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It's time for another Very Trek plot. But with smut, which makes everything better~

Hey folks! I broke my rule and posted the previous episode before I had the rest of the series written. Now the next couple of episodes are written, and I know where I'm taking the rest of the season, so... yes! Have a pretty Trek episode, with some bonus smut because that's good for everyone. I hope you've been doing well! Enjoy your weekend!

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

S7E2, "Contagion"

Stardate 67906

Maddy sighed. The Admiralty's latest update came in the form of a short holographic message, a set of charts, and a detailed overview of skirmishing over the last few days. She didn't find the news especially good; the hologram, though, was even more troubling.

Commander Bradley, who'd also been forwarded the update, was the first to arrive for the morning briefing. She waited for him to take a seat. "You've looked through it?"

Dave considered his words carefully, trying to think of how best to allay her concerns. "The Dominion is... they're hard ones to convince, Maddy," he finally said. That had been what he took away from the strategic update: despite having caution repeatedly counseled, Uxzu warships had engaged the Pictor in three new battles, each of which had left the Dominion bloodied.

"That's not exactly what concerned me. I mean, it did, a little," she admitted; their inclination for rashness could be frustrating. But her misgivings went deeper. "I meant the hologram from Mercure."

The retriever tilted his head. "Hologram?"

Maddy checked again, and found that it had been encoded for her eyes only. "Ah. Well. I guess we'll cover it in a few--hello, Jack. Dr. Beltran." The door had opened again for the pair; a few seconds later, Lieutenant Vasquez joined them, too. "We're just waiting on Shannon?"

Dave shook his head. "We have a quorum. Lieutenant Hazelton asked me to stand in for her. They're still busy down in engineering."

"Right. Well. Then. I take it you've all read the latest update. The Admiralty believes that the Pictor Empire requires time to regroup. They've pulled back from the antispinward front of their offensive completely."

"Challenged?" Jack Ford asked. "They're running into trouble?"

The question had been intended for Vasquez, their expert on the Pictor, whom the coyote looked at expectantly. The wolf demurred. "I don't know. I don't think so, though. At least, not conspicuously--our attack on that big station hurt them, but from what I can tell, they're probably readjusting their supply lines more than anything else."

"What about the Dominion?"

Vasquez had not been party to Dave's earlier comments, and he lacked the crew's long-term familiarity with the Uxzu, but he felt like he'd already learned plenty. "They're probably assuming their hit-and-run attacks are disrupting the Empire's advances. I don't see much evidence for that in our intelligence, sir."

"You don't see 'much,' or you don't see 'any'?"

"May I?" he gestured towards the table, with its computerized display. Maddy nodded her permission, and the wolf brought up the sector map for them to look at. "The attacks over the last two weeks. It's a fairly consistent line following the Pictor withdrawal from that advance. But I don't think it's causing it. They've been engaging rear-guard ships, and generally not getting the better of it."

"Needless to say, they're not going to stop." That much was more or less a given, where the Dominion was concerned. The Akita had learned this well; their proclivities needed to be planned around, not corrected. "So the only question is: what can we do to help them?"

"The Admiralty is keeping the 16th Fleet deployed as close to the active front as they can without outrunning our replenishment capabilities. I assume that was a specific request from Admiral Mercure," Vasquez concluded aloud; the lion would want to be able to react quickly. "Conducting scouting missions, sharing reconnaissance--things like that."

"What about us, specifically?" May let the question hang. "We need to be prepared. How's the ship, Dave? What does Shannon have to say?"

"Repairs are almost complete. She says all the critical work has been done, and now they're fixing the auxiliary systems that had taken up the slack. She expects to be finished in another six shifts."

"Finally, some good news." May filed that away, and looked over to Captain Ford. "The auxiliary group?"

"All good, captain. We got the machine shop adapted to make new rounds for the Kahil, thanks to some help from Mitch... second Mitch? Torres. She figured out the chemical composition real quick; helped us modify the ship so it'll work with our tech. In the long run..." The coyote paused, here, because in the long run much would need to be done with the bomber. "Well. It doesn't have shields, so I'd like to fit it with new armor and countermeasures. But engineering has been busy, and it can wait. We're at full readiness."

"More good news, in that case. We--"

The chirp of her communicator interrupted her; someone on the bridge needed her attention. "Captain? Priority message from the Ui-te-Rangiora, about nine parsecs from here. Captain Wilkes said something about receiving a distress signal, but we've lost the connection for now."

