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Season 7! This is where Star Treks end, but don't worry~ Maddy gets some more Quality Time and we'll need to see more of that, right?

Hey folks! It's been a bit, so I wanted to make sure I had something for y'all. I've been working on another project, some fantasy stuff, but it's proving to be a bit of a slow burn and I'd like to be sure and share what I've got, y'know? So let's kick season 7 off with a bang, and several more bangs, and an Uxzu junk salesman :3 Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

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

---

Tales of the Dark Horse, by Rob Baird

S7E1, "Excessively Familiar"

Stardate 67875

Commander, Auxiliary Group's log, stardate 67875.2

The ship's auxiliary group has seen more action in a few weeks than most Star Patrol squadrons see in years. Fortunately, we seem to have gotten out of it without a scratch--and with a new vessel. Lieutenant Commander Munro says that she's become familiar with the "Kahil," an Uxzu fighter-bomber.

And she has an idea she wants to run by me.

"Let's hear it."

"We should be able to use the Kahil for regular operations. Alongside the two Type 7s." Munro gestured to the craft in question--twice as big as the scouts next to it, squat and appropriately menacing. "I don't think it'll take much work to integrate into our systems."

Jack had asked his wingman Konstantin to join him for Ciara's presentation; they both listened with interest. "The main drive is compatible with our fuel? Really?"

"Pretty much. The Kahil's engines use something with a_slightly_ different intermix ratio than we're used to--but only slightly. Ms. Torres proposed refitting it to use standard reactant... apparently we have most of the parts, or the machine shop can synthesize them."

"Electronics?"

"It talks to our tactical network. As systems fail, we could replace them with ones of our own. Same for the missile racks: a minor refit, and we can reuse the rockets your Riverjacks carry."

From his position in front of the bomber, Commander Kamyshev was more interested in the rest of its armament. "What about the big cannons? We have any idea on those?"

"In_design_, they're just normal mass drivers. They fire bolts that are about three times the caliber of the Type 7s. Having disassembled one, though, we can use the same production line--it'll just take longer. The particle beams won't be a problem."

Kamyshev nodded. "Could we replace the drivers with 60Ks?"

The Mark 2060K was what their scout fighters used; he'd figured the blueprints would be in the ship's database. Jack saw the point--it would keep them from needing to maintain separate stocks of ammunition. "Which would be fine for missiles. What's the kinetic energy on one of these, Ciara?"

"It... depends. The circuitry looks like it's designed for much higher muzzle velocities then the reactor is capable of delivering. As designed, it's about ninety megajoules."

Konstantin sucked his breath in. "Ninety? For a salvo?"

Ciara shook her head. "Per round. Optimal case, with a better reactor and better power systems, maybe... half that much again? Say... 130?"

"You see my point," Jack said. The 2060K was rated for a 4.5 megajoule shot, and in practice they often turned the power down to reduce barrel wear. "This one packs a hell of a wallop. It could be a good fit for us."

"Survivability is a problem, though." Konstantin was a fighter pilot by trade--used to taking risks. On the other hand, they'd flown two combat sorties with the Kahil, and in both of them it had taken damage beyond what its ablative armor could sustain. "How do we fix that? Won't take a shield emitter, will it?"

"With those curves?"

Jack's question had been rhetorical. Star Patrol deflector shields were precisely calibrated to the hull of the ship, and optimally tuned against what could, in general, be described as its aerodynamic properties. The Kahil did not have aerodynamic properties. "New tactics, then."

"I'm willing to learn, sir," she promised Kamyshev. "The_Tempest_ will be more helpful to you, much of the time. But as Captain Ford points out, sometimes we might want a bigger impact. With the engines tuned properly, we can probably get up to... 70 or 80% the linear acceleration of a Riverjack. Even if it can't maneuver as well, that still puts a pretty solid force multiplier well ahead of the Dark Horse when she needs it."

"'Willing to learn' means you want a chance to play with a new toy," Jack teased her. "As a test pilot. Right? We will need to figure out how to use a fighter-bomber effectively. Maybe degauss you, too--see if that makes you less of a magnet."

"A magnet?"

"Well, you brought this thing back_twice_ with holes in it big enough to strip-mine. They didn't even have Standard Operational Debrief Codes for some of that damage. Just filing it all under 'Pilot Alive, Somehow' and hoping that passes muster."

"Due respect, boss," Konstantin said, clearing his throat. "Isn't all pilots. Don't see_me_ coming back with no wing, do you?"

"True. Maybe she's special."

"We were in a high-threat activity environment," she felt compelled to remind the two. "I don't think it's anything about me, in particular."

"Didn't you take a direct hit from an explosive round on Earth? Throw the cloak out? How'd you code that one?"

Jack's grin was growing a little too mischievous for her comfort. "I didn't. It may surprise you to learn, sir, that there's no opcode for 'ship disabled by a time-traveling criminal modifying something called a Thompson submachine gun to fire miniaturized heliositic explosives close to sea level.'"

"'Ciara's Alive, Somehow,' then. CAS? CASH?" the coyote mused, ignoring the vixen's scowl. "That'll work. I mean, if we're going to be flying together, we ought to have a standard code..."

"Callsign, too," Kamyshev said.

"That went along with 'flying together.' I'll get Captain May's approval for the fuel expenditure if you can get the engineering team to modify the engines. We'll figure out a way to make this work, Cash."

"I'm not--"

He grinned. "You're dismissed."

Konstantin Kamyshev hadn't spent that much time with the vixen; what he had done convinced him that she was, indeed, a decent pilot--probably would, in fact, prove to be a quick study. And that would come in handy, although she didn't seem to share a naval aviator culture. "She'll get used to it?"

As a black canid with too-large ears even for a coyote--a black canid who went by 'Jack,' even--Jonathan Ford had felt some permutation of 'jackal' or 'Anubis' would have suited him. His squadron mates were more impressed by his uncanny luck, though, after losing 30 coin-tosses in a row: 'Shamrock' had been the name that stuck. "She'll get used to it," he promised.

He, too, was optimistic about Ciara's future as a combat pilot; he'd already made a note to bring it up in his meeting with the ship's captain, who wanted to debrief him on the cruiser's next deployment after her session with Admiral Mercure.

Captain May rarely spoke to Jack alone. Generally, at least, Commander Bradley joined them--Ford suspected this was because she relied on the retriever as a sort of more-grounded counterweight. Dave was also useful to explain nuances or terminology the Akita might not have been familiar with, although Ford had yet to pick up on this: if she wanted Jack's counsel it was generally about weapons, and he considered it a safe assumption that she_definitely_ knew about those.

In this case, though, there was nobody else in the room. May gestured for him to take a seat. "The rest of the task force is regrouping closer to Confed space while the Admiralty waits to see how the Pictor respond."

He nodded. "And us? Do we have new orders?"

"Find out how badly the Dominion are doing and see where we might be able to help. The Admiralty seems to be optimistic that the Pictor will be licking their wounds for a while. Lieutenant Vasquez isn't so sure."

The loss of a major installation, would, at least, complicate their supply lines. As Ford understood it, the Pictor were not taking the most direct route to attack--hooking through the Rewa-Tahi Sector in order to bypass Star Patrol defensive infrastructure on the Confederation's closest border to the Empire.

"But," he conjectured aloud, "we didn't really knock out many of their_ships_. And the Dominion is gonna be real eager to counterattack, and..."

"Exactly. I hope we can talk some sense into them, but... you know how they are. We should probably be ready to fight. How are you and Commander Kamyshev holding up?"

"Ready for anything. The last couple fights have given us plenty of good intel on the Pictor, too. We can start optimizing our loadout. And our tactics, for that matter."

Considering how outnumbered they were, and would continue to remain, Maddy understood this to be extremely good news. "We'll probably be counting on that. I know it's a lot for the two of you..."

That was Jack's opening. "Might be three. Lieutenant Commander Munro gave Konstantin and I a rundown on the ship we picked up on the, uh, the other side. It's damned well-armed. She'd like to sortie with us, instead of just using the_Tempest_ for everything."

Maddy tilted her head, thinking that over and realizing that she didn't really know the vixen terribly well. Munro volunteered to join them after their battle against the Laughing Prince, and she'd made friends amongst the crew, and: "she's a test pilot, right? But she mostly flies scout ships?"

"A test pilot, yeah. Years of experience at it. She already has a good handle on how the Kahil--that's what it's called, some Uxzu thing. How it flies. How it shoots, too. I haven't taken it out for a spin myself, but she's gonna be the expert here."

"Does she have any combat experience?"

It was the right question for her to have asked. "All of it's with us. So... on the one hand, she's asking to tackle one hell of a learning curve if we're up against the Pictor on the regular. But, on the_other_ hand, it means I've had the chance to see it up close every time."

"And?"

