alone, for the moment."

While the crew digested that information, Lieutenant Parnell found the helm answering her commands, albeit with the same half-hearted capacity as Bader's shields. She zeroed out the ship's roll, and backed them away from the largest pieces of Pictor debris.

Finally, the CCI station finished its self-tests. Almost nothing was operating normally; some of the systems reported error codes Mitch hadn't even seen before. As far as the Dark Horse was concerned, the ship was powering up for the first time.

She was not surprised when Lieutenant Hazelton reported in with a summary: "It's going to take us at least another twelve hours to completely recalibrate our sensors. Until then, situational awareness and targeting are... highly compromised."

"Is anything permanently broken?"

"No, Mads. We got lucky there--it's all just scrambled. I can fix it. What's your priority?"

The Akita looked to her first officer, mouthing: FTL? Dave nodded. "Get the hyperdrive back, in case the Pictor show up again before the Dominion does. If anyone does," May added belatedly. "Self-defense would be nice, too."

"Shields I can do. Weapons are a tall order, Mads. All our scanners are totally bent. Twelve hours is with everyone on deck, and I'm not even sure that'll be enough."

Captain May sighed, ordered Hazelton to do her best, and signed off. "The Tempest," Bradley suggested.

And she agreed. Until the Dark Horse was operational again, they could use the spy ship to keep watch. She asked Jack Ford to accompany Commander Munro, so the two could work in shifts--by itself, his scout ship wasn't much use, anyway. The task of guiding the coyote back aboard fell to Mitch Alexander.

"The Tempest should be up in half an hour," Bradley tried to reassure her. "And we can start putting things back together. It could've been worse--we were right next to a heavy warship when it exploded, after all."

"I suppose." May still didn't like how vulnerable the encounter had left them. "A warship attacking our allies, at that. Now we need to figure out what to tell the Admiralty. We might have to consider heading towards TC space until we're back in range--leave the Dominion on their own for a bit. Right? Put the option on the table, at least..."

"When we have comms back. That won't be for a few hours, at least."

The Akita's sigh was the heaviest yet. "Right. When. Hopefully the Confed isn't already busy with other things..."

***

"New contact."

"Shields," May ordered immediately. "The Pictor?"

Test data, Mitch thought. It has to be test data from when the computer restarted. She switched to the secondary array, with no appreciable change in the readings. And there was an incoming message from Lieutenant Commander Munro, aboard the Tempest, asking: do you see this? "I..."

"Spaceman: is it the Pictor?"

"No. It's the Agamemnon, captain."

Startled, Bradley brought up the scanning data on his console and confirmed what Alexander had told them. "At least we know the Admiralty got our message. They must've seen the battle, too."

"Must have." Sighing her relief, May lowered the shields again. "Open a channel, Spaceman Alexander."

"I'm trying. Our systems are still..." She made a see-sawing gesture with her paw and went back to work. "I can't get the encryption module working. Trying to run down the error now..."

"Try faster," May suggested. She lowered her voice, turning to her first officer. "You know Captain Hatfield is counting how long it's taken for us to follow contact protocol, right?"

Dave grinned. He'd only met the deer once, but once was enough to make an impression. "It'll be the first line in her log for today. 'That irresponsible rogue Madison May is at it again. Kept me on hold for two whole minutes.' At least we've got backup for when the Pictor return."

"Better than that," the Akita realized. "If they sent a warship, she must have new rules of engagement. There are other deep-space ships they could've dispatched, right?"

"Good point."

"Captain, uh, we're being hailed? I can't... the link's not working. They've switched to transmitting in the clear."

So much for first impressions. "Open a channel."

"This is Captain Theresa Hatfield, of the battleship Agamemnon. And you better have a damn good explanation for why a Pictor raiding vessel was reported active in this sector. And, why one of our ships is using Pictor shield frequencies."

"Captain, I think there might have been some kind of misund--"

Growling, the doe--it was clearly Hatfield, her imperious tone unmistakeable--cut May off. "Your presence here is in direct violation of the 2720 Mikandi Accord."

"The what?"

Their answer was another growl. "Lending aid to the Pictor is strictly forbidden--to say nothing of your apparently hijacked vessel. Consider yourself under arrest for crimes against the Federal Planetary Union."

"The what?"

"Stand down your ship--"

"Hold on, now--"

"And prepare to be boarded."