Her brow furrowed. The Ui-te-Rangiora, from their map, was in safe territory, far closer to the Confederation border. "Understood. Set an intercept course and engage at maximum speed. Keep trying to raise the ship."

"Aye, captain." Parnell had anticipated this; the course was already plotted. And, she discovered, the downtime for repairs had paid dividends--their hyperdrive came up to full power nearly immediately. "We're underway."

With the channel closed, Maddy surveyed the group. "What do we think happened?"

***

Captain Wilkes kept things brief: "We received a distress call from Inishexi, a Parixian planet. There's been an outbreak of some kind of disease. The planet is under quarantine, but it's already spread to two of the major population centers."

"Is it fatal?"

"Yes. It seems to be for at least ten percent of the infected. And there are... political complications. Inishexi was a separatist planet. The plague appeared in a spaceport city, following a relief shipment organized by the central government. They're agitated."

Maddy frowned. Before they'd been pulled into the alternate universe, the treaty negotiated between the Outland Democratic Front and the Parixian monarchy was new, stable, and generally respected. Clearly, things had changed in the time they were gone.

She asked Commander Wilkes to send over whatever information the Ui-te-Rangiora had, and summoned another meeting in her ready room. 'The information' was abundant, and she had no good way to make sense of any of it. Neither did Dave Bradley, whom she asked to take point on the operation; her mind was still elsewhere.

Barry Schatz did--or, at least, the Border Collie saw some immediate patterns. "It's not native to the planet. We can say that for sure. The early cases are all from this coastal city here: a big port, with lots of off-world shipping traffic."

"Yes. It might've arrived in a shipment of food aid, organized by the royalists. Apparently, the port is also where a number of survivors from the destruction of Vallanax have settled. You can see why they'd be suspicious. I was hoping that you might recognize the symptoms from something in Qalamixi's database. Or that you might, Ayenni?" she added hopefully, looking towards the ship's doctor.

What Ayenni saw, first and foremost, was that hundreds of people had already died. As for the symptoms themselves... "Not really. Generalized pain, fatigue, meningitis in some of the cases... anemia in most. It could be one of a hundred diseases I know in the sector. Or one I don't. Are there are any cases where it's been successfully treated?"

"I'm not sure," Dave admitted. "You're our expert."

Dr. Schatz had been busily going through the records. "It looks like they're just managing symptoms. Occasionally, the infected seem to recover completely. I think a lot of these others are just lingering."

And the cities where the infection was known, Ayenni saw, had a population of millions. "I don't know anything about epidemiology, Dave. I guess... Dr. Schatz, do you think we can use these records on the sick and the recovered and run a segmentation analysis? Maybe that would give us some kind of clue."

"I... I think so. Yeah. Sure," the collie promised. He didn't know yet whether or not it would yield any useful results, but the Parixians had been open about sharing data with the Ui-te-Rangiora, and he imagined they'd give the Dark Horse whatever was asked for.

"What about the politics?" May prompted. "Can we say this was an attack?"

"I think it's unlikely. But no, ma'am, we can't say for certain. Biological weapons are nearly impossible to contain. I don't see why the Parixian government would put themselves at risk like that. Or the loyalists on Inishexi, for that matter."

May dismissed the scientists so they could go to work. Her first officer, however, she kept back. "We might need to take this one over, Dave."

"From Commander Wilkes?"

"The Ui-te-Rangiora is being retasked to study an anomaly near the Ataval System. Some kind of... hyperspace distortion. I think the Admiralty will ask us to intervene, if we can."

"They're a survey ship. They have plenty of equipment aboard for biological research. We have two doctors. Or, a doctor and Barry."

The Akita scowled. "You think I'm happy? Wilkes says their mission is one of military necessity. When did we stop being militarily ne... necessful. What's the word?"

"'Needed.' But I think 'useful,' perhaps, is actually the word you're looking for." The retriever put his paw on hers. "If they want us to fight, we'll fight. But right now, maybe--"

"Maybe there's a war on and we're just letting the Star Patrol take the brunt of it. Yeah?" Her eyes had narrowed when she cut him off. "Maybe we're just going to sit here while all our friends get murdered. Is that it?"

"We're also just one ship in the line of battle, Maddy. You don't think we might be more useful here?"