"She's a good pilot. As a natural, probably better than Konstantin or me, but she's also got all her experience of figuring out twitchy new prototypes on the fly. She's incredibly brave, and a fast learner. Munro would be one hell of an asset, captain."

The Akita understood people intuitively, without even knowing that she did. So, intuitively, she understood that Jack wouldn't have brought it up had his decision not already been clear. She asked anyway: "What do you want to do?"

"I'd like to train her. We have_some_ combat training software for simulators, but I'd also like to requisition some fuel, and fabricate some training munitions in the machine shop. Nothing like actual stick time. With your approval."

She'd expected him to stop at_I'd like to train her_. The rest of it seemed like a whole lot of needless practicalities. "My approval? It's not my fuel, is it?"

"Kinda. It's the ship's. Anyway, my previous captain would've thrown a fit if she saw unexplained reactant expenditures, so I figured you should know about it first."

Maddy winced at what he'd_intended_ as mere explanation and she took as some subtle implication. Her thoughts had been elsewhere. "I am not Theresa Hatfield, Jack. Let's be very clear about that."

"I know." The coyote grinned. "Trust me on that. I wouldn't be here otherwise."

"Good. Good. Okay--yeah. Please, do whatever you think is best for Munro."

"Got it. If anything changes, I'll let you know." She didn't respond. The coyote's eyes flicked to the door of the ready room. "Was there anything else?"

There_was_, and for the same reason Dave Bradley hadn't been asked to join the meeting. "So. Yes. We should maybe talk, right?"

They already_were_ talking. "Yeah?"

Maddy was not given to embarrassment, exactly; she was trying to determine the precise degree to which Jack's feelings should be spared. "I don't know how many of the crew wound up confronting their, uh, their other versions. Mitch did. Dr. Beltran..."

"Right..."

"And you. Me, I guess I'm dead over there. I don't know if that's better or worse. I figure the other Ford didn't make a great impression. Right?"

He had not, particularly, done so. General Beltran was vicious, but at least outwardly competent. His own mirror, though, came off as a bit of a coward--kowtowing to Theresa Hatfield!Of all the people. This was why he had not intended the comparison to Maddy, and also why she'd misread him. "He didn't. But he's not me."

"Yeah. So. How awkward is what happened between him and me?"

It wasn't like Jack had directly_asked_ if the two of them had had sex. It had been fairly obvious: Jack knew what he smelled like, after all, and the other coyote had seemed evasive--in similar fashion to what he was now seeing from Maddy. "I mean. He's not me," Jack repeated. "Maybe it would be different if we were dating. Hell, if we'd ever thought about anything like that--"

"Which we haven't!"

"Right. Which we haven't."

"Because it would be inappropriate," May said hastily.

Jack blinked, a little confused. The conversation could not, he figured, have come from Captain May's belief that he thought her dalliance with a coyote who_looked like him_ would make him... jealous, could it? "Yeah. They don't like those, ah... what do they call 'em? Excessively familiar relationships."

"Yes, right."

"So, y'know. Don't worry about it."

Jack Ford left feeling that May did not attempt conscientiousness often enough to be good at it; the conversation, so far as the coyote was concerned, hadn't been necessary in the first place. Maddy, for her part, was happy to know that her sense of guilt was unwarranted.

They had more important things to do, in the short term. Kenra Tellak, the matriarch of the Kolash Pride, had never been good at biding her time. Admiral Mercure's desire to regroup was well-founded, and he'd put his trust in the Akita that she could make the Dominion understand that.

She'd left Lieutenant Parnell in charge of the bridge while she met with Ford; the wolf stood to attention when Maddy stepped through the door. "As you were. We need to get ready to depart. Anything happen while I was away?"

"No, ma'am." The shift had been blessedly quiet. Parnell made her way back to the helm, and checked over the last half-hour of logs from the navigational sensors. No, there was nothing there either. "All systems are go, here."

"Good. Set a course for Garakhav, at... at_reasonable_ speed." She still needed time to think about what they were going to tell the Uxzu, after all. "Call it 25 megajärvi."

"Yes, ma'am. Course laid in." Eli's ear twitched; her eye was drawn to a momentary flicker on the control panel in front of her. It was gone before she could see what it had been. "We're ready."

Captain May saw none of this, of course, and she was impatient. "Engage."

The_Dark Horse_ kicked, more dramatically than its size really should've allowed, and the lights dimmed. Spaceman Ahmed, at the CCI station, had more than a flicker on his own control panel. "Captain, we're looking at a massive energy buildup in the hyperdrive generator. Temperatures are up 800%."

"Shut it down. Helm, all stop." The uncharacteristic, worrying shudder that had been building began to fade. May rose--standing up didn't_accomplish_ anything, strictly speaking, but she found it helped to reorder her thoughts. "What happened, lieutenant?"

At CCI, Ahmed's face was lit by the crimson of flashing alarms. Parnell saw the less dramatic side of the problem from her own position at the helm. "The aperture generator is completely depolarized, ma'am. I can't get any response from the field emitters."

"What about our sublight engines?"

"Impulse drive is still operational," the wolf said, although she powered up one of the maneuvering thrusters briefly, just to be sure. "Confirmed. We still have the sublight drive."

"Uh. No, ma'am." Even her momentary attempt had raised further alarms at Ahmed's console. "I think we're looking at a failure in the primary distributors. I'm going to try switching to backups, but--"

***

"Be ready for it."

Petty Officer Erica Constance had her finger on the fire-suppression controls. "The hyperdrive just failed. Standard protocol is to hold the ship steady until propulsion diagnostics are complete."

Travis Wallace, helping her with the impromptu repair the chief engineer had sent them to perform, shrugged. "Look, I'm just saying. They're going to try the backup distribution grid. Captain doesn't like sitting still."

On cue, temperature alarms for the auxiliary systems began to sound. Constance triggered the suppressors and shook her head. "Hit the emergency override," she told her companion, and tapped her communicator. "LT, it's gonna be another ten minutes before we can get to the junction."

Lieutenant Hazelton sounded annoyed, although not as annoyed as she would be when the captain paged her instead. "TJ should've told you to be ready with the fire suppression."

"He did. There's no damage, but we still have to cycle the atmosphere in that space. And wait for it to cool down."

The two of them heard the exasperation in the raccoon's groan. "Passeka. Alright. Let me know when you can proceed. Wallace, be ready to help Bell and me install a new reactor coil. The old one's blown. We'll need to suit up. We--hold on, it's the damned bridge."

Constance shut her eyes tight. "The magnetoconstrictor coil?"

"Gotta be," TJ said, nodding. "Been thinkin' about giving up for a couple months. Coming back from the mirror universe must've hurt."

"You guys shouldn't swap a new one in without me." Petty Officer Constance was, officially, the stardrive technician. She was definitely the only one with certification in the field. "Like, I'm sure you_can_, but..."

The otter could only shrug again. "Yeah. But you're also the one who knows how to purge the generator and the initiation driver. We'll need that done before we can restart the main engines, right? And the captain's gonna be telling the LT she wants all this done yesterday, so..."

A hundred meters aft, Lieutenant Hazelton had just finished hearing such a request, answering it with: "it can't be done. I'll let_you_ know when I know," and closing the channel before anyone could protest. Either Bradley or May herself would be on the way to find out more directly from the raccoon.

On the one hand, she sort of hoped it would be Bradley--he was rational, and could generally be convinced to let her work in peace. On the other hand, May and Hazelton shared a personality, and Mads would understand when her chief engineer started swearing violently. She thought that might be good for her mood, if nothing else.

It was Bradley who stepped into the engine room, though; May stayed on the bridge, reasoning that she wanted to be there to take quick action if anyone tried to exploit the_Dark Horse_'s vulnerabilities. Bradley already thought of Hazelton as somewhat volatile, and she figured he wouldn't appreciate her temper.

Which was true, although the raccoon's curled muzzle wasn't especially subtle. "Do you have, uh. Any kind of timeline, at least?" he asked.

"For which part?"

Dave didn't think of himself as a commander, really--not the way someone like Maddy did. But he had a certain degree of useful perceptiveness. "You'd like to do some shouting. I, ah... you have permission to speak freely, lieutenant. Pretend I was the captain."

"Fuck you and your timelines."

Bradley held up a paw. "Maybe dial it like... one notch back."

She gritted her teeth. "Right. Stardate 66800, a probe went off the rails in one of the torpedo tubes. Stardate 66960, we got a Wanesh scout ship driven through the outside armor plating. Stardate 67217, we blew out every fucking relay forward of frame 175 when that Stowell Temple_pizda_ overloaded the LRU. Stardate 67355, a cascade failure in the drive pre-processor blew the C25-22 maintenance hatch into the outer hull so hard you can read the serial number in the impact crater. Stardate--"

"I get the idea."

"Passeka. J'saya--I'm trying. I patched us up after every goddamned one of those. But we didn't make it two shifts in the mirror universe without starting a fight with someone. The outer hull plating is saturated with velionic decay products. That has to be scrubbed and scoped one block at a time or we risk compromising it from inclusion fatigue. I haven't had the chance to clean the scoring from the beam firing chambers because the DC bots are all trying to stabilize the plasma relays. And that high-speed run to the Pictor base--where we took another beating, I might add? En t'ey fer _--__ suka_. Ugh. I'm pretty sure the coil blew because it got tachyons sprayed on it like a goddamn christening."

He was keenly aware of every incident, and in broad strokes of the toll it must've taken on the ship. "How bad is it, Shannon?"

The raccoon tried to summon up a curse, and sighed. "We can fix it. But I need time."

"Manpower? We're not all engineers, but we can give you warm bodies, at least. Most of us can run a scope, or at least carry spare parts for you."

"Maybe," she admitted. "I could use warm bodies."

"Not just to curse at?"

"No."

***

"This one checks out. This one doesn't." Torres handed the good one over, and set its misbehaving counterpart aside. "I think it's completely fried, but I'll have to take another look later."

The engineering crew had pulled every power regulator on the cruiser's starboard side, to start with. Like her mirror twin, Mitch Alexander--familiar with the old technology on the_Dark Horse_--was helping them. Unlike her twin, she lacked a cybernetic eye. "You're so fast with that..."

Torres winked the eye. "Jealous?"

"A little. What about these?"

Given two new regulators, she scanned them quickly, looking for any sign of damage to the circuitry. "They're both fine. How many more do we have to go through?"

"Last ones. Then there's the port side, though; TJ looked like he'd seen a ghost."

"Good, good, bad." Torres pointed to each, in turn, and added the defective regulator to the pile. All told they'd found nine in the starboard distribution grid: only a fraction of the total, but still plenty to cause problems had they failed in combat. "Do you know why? Was it radiation damage?"

"No idea! I'll see when I take these back to him. What about you?"

"Commander Munro is working on the_Tempest_. I offered to help."

Mitch, who also took the opportunity to spend time with the pilot when she could, grinned. "You've been doing that a lot. You two are getting along?"

"I hope so. I like her!" And her first encounter with Ciara Munro had been in the context of being recognized as someone the vixen knew. "I, uh... I know you're friends. Do you have any, like... advice?"

"Not really. She's fun to tease, though. I hope you're having fun with it."

On her walk down to the hangar, Torres took the opportunity to reevaluate what she knew about the pair. For that matter, what she knew about herself: Mitch seemed decidedly more_atavistic_ than she'd expected, considering everyone else on the crew. It was increasingly difficult to determine how much of the 'teasing' was, in fact, desired by the vixen.

In fact it seemed_possible_ that Ciara had only said she was friends with Mitch to reassure Torres, under the assumption that they wouldn't see each other again. Was her relationship with the Abyssinian why Ciara occasionally felt standoffish when talking to Torres now? Could it be that she wasn't intruding on an existing friendship, but serving as an uncomfortable echo of whatever went on between the two?

You're just being paranoid, Torres decided. Mitch could be a little much, at times, but Ciara had surely proven able to handle that. She handled the Tempest plenty well, and that had to be more challenging. She found the ship's external access panels open, breaking its smooth lines to reveal the complicated machinery within.

Ciara, who of course had no idea of the feline's internal struggle, waved when she saw her. "Hey. Glad you're here. I think I might have... overcommitted."

"Oh?"

"I thought checking the amplifiers for the cloaking device would be simple, but they're linked to about two dozen other systems at every junction. I followed this line, uh..." She stooped to duck beneath the ship's wing, and pointed upwards along a series of open panels. "Like so. But it seems like it doubles back. And then back again?"

With the_Tempest_ powered down and not generating any interference, Torres's enhanced vision let her see beneath the ship's skin. "It does, I think. What does the manual say?"

The containers for their spare parts served as convenient furniture; Ciara took a seat on one, and put the computer she'd been using as reference on another. "See for yourself. Port wing assembly, exploded view. Cloaking systems, second revision."

Torres pushed a third container close enough to sit, facing the vixen. "It doesn't look like this. There's a bunch of new components in the actual ship." She could see that at once, even without doing a side-by-side comparison. "And some missing ones, too. The plasma line isn't routed back into the wing root..."

"Nope. Looking at this, I figured it would be simple. Working on the Kahil gave me too much confidence, I guess. The Uxzu don't do 'clever' engineering."

"They sure don't..." Torres folded her paws together, head tilted, examining the blueprints. The_Tempest_ was a one-off prototype, and her designers would've been iterating constantly. The Abyssinian knew very little of starship design, but she did understand improvisation. "When they tested this at first, I bet... there was something with the field symmetry..."

"Why?" She really meant: 'how did you come to that conclusion?'

Torres saw that; she switched sides for a moment, sitting next to the vixen so they shared perspective when she spun the blueprint around. "See, the relays are mirrored on both wings? And these components, these are balancing circuits. They're missing on your ship now, though."

"What about the new ones?"

She hopped off the container and went to confirm her suspicions. Ciara watched her curiously--and the way, when she was satisfied, Torres returned to the facing seat instead of joining the vixen again. "Dampeners. I don't know_why_, but the plasma lines aren't mirrored. To do that, they looped this one back. The one on the starboard side doesn't do that. So to fix it..."

Getting hands-on with the ship's components led her to the conclusion that the_Tempest_'s designers had probably encountered problems with the containment fields generated by the oversized main reactor; to deal with that they'd isolated the port and starboard sections of the cloaking device, and to deal with that they'd needed to make those sections subtly asymmetric.

"It reminds me a little of the antigravity supports they use back in the detention centers on Clearwater, for bridges and stuff--guards want to be able to shut off access real fast. Anyway, those aren't balanced either. And the way we fix the stablilizers..." She searched carefully, oblivious to the smile Ciara was giving her, watching her tail twitching. "Yeah. You can just disconnect them at the primary junction. This one here. It won't be too bad. You want to start there?"

"I think so, yeah." She pulled the tool cart over. "It still surprises me to hear Clearwater described as a prison planet. Mitch makes it sound like growing up there was... at least as boring as Zellen."

"Always wanted to go there!" Torres found the tool she was looking for, and locked the junction off so they could work the plasma relay free. "Early experiment in colonization... must be really fascinating to see, I'd think."

"I'm not sure I'd go_that_ far..."

"No?" As the two worked, the feline allowed herself to indulge her curiosity. "So what was Zellen_like_, then? Was it all... warm and stuff?"

Ciara nodded. "A big greenhouse. We grew up containment domes... the planet isn't anywhere near completely terraformed yet. I don't even think they're going to try anymore."

"Yeah?"

That complacent attitude had, in point of fact, been_why_ the vixen left. Cape Ryla was one of the largest contained areas on Zellen; new geodesics had been built, extending well into the waters off the coast and allowing them to try their hands at aquaculture.

Ryla's weather was distinct from anywhere else on Zellen, as a result. Warmer, wetter--but if she really_concentrated_, Ciara could still smell the fish processing plants, with no proper wind to carry the scent away. People on the Cape swore they didn't notice it, but for her part Munro thought it would always be soaked into her fur.

"They're proud of it. They could bring in one of the experts, somebody to really clean up the rest of the planet. But they like the life they have."

"I wonder if they did where I'm from, too." Ciara raised a questioning eyebrow. "Zellen kinda figured they didn't need the Union. Self-sufficient and all, right?"

"And that didn't end well..."

"Nah. From what I learned growing up, they hit 'em with a couple rocks in the late 26th century, and then used proties to do the rest of the job."

"Proties?"

"Yeah. Protybots? Uh, Proteus nanobots. You..." With the pronoun, Torres realized her mistake. "We. They're little thermal-powered nanobots. We used 'em to grind stuff up and make new compounds out of it. If a planet's in the habitable zone, you can chuck space junk at it until it has the right basic chemical mix and a proty swarm can turn it into rich soil ready for microbial colonization in, like... a week, tops."

"Is their job any easier if it's not a barren planet?"

The Abyssinian had to shrug. "I haven't seen it done.Hasn't been done, not for a couple hundred years. Nobody's that dumb, I guess. Your version still sounds interesting to me, but I bet it's different if you have to grow up that way..."

Ciara was happy enough to let Zellen and its backwards Glazier inhabitants be, so long as the vixen didn't have to deal with them. Nonconsensual terraforming was definitely a step too far. "You know, I thought it might be hard to keep you and Mitch straight..."

"Really? I'm the one not in uniform."

The vixen grinned. Torres, rather unlike Mitch, had a way of putting her at ease. "To be fair, Spaceman Alexander spends a_lot_ of time not in uniform."

"Well... that's a good point."