"We have been charting this sector for years, preparing for exactly this event."

"Helping the Terran Confederation prepare for it," he corrected gently. "And we have helped. We know more about this sector than anyone else in the Star Patrol."

"Do we? Have we helped? Why are they keeping us at arm's length, then? After all we've done, why do not they still not trust me?"

Dave, who suddenly realized what the Akita had really meant from the beginning, blinked. "Maddy..."

"That's not fair. You don't know. You can't answer that."

He squeezed her paw, and tried to think of what to say. May assumed the answer was 'nothing'--she was angry, and doing the best to keep her emotions in check rather than venting them on her first officer. "Do you remember how you used to say that if the Star Patrol knew what they were doing, you'd be in command of a dreadnought already?"

She frowned, her brow furrowing. It was, indeed, a sincere belief on the Akita's part. "Yeah?"

"You haven't said that in a long time. Not since we were given this mission." He paused, to let that sink in and to give her a chance to argue that he was wrong. May kept frowning. "What if... okay, it's hard to accept. But what if Star Patrol is keeping the ship on its assignment because that's the right thing?"

"And they don't trust me to--"

"Maddy." For once, he cut her off. May was not used to being interrupted. "How many planets do you think you would've saved from an asteroid if you'd been back on Terra's side of the frontier, in command of the Victory? How many peace treaties do you think you would've brokered?"

She was silent for a long period, trying to think of when the last time she had thought herself better suited in command of a dreadnought like TCS Victory instead of their antiquated, idiosyncratic, one-of-a-kind star cruiser. At last, she sighed. "There's a problem with your theory, Dave."

"Yeah?"

"If Star Patrol did the right thing, that's being very charitable."

"You have friends in the Admiralty. Not all of them have to know where you belong."

"You trust Gil Mercure?"

She was starting to smile again, so Dave grinned. "Don't pull that card. You trust him, too. You're good at this Maddy. We're good at this. Right, I mean... you kept me in the service, didn't you?"

"I suppose I did." She sighed again, more heavily, and tapped her wristband communicator. "Bridge, this is the captain."

Mitch Alexander answered. "Bridge here."

"Send a message to the Ui-te-Rangiora. Ask them to tell Admiral Mercure we're standing by to respond to the Inishexi crisis, and awaiting further orders."

"Yes, ma'am."

***

Lieutenant Vasquez had taken up residence in the ship's astrometrics room--the Dark Horse, even with her outdated sensors, took in far more information than could be processed in real-time. Later, while they traveled between stars in hyperspace, her computers worked to collate it, analyze it, and add it to their charts.

The maps they'd obtained from the mirror universe contained some of the highest resolution imagery anyone had of the Pictor Empire; many of the details would be different, of course, but he imagined that continents and climates would be the same in both universes. For sure, entire planets and moons would be.

From there, it was possible to make logical assumptions about the Pictor Empire's disposition. If one of the Confederation's surveys indicated a buildup of forces somewhere in a cube twenty light years across, he could look for the system that was richest in natural resources.

The Pekaalan Cradle they'd attacked and destroyed was only one of dozens of anomalies the wolf had found, comparing the two sources of information. Many of those didn't amount to much. At least one had been random, he thought; it looked a lot like a gamma-ray burst fortuitously caught by the Patoni X sensor array.

Scientists would be interested in something like that. Vasquez didn't have the luxury. He was deep in his work when the door to the lab opened. Ciara Munro waved. "You got a moment?"

The wolf recovered from being startled quickly. "Uh. Yes, ma'am."

Munro was inclined to consider her promotion a sort of formality, particularly given the Dark Horse's small crew. "You don't have to do that. These are... maps? Navigation stuff?"

"I'm hoping we can find something strategically useful. There are a few things I'll probably ask Dr. Schatz to help me follow up on."

"He's busy, I hear. This plague thing." Ciara steeled herself for the real task she'd forced upon herself. "How... how are you holding up?"

"What do you mean?"

"You and Mercure were pretty close," she began.

She didn't have to say anything else; the wolf had been turning over the same sort of thoughts ever since the revelation. It was, although he wasn't particularly inclined to admit it, why he'd been spending so much time in the lab. "I was a bit surprised. Yes."

Unprompted, Ciara took one of the other seats, swiveling it to face him. "I had no idea. Was there anything--is there any way we could've known?"