And Mitch, having heard Ciara, would've pointed out that keeping the feline_straight_ was the opposite of her goal. Torres was not the type to push boundaries. Munro laughed. "It's actually not hard. You're pretty different."

"All we got is the same DNA, yeah." She caught herself. "I mean. I like Mitch."

"I do, too. Don't tell her that."

"Oh! Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

***

First officer's log, stardate 67882.4

With repairs well underway, we're finally starting to bring the ship's systems back online. I've asked Lieutenant Hazelton for a thorough audit of what still remains, and what we need to do in the future. She assured me that this was a singularly bad failure, a consequence of the return from the mirror universe...

But I want to be sure. The Dark Horse was built tough, and she comes from a different era. But that also means she's three centuries old, and we've put the cruiser through a lot during our time in the Rewa-Tahi. If we've been taking the ship--and her chief engineer--for granted, we need to find out now.

Until that's done, we're standing watch with a skeleton crew. Hopefully fortune holds and we don't encounter anything we can't handle.

"Contact. New ship just dropped out of hyperspace, three hundred thousand kilometers away and closing."

Bradley looked over what was available from the captain's chair, which amounted to precious little. "More details, please..."

The sensors continued to be badly degraded, and the software designed to integrate their data ran on processing cores that were still offline. "I'm trying to compensate for the main computer, sir," Mitch promised. "But I'm not sure. It's big."

"On screen." All he could make out was a fuzzy blob. Even though he trusted the cat to do her best, it wasn't much to go on. He tapped his wristband communicator. "Captain to the bridge. We have an incoming vessel of unknown configuration and intent."

"Ugh. Coming, Dave."

Bradley paged Shannon next. "Lieutenant Hazelton. How soon can we have the hyperdrive back online if we need to make a quick getaway?"

"'Getaway' meaning it's important we survive, too? You don't just want a dramatic exit?"

"That would be ideal, yes."

"Twenty minutes, and I can give you... a couple light years' worth. We haven't reconnected the main reactor--everything would be on reserve power."

"We at least need the option. Bridge out." The image on the viewscreen hadn't become much clearer. "How long until they're in range, spaceman?"

"Two hours or so, based on their current acceleration."

Petty Officer Smith, working the tactical station, wasn't as inclined to speaking up as Lieutenant Bader. This time, she took the opportunity to do the shepherd proud: "depending on their weapons, we could be vulnerable well before that. We should make sure the deflectors are operational, too."

Dave's intuition told him that the ship was not a threat. For one, they'd dropped out of hyperspace so far away that the_Dark Horse_ had plenty of time to prepare. A ship that large, and yet radiating so few signals characteristic of the targeting pods of a battleship, didn't exactly scream combat vessel to him.

He'd let Captain May make the final decision. Until then, though, the deflectors were a lower priority. The new ship_probably_ wasn't dangerous; Shannon Hazelton, backed into a corner, most definitely was. Explained that way, Smith had to concede. "Yes, sir. I'll keep an eye on them, just in case..."

Running a few probabilistic scans with the sensors they_had_ suggested to Mitch that the ship was likely Uxzu in origin--or it had belonged to the Dominion at one point. "But the engine signatures aren't quite right, I don't think. I don't see any of the normal gravitic distortion. Either they all learned how to tune their engines while we were gone, or..."

"Or they bought the hull off the Uxzu and have been amending it for their own purposes," Bradley finished. "Right."

He brought Captain May up to speed when she arrived, shortly thereafter. The ship was_sized_ like a dreadnought, but it sure as hell didn't move like one. Maddy cocked her head at the blurry image on the viewscreen. "Did we try hailing them?"

"The normal protocols, yes, ma'am," Spaceman Alexander said. "No response. I should note that it's possible our transmitter is misaligned. I asked TJ and he said he 'didn't think so,' but a lot of the secondary systems are still down."

"And we're their target. Right?"

"They appear to be on a constant-bearing, decreasing-range course." Dave tapped his controls to show the local map on their viewscreen, instead of the odd blob. "There. About two hundred thousand kilometers, now."

"Captain, they're powering up..." Smith didn't finish the sentence at first. The_configuration_ looked like weapons, but not the frequency range or the power level. "I don't know what they're powering up. Some kind of narrow-confinement electromagnetic pulse. It's creating an interference pattern, directly ahead of the ship."

"Jamming?" May guessed.

"Not that kind of interference, ma'am. It... no, it's--"

She cut the explanation short by putting it on the forward viewscreen. The bridge crew were looking at a hologram--tens of kilometers across, depicting any number of mysterious objects. They seemed, to Maddy, like three-dimensional renderings of junk, spinning in the blackness of space.

Mitch Alexander took control of the viewscreen, swiveling their sensors to focus on one of the objects. "It's a static N-beam collimator. They're used in some antimatter reactors, if I remember right."

"You recognized that on sight?" The Akita was impressed.

"No. That blur next to it is actually text, though, and the universal translator can read it. It says 'N-beam collimator, static type. 32,400 credits or best offer.'" The image disappeared; another immediately snapped into place. "That's an all-terrain vehicle, ready for having weapons fitted--95,000 credits. 98,000 if you want the engine fueled. It's all in Uxzu."

"They're a merchant? They're a_Dominion_ merchant?" Maddy looked to Dave, who could only shrug. "I guess we're near Dominion space, but I never expected them to... advertise."

The displays kept cycling, as the other ship drew nearer. "I didn't, either. Keep trying to hail them. Let me know as soon as you get an answer. And... keep an eye on those holograms. Is there anything interesting?"

"Useful for us, sir, you mean?"

Mitch had been splitting her time between the bridge and the engineering teams--she knew her way around most of the cruiser's systems. A few of the holograms already looked like they could hold a bit of promise: equipment that couldn't be easily manufactured on the_Dark Horse_, or that appeared to be better than what they currently had.

"I think we_are_ being hailed now. Or our transmitters have a lock on the channel? Either way..."

"On screen," May ordered.

The_incoming_ transmission, though, was audio-only. Instead, the drifting images of starship parts morphed into the grinning head of an Uxzu captain: typically sharp-toothed, although remarkably free of scars. "Is this the Dark Horse I see?"

Maddy checked to confirm that they were transmitting their own image back--albeit not as a kilometers-high apparition--and nodded politely. "It is. I'm Captain May. You would be..."

"Tevag, captain of the_Shukriil_. I hope you have found our weaponry suitably imposing for such warriors as yourselves?"

She exchanged glances with her first officer. "Weaponry?"

"The merchandise demonstration cannon," Tevag explained and, briefly, splintered into an array of equipment and a price list once more. His voice boomed over the display. "A technique for extending the range at which we can project our capabilities."

Ah, she thought. I'm not sure what I was expecting. "Quite imposing, yes. It's not something we'd seen from the Dominion before."

Tevag's face reappeared. "It is said to be highly effective at overcoming the resistance of most prey. As it happens... our sisters and brothers in the other prides are not prey, so our experience is admittedly limited."

"We are not prey, either," she reminded him; most of the Dominion seemed to be aware of the_Dark Horse_ and its crew, and most of them already understood they were not to be considered 'prey'--but it couldn't hurt to be sure. "But we are impressed."

"You wish to conduct trade, then?"

"We would certainly consider it. Do you, perhaps, have a more complete list of your offerings?"

"The complete disposition of our merchandise is..." Tevag seemed to think better of this, and caught himself. "But you are an ally of the Dominion. You would benefit from such sensitive tactical information. Yes: yes, we shall share it with you."

Of course, the sensitive tactical information was largely the same as what the holograms had presented--there was just more of it. The_Shukriil_ had been stripped of its flight decks and most of its more conventional weaponry; the ship was filled with equipment.

Or, possibly, it was filled with trash; Maddy couldn't really tell from the lines of description. But she saw an opportunity, and that would be good enough. "Review their catalogue and see if there's anything we can make use of. Spaceman Alexander, are you up for an away mission?"

Mitch, who had joined the Star Patrol for adventure, was always_up_ for an away mission, had the Uxzu not shown up at such a bad time. "I don't think Lieutenant Hazelton will let me, ma'am. But I'm not who you want, anyway..."

***

In the end Maddy agreed with this: she wanted someone with more experience in salvage, and who wasn't involved actively involved in repairing her own ship. And she wanted someone who could speak for her, but who had the technical aptitude to think on their feet.

And she wanted a diplomat, because her chosen representative was a coyote, and not up to date on all the relevant niceties. Jack was well aware of this. "So, uh. How_do_ you negotiate with the Uxzu?"

Had Captain May been joining them, Dr. Beltran might have tempered her words somewhat--it didn't help to seem unsure of herself in front of the captain. Ford, though, was much more likely to understand. "I have no idea."

"None? At all?"