"I'm not sure. I tell myself the answer is 'no.' I hope the answer is 'no.'" He fidgeted with the map he'd been looking at for a bit. "I was closer to him than you were."

"Were? Are?"

The wolf gave a bitter laugh. "I don't know."

She didn't, either. "I feel like I can't trust anyone, now. I guess May talked to him, right? So... so either she reported him to the Admiralty, or she thinks he's still trustworthy. But I wasn't there. I don't know."

"The hell of it, you know, is, uh. I was going to ask you, actually. Working up the nerve."

"What do you mean?"

He grinned sheepishly. "We're not exactly friends, you know?"

She had, it was true, not put a great deal of effort into re-evaluating her initial impression of the man. But: "that's on me. I'm sorry for being so standoffish. I kind of figured you were just another ISD meathead, to tell you the truth. And I didn't need a bodyguard, I knew that much, and that wasn't fair to you. I should've given you a chance, though. We..."

"Can count on each other?" he suggested. "Have to count on each other?"

And Ciara realized that was what she had been trying to think of. "Yeah. Should I call you 'Dr. Vasquez'?"

His grin was easier now. "If I'm not calling you 'ma'am,' you're definitely not calling me 'doctor.' Everyone ends up on 'Pancho,' eventually."

"Sure." Hurdle cleared--she hadn't asked for forgiveness, although it was clear enough that Vasquez was the forgiving sort--she came back to the other question he'd evoked. "Why did you want to talk to me, though? Because we both came here on Mercure's orders?"

"No. Well... maybe a little. But you're friends with Ms. Torres, right?"

"Yeah?"

"She's from his universe. You don't think she's going to stab you in the back, do you?"

"No."

"So... so maybe it is okay. Maybe he's one of the good guys."

It was what they both hoped to be true, but Ciara had been grappling with internalizing that. Torres, after all, had been honest about her intentions--Mercure had not. "It's a pretty big thing to keep from us, though, isn't it?"

"What if I told you I was from an alternate universe where everything was almost the same except everyone was also evil, except me, and I'd left the real version of me behind in my universe because he was the evil one?"

Being a fairly recent addition to the ship proved both a blessing and a curse. Ciara had been around for longer: several existential threats to the Terran Confederation, a rogue asteroid, a trip back to the dark age that was 1962 on Terra. A planet-destroying superweapon, instantaneous jumpdrives, a gravity-powered generation ship... "I'd consider it, I guess. I've seen weirder."

"I'm not sure I have."

...A tribe of pre-industrial aliens who thought Sabel Thorsen was a god. A living spaceship older than recorded history. "Well, you're planning on sticking around, aren't you?"

"Until I'm given new orders, sure."

She felt, oddly, reassured. "Wait until the first away mission Captain May decides you need to be put on. Then we'll see what we both think is weird, how's that?"

***

Barry Schatz had gone to bed, finally, leaving Ayenni alone in the medical bay. The problem, she thought, was really with the size of the universe. Her knowledge of Parixian biology was decent enough--Yara prided themselves on their healing skills--but even so, the symptoms could stem from thousands of origins.

There were no immediately obvious patterns that she could see in the data. Clearly, the epidemic had begun in the port, amongst port workers. From there, it spread rapidly, and through few identifiable channels beyond mere contact. It had to have been airborne, but scans didn't show any potential virus that was common only to the victims.

Parixians with antibodies to Hapalian flu appeared to fight off the infection better, but--so near as Ayenni could tell--those antibodies were not directly involved. Separatist Parixians, or perhaps only those that had not spent more time off-world--the monarchy controlled most interstellar trade--appeared to be more vulnerable, but not always.

Her 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. 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, 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 is that this disease seems to be so contagious that no Parixian ship would carry some kind of live agent. Right?"

"Right..."

He waggled the computer for her to take. "Someone ran the port records. It wasn't a Parixian ship. The Parixian government hired an alien shipping agent. Ostensibly, it's because that's where the relief supplies were coming from in the first place. But... we're hearing rumors that the disease seems to affect mostly separatists, somehow."

She took the computer and started scanning through the report. "Maybe. But planets like Inishexi have been disadvantaged for years. It might be an inoculation they didn't get, or something that you gain protection against serving in the Parixian Royal Guard somehow. There are a lot of worlds in the Rewa-Tahi. We..."