"Not a blessed clue." Torres looked over in surprise--it was the least-composed she'd ever seen the leopardess, and a great deal closer to General Beltran's notoriously blunt language. "Do they expect every transaction to be a contest of wills? Is haggling itself an affront to their honor? I have no idea, sir."

"But we'll find out?"

"Yes. We shall."

Felicia had been considering the worst-case scenarios in her head, and decided that most of them weren't all that bad. The Uxzu considered the Terran Confederation allies, after all, and they thought fondly of Madison in particular. Most slights, she trusted, could be smoothed over.

But she would've preferred a_little_ more preparation. As it was, the captain had simply directed her to the shuttlebay, where Jack and Torres met her and explained their task. She was going to have to rely on Torres and the coyote for a fair appraisal of any goods, and hope that the Uxzu believed her.

Jack had the second-most experience with the Dominion--definitely, although May hadn't asked him directly, the most_hands-on_ experience with them. Like Torres, he was looking forward to the away mission, and not just because it offered a respite from hauling things for Lieutenant Hazelton and her engineers.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. They're a nice bunch."

"Where I'm from, they're more like wild animals," Torres admitted. "They're different here? All civilized and... whatever?"

"Nah. They're basically wild animals here, too," Ford said; of course, he was one himself, and sympathized with their ways. "So we get on, y'know. Well enough."

"Right."

They could already tell the_Shukriil_ was different than other Uxzu dreadnoughts: for one, it was much better-lit. They were also not met by an honor guard of axe-wielding soldiers. Just the ship's captain, and the sound of distant, wailing music playing throughout the hangar.

"Star Patrol! I am Tevag Nashan, of the Lishek Pride." His robes glittered, lit by firestones or something similar; the olive drab floor paneling reflected the light as if reluctant to associate with him. Additional lights, on the ceiling, seemed to beat in time to the background singing. "It is an honor to do much business with you."

Jack and Torres both looked at Felicia expectantly. The leopardess flipped a coin in her head. "The business is ours, if the wares are judged of sufficient quality for my captain. The honor will be yours_then_, also."

Tevag beamed, and thumped the leopard's shoulder. "Yes! Yes, of course. You have never been aboard a Lishek ship! You wouldn't know us--you consort with the Kolash Pride, and the Neviin... the other soldiers."

"It is our first encounter, correct. Captain Jack Ford has fought alongside them, extensively. Ms Torres is an engineer... she will help us with the judgment."

"I knew a Lishek," Torres reflected, hoping it would_also_ be the right thing to say. "She was a skilled warrior, herself."

"We are, we are." He gestured for the three to follow him, and started moving deeper into the ship. "In our own way! Like you. You're not in uniform, but they must trust you as one of their own. Our front lines are the world of commerce--in all the Dominion there is no one our equal. It has a form of glory all its own!"

The other Uxzu they saw were dressed similarly to Tevag, or at least not conspicuously clad in armor or carrying weapons. Beltran didn't discern any sort of_uniform_ amongst the crew, but they nodded respectfully to the group as they passed. "So, how shall we proceed?"

"Yes! We can begin with...this item on your list. That's the closest one. It's a filtering mechanism for purifying heliositic compounds. I acquired this particular one from a Kupin merchant, who claims it was manufactured by the Ridemians. You know what they say about them, don't you?"

"We do not. The Lishek must have traveled quite far--your knowledge certainly exceeds our own, I must admit."

Tevag Nashan chortled. "They're--"

Torres listened to the conversation between Dr. Beltran and the Uxzu with one ear, focusing on the device itself. Her experience with the Ridemians--small insectoids, with compound eyes that could resolve down to the microscopic level and tiny hairs on their claws that let them manipulate extremely precise machinery--was that they were renowned craftsmen, and it stood to reason that a Ridemian hive in_this_ universe would have a similar reputation.

The filter had been used, although she saw very little damage; either its previous owner had taken good care, or it hadn't been used_much_. She added a few notes to her computer, in case anyone wanted to review them later, but she thought Hazelton wouldn't have a problem integrating it into her repair work.

And, when a natural pause asserted itself in Tevag's explanation, she cleared her throat. "This is acceptable. Do you know its condition, Tevag? Has it been used before?"

"Yes," he answered at once. "Kupin said it came from a refinery. But you will find it has been exceedingly well-maintained."

Beltran understood immediately that Torres had known this to begin with, and was principally curious about feeling out the Uxzu's honesty. That was, however, she thought, not something that required saying aloud. "Is the prior ownership factored into the price? It was not described as 'used' in your holographic catalogue."

"I assumed it went without saying. You don't find these things just_anywhere_. That's why you're asking me! Right? That was the source of your interest. The price is fair." Beltran looked to the Abyssinian, who nodded. Tevag grinned. "Good! On to the next."

The next few were similarly uncomplicated, and Tevag was perceptive: his traveling bazaar_was_ a useful place to find things that would otherwise have been impossible to pick up. She saw little room to haggle, and Dr. Beltran was happy not to have to find out the hard way whether or not such a practice was even tolerated in the Dominion.

"The last major item on our list is a harmonic energy dissipator. You said you had one in 'used' condition. Or, that's what was in the catalog anyway. Can I check it out?"

He cleared his throat with a surprising degree of awkwardness, gestured towards another area of the warehouse, and started walking. "Unfortunately, we do not have it in stock. I thought we did, but... a misunderstanding in our inventory, it seems. Or one of my subordinates executed a transaction on their own initiative."

"You don't have any at all, or you don't have the one you were advertising?" the Abyssinian asked. "Because 'used' is fine--those things are almost always meant to take a beating."

"I am not certain. We do have this... perhaps this will work? I do not wish to presume. I could let you have it for... fifteen thousand, if you think that is fair?"

They had come to a stop. Before them looked, to Felicia Beltran, like debris that had been turned into an 'art installation' at an engineering college because it was too heavy or impractical to move. Captain Ford thought it might have been the result of some particularly energetic target practice. Neither had high hopes.

Torres, though, found herself immediately intrigued. It_was_ a dissipator, or had been at one point. The heat shields were coming apart, and the inversion chamber had been exposed to reveal the crystals within. She turned up the magnification, narrowing an eye at the internals. Someone had, clearly, tried to repair the unit. Indeed, the Abyssinian was fairly certain she could see exactly where they'd gone wrong in doing so.

"Can we, uh..." She tried to think of a good excuse for privacy, and then figured the Uxzu--if they were anything like the ones she knew--wouldn't care one way or the other. "Tevag, can we talk about this behind your back for a minute?"

"Certainly!" He headed off, stopping at the far side of the room to watch them patiently. Dr. Beltran, like Torres, felt comfortable in assuming the Dominion would not have placed any listening devices. It wasn't their style.

Jack Ford, seeing that the other two were unconcerned, figured they knew better than he did and turned to business. "Complete junk?" the coyote asked. "Or is it worth salvaging?"

"It's_worth_ ten times what they're asking for it. Whoever tried to fix this thing was used to polar field generators. They must not've known that you need to run current differently through these--they blew out some of the thermal fuses and probably decided it was shorting internally. But, uh, this stuff in the inversion chamber? The tetradianium crystals are all in good shape."

Ford raised an eyebrow. "It's dianium? I thought it was just sapphire or something useless. How come they didn't part it out?"

She shrugged. "Maybe they mistook the way the pieces are cut for cracks. I'm telling you, though, they're flawless. With the light index I'm getting, I don't even think they're synthetic. Natural crystal, shaped right along the cleavage line. Whoever made this was an_artist_."

"So we can use something like this?"

"Yeah. You don't even need Ms. Hazelton. I could repair this in an afternoon, easy."

Beltran didn't follow the_technical_ details of the conversation, but she understood enough. "Tevag Lishek is unaware, though--is that accurate? He is not aware of its true value? How would that be the case?"

"Well, the Dominion doesn't use this kind of tech. Probably someone took it as spoils," Jack guessed. "Our gain, then."

"Undervalued by a factor of ten?"

They both looked to Torres for her opinion. "At least."

The leopardess took that in with a slow nod. "I... I shall require your assistance." She caught Tevag's eye, and the Uxzu strode briskly back to join them. "We may wish to acquire this device. However, there is an issue. According to Ms. Torres, you may not be aware of its condition, and have set the price incorrectly."

"Most of the price is in the scrap value of its metal shielding. I'm all too aware of its_condition_," Tevag admitted, kicking one of the gadget's legs morosely. Torres winced--which the Uxzu didn't notice, and Felicia did. She dipped her head to the other feline, which finally got his attention focused on Torres. "You... disagree?"

"The damage is mostly cosmetic. Just replace the insulation, bypass the fusibles, and strip the scoring out of the chamber and it's worth half a starfighter all on its own. Way more than fifteen grand in precious alloys."