Don't know yet, Dave perceived, although she didn't actually speak the words. She'd stopped talking altogether, and her fur took on the purple hue that conveyed confusion in her native language. "Ayenni?"

"Wait, it was a Mawai ship? Mawai Prime is a two-week journey from Inishexi." Her head tilted one way, and then the other. The purple deepened, without intent. She wished she did not feel so tired; something bothered her in the report. "I'm not sure you've even encountered the Mawai. They're still mostly pastoral. Mawai rokobeast is a common food animal in the surrounding systems. Yara are vegetarians, but I hear it's nutritious. I wonder what the manifest was..."

She called it up, projecting it into the middle of the medical bay. Dave, reading through the list, didn't see much out of the ordinary. "Some agricultural chemicals. Cryogenically frozen meat, nutrient synthesizers. I'm not a doctor, but if this was some kind of food poisoning I wouldn't expect it to show up immediately."

"No, that's right. It can't have--" Her fur, which had remained deep violet, went white and then flashed pink as the answer hit her. "I need to meet with Captain May immediately. And you. And Dr. Schatz."

"You know what's going on?"

"Yes. It wasn't deliberate. I think we can fix it. Can you--"

He put a paw on her shoulder to reassure her, and then used it to tap his communicator. "Maddy?" A few seconds later he heard grumbling. "Ayenni wants to speak to us at once. She says she has an answer. And maybe a cure."

Twenty minutes later they were in the captain's ready room. Dr. Schatz had arrived with a pitcher of coffee, having fully intended to consume the entire thing himself. Captain May had other ideas, at least for a good cup's worth. With half of that downed, the Akita looked to their doctor. "Well?"

"The Mawai are mostly farmers. There's a virus endemic to nearly all of their livestock, which replicates in the nuclei of eryth--of red blood cells," she corrected, seeing May's focus beginning to slip. "If it moves into the bone marrow, it causes rapid aplastic anemia. It also technically infects white blood cells, but it doesn't seem to do anything."

Dave thought he'd followed her explanation. "The Mawai have built up an immunity?"

"They're naturally immune. Most hemoglobate species in this sector don't have nucleated red blood cells. But the Parixians do, along with the Ortalis, the Huzan, the Valish... a few others."

"Yara," Dr. Schatz said. He had made a point, strictly from academic curiosity, of studying their doctor's species. "The Yara, as well."

"Yes. That's correct."

Captain May's ear twitched. "Are you at risk?"

"No. Probably not. Mawai hematovirus-B is similar to many throughout this sector, and most of them are much less severe. I've picked up a few. Most space travelers do--I'm sure if I ran your bloodwork, you'd all be carrying some form of one or another. I've developed antibodies to them."

Dave recalled the latest report they'd been sent from Inishexi. "Like you might if you were a member of the Parixian Royal Guard, as opposed to living on an isolated separatist planet."

"Yes. Exactly. It should be possible to create a vaccine based on my blood cells, which the authorities on the planet would be able to replicate in quantity. I'd need to do some modeling on protein folding, but Dr. Schatz should be able to help me with that."

The Border Collie had become distracted by the earlier part of her statement. "No."

"No?" Ayenni blinked in a reflexively Terran gesture of surprise she'd adopted without thinking from Dave Bradley. "Why not?"

"Oh, uh. The protein folding, sure, uh, I'd love to fold proteins with you. But, uh. I mean--not your proteins, the model, but--"

"Dr. Schatz." May cut him off--aware, in a way the distracted Border Collie was not, of the looks he was getting. "What is 'no,' then?"

"There's no way the Parixians can produce an antidote like that. Not the way we can. Just look at the data we've been getting from them. Most of our work has relied on extrapolation... they don't have those molecular-resolution synthesizers like we do, which probably--yeah, I mean, that--right. So, that has to explain why their biofilters didn't catch this to begin with, you know? It turned out that the medical corps had the same issue with some of the strains of Ustratha meningitis."

Madison extracted what she could from his rambling. "So if they can't synthesize it..."

"Yeah. I was trying to think, because, uh. We could make it ourselves. I'm almost positive."

"We could?"

"Yes, ma'am. I think so. I'd need to talk with Lieutenant Hazelton about the details."

"If we can do it..." The Pictor were in the other direction. Maddy steeled herself. "Do whatever it takes to get it done. I'll inform the Admiralty that we're headed for Inishexi at full speed."