Felicia was curious to see how Tevag took that. He could certainly, for example, choose to raise the price to match--after all, it was a logical course of action. Or he could commend them for their honesty and leave it at that, which also seemed in line with what she expected of the Uxzu.

Either way, it was striking that he showed no_surprise_--that their honesty had, apparently, been something of a given. "Hm! What would you sell it for, then, Terran?"

And now Torres was on the spot, because Beltran's move_had_ caught her off-guard. Growing up as a salvager taught her to haggle over everything--in particular, to know when it was worth going to the mat. This, ordinarily, would've been one of those times, but the diplomat wouldn't want her to low-ball them. "Me? A hundred, 110 maybe, that would be a start. If I didn't have a use for it, I'd at least want put the crystals on the open market."

"Hm," he said again. "But our systems are not compatible. None of my engineers have the expertise to repair it... I would have to hire someone. That would take time, if I could even_find_ someone willing to do the work, and then another buyer..."

"Right. Okay, I mean. Even still, under those circumstances, I'd knock it down to ninety or something. I don't know what you'd need to pay an engineering shop, but it shouldn't be more than a few hours of labor."

"Would fifty-two thousand be reasonable?"

"I... I don't know? I_can_ do the work. For me, I'd say, like... no lower than seventy. I'd be ripping myself off."

"Sixty," Tevag countered.

Jack cleared his throat. "Can we, uh... discuss our bargaining tactics here?"

Dr. Beltran allowed herself the rare luxury of a public smile. "We would accept that price, Tevag."

He appeared relieved. "Wonderful. You're a challenge, Star Patrol--negotiating with one of our own prides is never so aggressive."

***

"What did we wind up trading them?"

"Twelve kilograms of iridium and six of polytectic composite from our stockpile. And Torres is going to correct the errors in a technical manual for some robot thing they have while our engineering department looks over our haul. Captain Ford says her assistance was invaluable."

"Did they seem happy?"

"Which 'they'?" Dave asked. "Torres is fine getting to play around with alien tech, as far as I know. The Lishek are thrilled to do business with us. It's good for their prestige, according to Dr. Beltran. Lieutenant Hazelton is also... ah..."

"Shannon is more difficult to read, I know," the Akita said. "You could ask one of the others. TJ, maybe. Right?"

"Spaceman Wallace is the one who told me that she said, quote: 'I would fuck this positron modulator right here in the cargo bay if I thought I could have its beautiful monster babies.'"

Maddy wondered if that was some spacer's pidgin saying. It wasn't; the raccoon was simply running on too little sleep to have been more guarded. "Is that a good thing?"

"Reading between the lines, I imagine so. The latest report says we can be moving again in two shifts, and most of the repair work on the tactical systems can be done in hyperspace. She's assuming that we'll stay at Garakhav for long enough to finish up. I'm also assuming that."

The Akita sighed. "It's going to depend on what the Uxzu want. No," she realized, and corrected herself: "it's going to depend on how much we can convince Kenra Tellak to hold off. That... that might take a while. Probably long enough to finish up the repairs, that's for sure."

"I'll see if she's amenable to putting together a full report on what still needs to be done--how much we'll really be back at full capacity after our time through the looking glass. We were lucky to have this kind of breathing room."

She nodded. It had been a serendipitous opportunity, to be sure; they couldn't count on those. This was, in point of fact, why the Akita had become so used to simply making her own luck. So it was that, with her shift over, she left the ready room and headed not for the quarters used by the ship's officers but the ones that adjoined the flight deck.

Captain Ford had been expecting Ciara or perhaps Konstantin on the other side of the door. May was a bit of a surprise, and his puzzlement at her intentions only deepened with the way she chose to open the conversation.

"So. I was thinking."

This was, as a coyote, one of the phrases Jack himself was not supposed to say. "About?" he asked cautiously.

May didn't ask before letting herself into his quarters and letting the door slide shut behind her. "What if it wasn't an overly familiar relationship between crew?"

"Excuse me?"

"We agreed that the regulations frown on overly familiar relationships between crew. Right? So what if it wasn't that?"

"If we weren't crew, you mean? I'm not exactly sure I'm ready to resign, Maddy."

"No, no. Me either. And I need you as CAG. But what if it wasn't a relationship?"

He kept his eyebrow raised. "Like... what if it was just sex?"

"No, like: what if it was just_really good_ sex? Hear me out, okay?" Jack ran his finger up the rim of his right ear, calling attention to its alert perk. "There were... rumors about what you got up to with that Uxzu wing commander. I... am not innocent of that. With the Uxzu."

"Uh huh."

"But that's pretty unreliable. You're married, right?"

He showed her the ring on his paw. "Yes. You're not, as far as I know."

"Yeah. I'm not really what they call 'husband material,' Jack. So, I'm not looking for a relationship. You're not looking for a relationship. But here's how I'm thinking about it." How she had, in fact, been thinking about it intermittently since leaving the other coyote behind in the mirror universe. "The worst-case scenario here is that we... don't like it. Right?"

"Well..." Gears turned in his head, dangerously as always.

Ignoring that, May forged on. "The best-case scenario is that we_do_ like it, and we have an outlet for each other. In a high-stress job, where having a way to let off steam would be nice. An outlet that involves me getting tied more than once every dimension."

"You're serious about this."

"Extremely so."

Jack's wife, Debra, was also a coyote. She was given to mischief; occasionally, on patrols, he'd received messages from her that were nothing more than a holovid of Debra and one of their friends and a request for some kind of grade on the performance. She expected the same in kind.

She was also slightly built. Lithe, but not terribly strong nor especially curvy. The two had similar builds, and Debra was given to looking for partners that broadened her horizons somewhat. Jack was, too--the Uxzu Kachik Sullus had been a meaningful case in point.

And Madison May... Looking her over, he could certainly_entertain_ the thought. Debra would be pleased--she'd like the story, anyhow. Maddy did not know this, although she assumed the marriage had some considerations for Jack's work. "Do you disagree on the worst-case scenario, Jack?"

"Maybe. Maybe the worst-case scenario is that I have to awkwardly consider how you know a_lot_ more about naked-me than I know about naked-you. You're gonna compare us, obviously."

"So?"

The two of them shared, as it happened, one critical thing in common, which was that they lived almost entirely by instinct and intuition. For May, this was from an innate sense of how the universe was intended to flow, and her preternatural luck in anticipating that direction. For the coyote, it was from his time as a fighter pilot, which did not give him time for serious contemplation.

May, therefore, assumed that 'so?' was an ordinary question. That it would prompt some kind of reasoned clarification from Jack, which would in turn inform her reply. And this assumption proved completely incorrect, but she was_existentially_ prepared for what happened next, which that she found herself pinned to the door with the black coyote's lips at hers.

And his body pressed close; neither of their clothes were enough to mask the heat between them. Her encounter at Ankiyana was equally impulsive, and it left important questions unanswered. For example, whether Jack could kiss.Fuck, she thought, as he tilted her head to nudge his muzzle closer; caught the coyote's pleased growl. Fuck, he better decide he likes this.

The Akita slid her arms around him and squeezed. She was strong, the thick fur warming her embrace further, and with a deeper growl Jack found himself nudging closer. Grinding up against her hips. Firmly, but gentle at first--then his tongue was working between her lips, and she took him willingly, and the following grind was hard enough to really_count_.

At least, May gasped when he did it. A logical evolution had become clear in her head: she was going to get a first-hand opportunity to compare Jack to his doppelgänger, she was highly likely to end up with a knot in her at the end, and with any luck they would be able to establish the grounds for a productive ongoing relationship.

Fucking the mirror coyote had been undeniably_tawdry_, May had admitted to herself almost at once. She'd been trying to get something out of him, after all--wondering how he'd react. The quid pro quo made it almost... almost prostitution, really, in some sense. Jack, though--the coyote's paws were behind her now; feeling down her back, her sides--she could trust him. Enjoy it without any of those pesky complications.

She was definitely enjoying the kiss. Jack, rapidly losing the ability to think about things in terms of 'logic' or 'evolution,' was as well. Posed as a question,so? suggested an answer instead. So, I better make sure I do better. His fingers were in her pants, now, working over the Akita's rear.

Maddy had not been, in his mind, a sex object. Her face was_striking_, with its dark mask and those eyes that only a force of personality kept from appearing perpetually concerned, but he'd never appraised her as pretty any more than she'd appraised him as handsome. But it didn't take real effort to appreciate how the softly rounded triangles of her ears perked forward as their tongues met.

From there it didn't take_significantly_ more effort to wonder what her curled tail would look like if there was no clothing below her waist to distract him. That was the goal Maddy felt when he groped her, and shoved her pants downwards. And, having secured his firm commitment to the experiment--firm where it counted, anyway--she helped him finish the job.

With one leg free of the clothing pooled about her ankles, an opportunity presented itself--Jack's paw was between her thighs, searching upwards until the fur was broken by softer, barer flesh. Slick, under his fingers--for the first time Maddy realized the consequences of having psyched herself up for the meeting, considering how the coyote might respond and hoping for exactly what he was now doing.

The consequence was that as his finger curled, she was wet enough that the tip sank in with barely any resistance. And she huffed a groan, tilting her head back and breaking the kiss. And there were teeth at her shoulder, then, and a wash of the coyote's hot breath when he growled to her, and pushed in to the knuckle.

At that point they both knew the situation was no longer recoverable with any degree of propriety. Her groan was improper. The way Jack reveled at how sodden his finger had immediately become was improper. The way he immediately added a second was_definitely_ improper, at least from a handbook point of view.

He managed a few short pumps before May's leg twitched and her stance faltered. Jack pulled his fingers free, and took the chance to pull up on her shirt before moving to his own. She got the message; when he could see again, tunic tossed carelessly aside, Maddy was naked save for one foot in the untidy pile of her off-duty attire and her wristband communicator.

Given that he'd pinned her to the door, it was incumbent upon Jack to step back for whatever else followed. They looked each other over: he was not_different_ from the coyote in the shuttle, May decided. Just more so. There was no hesitation in what he did; the confidence went a long way in convincing her she'd made the right decision.

Confidence also meant both that he escalated by pointing to his bunk with a growled "bend over" and that she complied at once, bracing herself on it with her paws against the wall. She could not see the expression he gave her, but of course she heard it in the way he growled a second time, and the sound of his pants hitting the floor.

The curl, Jack thought_, is very good indeed_. It put the visibly wet, slightly parted lips of her sex on highly compelling display. The twitching, reflexive wag as he got into position behind her was exquisitely evocative. And he suspected, it might prove useful as a handhold. Soon.

Or, if not, then_in the future_.

When he guided the tip of his cock to her, gentle pressure was enough to sink him in at once, with all but no resistance. That meant it was on him alone to hold back, and May_knew_ it. And as soon as he'd got his paws on her haunches she pushed back teasingly. The briefest moment of control--his claws dug in to still her--but fuck it was still good, knowing what was about to come, feeling him twitch reflexively...

That trickle of precum worked down the underside of his shaft until it met fur. The next, a few seconds later, would spill inside her while they both groaned, unbidden. Because then, steadying her in place, he bucked forward until the curl of her tail was flush to his belly fur and he was engulfed in velvety heat.

Mirror-Jack, the_other_ coyote, had seemed plenty big--May figured she knew what to expect--but a combination of their position and the firm certainty of that initial thrust meant it came as a glorious shock, anyway, the groan she gave so primal that its very sincerity was almost theatric. He throbbed in her, twitching along the whole of that long, steel-hard shaft, and she gasped aloud.

And she did it again when he pulled back halfway; drove forward in a fluid plunge. And like that the pace was already set--he bucked against her rump heavily, every thrust deep and full. She knew what_a_ black coyote looked like, taking her, pleasure curling his muzzle and narrowing his eyes...

And she knew, though her own were closed, that she was not going to get the two confused. Little sparks flickered against her eyelids as his powerful strokes claimed her, decisive and eager. Strong. There was no sense that he was holding back, that he was unsure of himself, that he had any goal but_taking her_.

This was true. Nice as Kachik had been--usefully forward as the Uxzu were--there was a certain_something_ to having another dog. A certain rightness about how she felt when his slightly swollen knot slipped in and, faintly as it was, pressure gripped wetly about the base when he tugged it free.

A definite pleasure in_watching_ it happen, too, seeing his slick cock sink in to the hilt under that wagging curl. Maddy was not curvy, as such--anyway, nobody talked about 'starship-captaining hips'--but she was strong, and excitingly solid in his grip. He rutted her shamelessly, ramming himself into her from behind, and she took it exactly as they both needed.

Now he was thick enough that the twinges building in her when he hilted no longer completely had the chance to fade away. They blended into a rising, throbbing pleasure. She weighed her options, tried to guess at how long she might have to enjoy their swift coupling before the coyote gave in... but by that point she was already shifting to support herself on only one paw, and as her fingers found her clit the Akita realized Jack was not going to be the limiting factor.

Not to say he wasn't having fun, too--she heard him growling behind her, felt the desire in the pounding thrusts as that slick shaft stroked just below her fingers. But--fuck! He paused to hilt in her, ecstasy radiating out from where her rubbing fingers worked just above that knot.

The way he timed his withdrawal, and how he_forced_ himself back in, was almost criminally good. Not that it was purely intent--her hips had started to shake and the coyote had to take that into account--but he did it again obligingly as the pricked, fuzzy triangles of her ears swiveled back and she gasped and lost herself to the world.

For long, tumultuous seconds all she really felt was the satisfaction of release, clenching her muscles, jolting through her. Jack managed the risk that he might not be able to tie her by holding himself deep in the Akita, grinding as best he could with the rhythmic contractions seizing his knot.

But that meant that she couldn't make her way back down, those waves of climax slammed against swelling flesh pushing firmer and firmer into her, spreading her achingly, obscenely wider. She came again--or it was the same one? harder, more demanding--and got her paw into her muzzle a heartbeat before she was screaming into her fur.

More or less immobile, Jack leaned forward over her, sliding his own paw around her to replace the one now serving as an impromptu gag. His fingers reached her clit and as he teased her the Akita jolted so hard he thought he_might_ have wound up tearing free, had an obliging jolt of his hips not slammed their bodies back together.

Instead she just howled again, muffled, bucking her sturdy hips erratically as she rode out her second--third? fourth?--orgasm.This time, she got out a hoarse, urgent "Jack" that got him to stop. Got him to a good few seconds before she managed to keep herself from further squirming on his knot. "Fuck. Oh. Fuck. Hold on."

"You okay there, Maddy?"

He straightened up, and his cock shifted, and she swallowed the yelp in her throat until it was a choked half-cough. "No. Y-yes. I mean. Yes. I'm..." Her legs were watery. She raised one to get a shaky knee on the bunk, and that made things a bit easier. "Did you finish? You didn't finish."

He gave her a few breaths to compose herself before setting his paw back on her rear, and squeezing lightly. "Did you?"

She_heard_ the grin in it. Fucking coyotes, she thought. "Bastard." The other Ford had not prepared her for that. "How much noise did I make?"

"Not too much. Yet."

Her paw was soaked with saliva, and she smelled the blended scents of their rutting on her fingers.He didn't finish. The thought made her alternately giddy and apprehensive. "Your..." She tested how sure her legs felt. They would have to be sure enough. "Your turn."

Jack thrust carefully, watching how her shoulders arched and her muzzle dropped open. "Yeah? You ready?"

Maddy looked over her shoulder, locked eyes with him, and saw in his lust-drunk gaze the single-minded intent of a highly trained professional who_did_, in fact, have more testosterone than he knew what to do with and only limited ability to compensate for it. "Fill me, Jack. You're already tied. Give me the rest of it."

He pushed against her rear, sinking his knotted shaft a little deeper. His tip slid against her walls, and he did it again. Again, the pace uneven. Testing. Searching for the right angle, the right rhythm. They both knew when he found it--him, because the urge to thrust again was irresistible and the pleasure rose up quickly when he did.

Her, because she could tell the groan he gave hadn't been conscious, and his eyes went unfocused. She kept watching as he humped her and his expression shifted, lip curling, until she was sure those gratifying, purposeful strokes were doing the trick. "There. Yes. Claim me now, Jack. Cum in me."

She had figured a bit of encouragement wouldn't hurt. The coyote didn't need it; all it did was ensure the end was quick. And close. He thrust hard, his sack drawing up. Bucked faster, and then shakily--and then not at all, shoving forward at the same time he pulled her hips to him sharply.

Maddy heard him snarl; he heard nothing at all. She felt his fingers tremble with the tightness of their grip, and his cock jerking hard in her cunt; Jack felt only tense pleasure, racing up his shaft to end in a long gush that bathed his tip in his own messy heat. Like the other coyote--there was, at that point, no_comparison_--he was stock-still for the first few pulses.

Unlike the other coyote, he had her fixed tight to his crotch. As if he had claimed her, was pumping her with more than evidence of his release, staking some proof of ownership. They could argue the details--what mattered was how certain of himself he felt. How virile. As he relaxed enough to start bucking again, driving the spurts of his cum deep, Maddy realized she was almost--

No.Definitely so close she could join him. It hardly took work. As he grunted through the exertion of seeding her she rubbed insistently, her jaw clenching... yes... "Yes! Oh, fuck, Jack!" There! And she succumbed to a decidedly un-Maddylike whimper, squeezing his knot, pulsing around him and the load he was dumping in her with a sticky, ever-less-subtle warmth building in her clenching depths.