***

Torres did not know the fine details of protein folding. She did not know why she had been asked to report to main engineering with such urgency. She did not know who the Parixians were, at least not in the universe that was her new home, and she did not know the unpleasant details of the civil war.

Mostly, what the Abyssinian knew was that she was glad to be out of the biohazard suit required for helping to set up Ayenni's new laboratory, which occupied the entirety of what would, in other circumstances, have been the ship's port shuttlebay.

She had not, as such, made plans for what was to follow--she was not officially Star Patrol and didn't work regular shifts. The ship's engineers had been stressed, and their tension fed into stress that Torres wanted to deal with.

How?

Her decision to visit Ciara Munro's quarters was made impulsively. The vixen had been off duty for half an hour, and was still settling in; she answered the door chime with a tilted head, and then a smile. "Oh. Hi, Torres."

"Hey. Uh. Have you had dinner?"

"Not yet. I... it's always kind of a crapshoot, you know? With the protein synthesizers and all. What is it today?"

"It claims to be something called 'spaghetti bolognese.' I don't know what that is."

"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?"

This wasn't the answer she'd expected, and she wasn't entirely certain how to respond. "I... I don't know. I'll get back to you, how's that?"

Torres grinned. "Sure."

Not that she'd really dated. Her life growing up first on a prison world and then as a hard-scrabble salvager hadn't left much room for that--a fact Ciara could guess at even without being told. One relationship with a colleague in the resistance ended badly when the colleague himself did; after that had been a series of flings.

"What, uh, is a date, anyway?" she asked.

She'd hoped it would put Ciara at ease, and the vixen's laugh was reassuring. "I'm not sure. Where I'm from... ugh. You don't want to know what it's like where I'm from."

"Where I'm from, it means you make sure your breaks line up and find a convenient hulk in the junkyard to share nutritional wafers. Maybe, if the door closes, you make out a bit and get yelled at by your supervisor. Is it more awkward than that?"

They'd reached the mess hall, which was empty. Ciara fetched two servings of 'spaghetti bolognese' and two glasses of sparkling water, because the non-carbonated option had been broken for days while the engineering teams dealt with more serious issues.

It offered, at least, a touch of class to the vibrantly red pasta. Torres turned her artificial eye on the plate, scanning the emissions with an ever-increasing degree of concern at the chemical names. She hadn't had a food synthesizer at her previous job. The variety was nice; the chemicals were not. "I'm gonna give it a bit."

"Psyching yourself up for it?" Ciara tested a forkful, and shrugged. "It's passable. Not like it would taste if you had it fresh, or anything, but... I've eaten worse."

"Me, too, but..." No, she figured her hunger could build for at least a few minutes more. "Still. And you avoided my question. You're not distracting me with dinner and... prickly water. What are things like where you're from?"

"You can kind of... court without it being an issue. Something like this, chatting over food with someone you're interested in romantically, that would be fine."

Torres propped her muzzle on her elbows. "'Like this,' huh?"

She coughed, and used a few bites of pasta to buy time. "You knew what I meant. On Zellen, if you want to demonstrate your commitment, you need to speak to the local elder. If they approve, and the matchmaker approves, you're allowed to make a garland you can present to the other person."

"The... matchmaker?"

Ciara understood the tone of the Abyssinian's voice. "You mean: does anyone actually take any of this seriously? They do. A little bit, at least. My wife thought it was extremely amusing, when we started going out."

"She wasn't from Zellen?"

"No. We met offworld, after I'd already left, but I also didn't know that wasn't how things were done in the rest of the Confed. Glazier living... it messes with your brain." Fortunately her wife had helped the vixen overcome her upbringing.

And then, of course, in the end she'd turned out to be the traditionalist: the one who wanted to settle down, the one with a stable career, the one who thought Munro should've outgrown the Star Patrol the same way she outgrew Cape Ryla.

It wasn't a story she felt inclined to recount; she shrugged, instead, and laughed it off. "I got better. I haven't tried to put flowers on anyone else since."

"What about dates?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

Ciara tried, and failed, to come up with an answer. "Finish your dinner first."

***

"We've made some progress."

"Enough progress?"

"How do you growl?" she asked.