It would have served to work the coyote up further, but Jack had precious little left to give. He_endured_ it more than anything else, emptying himself in weakening spurts until he was completely spent--and well after that, the Akita was still twitching.

Conscientious, she waited to speak until the coyote had recovered and the two were settled in his bunk. "So that... that's not a relationship. We're not in a relationship_now_ any more than we were before."

"No, I don't think so."

"I have a great deal of respect for you. That hasn't changed."

He bit her shoulder. "I guess I'm glad doing a bad enough job you_lost respect_ for me isn't on the table anymore."

"It's not the kind of thing they give you medals for, I mean." She would have considered trying to put the coyote in for a commendation, had that been the case, awkward questions be damned. "But I think this will work out. Right? I think we've made a good decision."

"I'm less stressed," he admitted. "That was nice."

"Yeah. And before... you know.Earlier. Before that I hadn't been tied in so long I wasn't sure if they'd invented a whole new version. Maybe they did and you just gave me the old one. Classic knot."

"The only one I know, Maddy."

"Keep it up."

***

"So. Uh. I was thinking."

Ciara was staring at Torres, standing in the corridor carrying a sealed box and wearing her off-duty clothes--she had no_uniform_ to speak of, but the vixen was used to seeing the cat with the vest she used to store tools and spare power cells. Without those, it seemed likely to be a social visit. "What were you thinking about?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." Her quarters were, like most, spartan; the vixen hadn't had many possessions even back at her previous duty station. She let Torres in, and close the door. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah! Back on that Uxzu ship, I wound up helping them out, and they said I could pick something as a gift. And you've been so nice to me since I came here and all, I was trying to think of what you might want..."

Had it been Mitch, she might've had somewhat more trepidation. Even as it was, Ciara wasn't entirely certain what to expect. "You didn't have to do_anything_..."

Torres set the box down on the room's desk, where Ciara had been reviewing some plans for the_Tempest_, and opened it up. Inside were two sturdy pots, each containing a plant that looked somewhat like a fur-covered barrel the size of a wine bottle. "I know. But I thought it might be interesting!"

"Interesting?"

"They're some kind of Uxzu succulent. The doctor said they didn't trip anything in the biofilters. But, see..." As Tevag had showed her, she pressed her claw against the top of the plant, until the skin dimpled. And, at once, the scarlet fur stiffened into a neat spiral of stiff spines, unfurling from bottom to top--she barely had the chance to pull her finger away. "Some kinda defense mechanism."

"Do they do that... often?"

"I don't_think_ so." The spines slowly relaxed, and the Abyssinian ran the back of her finger down them carefully. "It's fine. But, uh. I've never had a plant before! And I figured since you're from an agricultural world and all, you could show me how to take care of it? Whichever one you don't pick."

Ciara took a closer look at the two plants. They seemed more or less identical. She prodded the other with a claw, and watched the spines straighten to reveal brilliant emerald beneath. "This one, I guess. When do they flower?"

The Abyssinian placed the other plant back in the box. "I'm not sure! I figure we'll find out, right?"

"I'm not actually a farmer," the vixen reminded her. "I left. But..."

"Closer than me. This"--she tapped the temple next to her cybernetic eye--"doesn't really tell me anything. So we'll be in it together!"

"Sure," she said, more confidently than when she'd let the feline into her quarters. And then she smiled. "I'd like that."

---

...AND NEXT TIME, ON TALES OF THE DARK HORSE

Mostly, what the Abyssinian knew was that she was glad to be out of the biohazard suit, and that she was hungry. "Dinner claims to be something called 'spaghetti bolognese.' I don't know what that is," the cat admitted; growing up on a prison planet had not been good for her culinary horizons.

"It's probably better that you don't," Ciara mused. "Considering what the ship will have done to it. I guess I could eat dinner, yeah..."

"Would you like some company? I thought maybe we could have dinner and then I can show you what we've been working on all day. It looks pretty impressive. I don't exactly what it does, but it looks impressive. I think you'll enjoy it."

She considered the feline's offer. "Is this a date?"

"Do you want it to be?"

***

Ayenni's ears lowered, and she took a heavy seat in her chair. The computer was running another cluster analysis, although she had little reason to expect this would be any more conclusive. The Parixian government's reports were no more helpful, and she had the sense that they didn't much care what happened to the inhabitants of a separatist world.

Behind her, the door hissed open. She sensed Dave's presence without having to turn around.

"Hey," he said, quietly. "How are you holding up?"

"As well as can be expected. You have another report from Inishexi, right?"

He stepped closer, into her line of sight, and held out the computer. "How'd you guess? You a mindreader, or something?"

She always found the retriever's presence calming, no matter how frustrated she was; she indulged him with a laugh, her fur rippling in the soft red waves that reflected the happiness he invariably brought out in her. "Can you summarize it?"

The red, he knew, would fade quickly: "Yeah. Another six hundred dead. And it's been reported in twelve more cities. But, ah. There's worse news. One reason we've been trying to assure the Inishexians that this plague wasn't deliberate is that it's so contagious no Parixian ship would carry it as a live agent. Right?"

"Right..."

He waggled the computer for her to take. "Someone ran the port records. It wasn't a Parixian ship."

***

They ended up fifty-odd thousand kilometers from the cruiser, an imposing starship twice the mass of their own. Its captain, too, looked imposing. "This is the Parixian warship Amata. State your identification and purpose for trespassing into our space."

"I'm Captain Madison May. The Dark Horse is on a humanitarian mission to Inishexi. We're working on a cure for the--"

He cut her off with a short, ugly bark. "We're well aware of your sympathies to the separatists, Captain May. You forced us to negotiate with them after the military coup you helped sponsor. Who do you think believes your cover story about a 'cure'?"

Taken somewhat aback, the Akita twitched her ears. "My crew, hopefully, since they're the ones working on it. We've made good progress so far."

"While sending a heavily armed warship into sovereign Parixian territory," the other captain said. "Lower your shields and prepare for inspection. If this cure is what you say it is, we'll take it to Inishexi ourselves. If they even know how to use it."

"You're not going to board us," she answered flatly. "We can discuss this with your government after the cure is with your scientists. Not before."

Mitch muted their transmission and cleared her throat. "They're charging weapons, ma'am."

***

"Truth and reconciliation can only do so much. The Royal Navy was never defeated in the field. There are still plenty of lower-ranked royalists who believe that the war should've ended in exterminating the separatists--that they might've done so had the military not seized power. A coup is bound to have consequences, you know?"

It was a coup--he hadn't bothered to force her to admit--that Maddy had helped ensure, after allying with the Outland Democratic Front in her effort to defeat the Wanesh. Without the implicit protection of the Star Patrol, and the other members of her coalition, the Royal Navy might have capitalized on its destruction of the moon. "But what was the alternative?"

"Indeed. Still, not everyone thinks that way. And now we're being told of another existential threat--these 'Pictor' we've heard of. If the Republic is, truly, at risk, then shouldn't its navy be at our borders? Most of our captains are warriors, seeing their ships used to ferry cargo and aid in reconstruction. They chafe at that, I believe."

"I... well, I can definitely understand that. But nobody's asked for the Republic's aid, have they? Most of the Rewa-Tahi is still neutral, as far as the Pictor Empire is concerned."

Again he chuckled, and again his neck frills rippled with it. "It's only a matter of time. We Parixians see ourselves as a great power, destined for great things, and yet we've always been in the shadow of others. The Dominion, the Wanesh, the Varn... soon enough it will be the Terrans, and if not them then your foes. You did see fit to ignore our blockade..."

"What was the alternative?" Maddy asked again.

And, again, his answer was the same. "Indeed."

***

Ciara's vixen's nose twitched, and then she rolled upright, mumbling to herself. Her bunk was warmer than she'd expected. The room smelled slightly different. "Did I... what did I do? Did I leave something out?"

"Coffee--hey!" A startled yelp cut the Abyssinian off before she could say capsules. "Are you alright?"

"I... yes." Fuck, she thought. You're supposed to be a combat pilot, aren't you? "I don't normally wake up with someone else in the room. Sorry. Thanks," she added, quietly, when Torres handed her one of the mugs.

"Don't mention it. Thanks for letting me crash here, too." She sat down on the edge of the bed; Ciara scooted over to make room. "I probably could've gone back to my quarters, I guess. Maybe next time I'll spare you the shock."

***

"The truth is that no sane military would pursue weapons like this."

Maddy reviewed her options, tempered by the fact that she had--unlike Jack Ford--never been considered for the kind of command track program where one learned how to handle such challenges. Ford--who was, after all, still a coyote at heart--opened his muzzle without thinking about any consequences of doing so. "No sane military. You think the Pictor might be different?"

"Or the Union," Captain May said before the petty officer could answer. "They're definitely different."

Jack twitched an ear. "You're considering something rash, Maddy, aren't you?"