The retriever did not, as a rule, growl. Certainly he didn't do so often. But he tried, for her benefit. Ayenni listened carefully, and did her best to replicate the sound. "I mean... that's pretty close. You're stressed, then. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No. I'm just waiting for Shannon's assembly robots to finish up and then we can see whether we..."

There appeared to be problems with her plan to synthesize a vaccine. Dr. Schatz believed that the 'problems' came from the small quantities of reactants they were using, which magnified some effects dramatically. The Border Collie thought that their full setup wouldn't have the same issues. Ayenni herself wasn't sure--but then, while she knew medicine and chemistry, she wasn't as familiar with technology as Barry, so maybe he was right. Maybe.

Most frustratingly, she hadn't been able to come up with a better explanation. So perhaps he was right, and perhaps he wasn't, but she was in the dark and she didn't like it. Dave wouldn't have understood the details of the production process; she didn't bother explaining. What he would've offered was commiseration, and comfort, and...

"Ayenni?" he asked. Her fur was turning a thoughtful orange.

And then pink. She braced herself for the shock of contact, then grabbed the retriever by his shoulders, pulled him down with her, and rolled until she was atop him. "Maybe you can help with the tension..."

He looked up at the alien, whose bright eyes were far more scheming than he was used to. "You don't mean a massage, do you?" He ran his paws down her sides, sinking fingers through her soft pelt. "What did you have in mind?"

She was a telepath, and they'd been together for so long that their thoughts naturally blended when they were in particularly close contact. Telepathy, though, was not strictly necessary--not with her straddling the dog, her hips pushing down and already finding a bit of resistance there.

"0600," he murmured.

Ayenni leaned forward. Her mind was not quite yet clear enough for the intimacy of a kiss, still filled with thoughts of the day's work that would spill over into Dave were she not careful. Instead she nosed the dog's floppy ear, whispering aloud. "I didn't ask you when you were next on duty."

"You were thinking it." His voice was a quiet stammer. When she was making the deliberate effort to control herself, the feeling of her breath on his fur had a way of immediately soothing him, distracting him...

But she kept rolling against his crotch, and they both knew that inside his boxers the dog's erection was half free of his sheath and stiffening further by the heartbeat. "I wasn't," she told him, still whispering. "I was--"

"You were thinking of reasons to care about it."

"Better."

Ayenni ground against him, this time, and he couldn't help his gasp. It was more aggressive than she'd ever really been with him--normally she was mild-mannered and gentle and their intimacy progressed with the languor of a sumptuous meal. Mitch is a bad influence, he thought.

He did not really mean bad, of course. He couldn't see Ayenni's grin, but she snickered nonetheless, the way Mitch herself might have done. It had nothing to do with the Abyssinian, and everything to do with the way focusing on a singular goal helped clear the rest of her thoughts.

She chanced a kiss, and the fringes of their thoughts met, and melded while he groaned softly into her lips and the thick fur of her pelt slid against him as her body rose and fell. Dave's perception was fuzzy, soft-focused and lit in enticing colors. The hues were her own; for Yara it was a sign of connection, of shared experience--what they might've called a soulmate, if they'd had the term.

What he felt next was a momentary constriction, and then release, and then a subtler pressure: warm, soft, beckoning. The physical world of his quarters darkened. She'd slipped his underwear off, pushing them down to where he'd kick them free on instinct--like disrobing him was instinct, of a sort; her conscious mind had been elsewhere.

Briefly, she tried to call up disquiet, reservations about her work, doubt about Dr. Schatz's reassurances. It proved difficult, as she'd hoped. Breaking the kiss, just in case, she pushed her hips downwards, and resistance yielded to the giddy shock of the retriever's shaft sinking smoothly up and into her sex.

He groaned, unmuffled, at the exquisite pleasure when she took him, how silky and warm she felt around his cock. It had always been incredible--his paws were at her hips, squeezing helplessly, digging his claws in when he finally hilted--and now the sensations came in fluid waves as she began to move.

The dog's length sliding through her folds had always felt good to the Yara, too, although the physical act of mating was perfunctory for a species of telepaths. The first few times she hadn't always known what of it was the primal gratification of having a male inside her, and what was her empathic take on what her lover was experiencing.

Then she realized it didn't matter, because the two were inextricably linked. It was the purest form of shared pleasure--their affection for one another, and their mutual lust. He was able to give to her some fraction of how biologically satisfying it was to be buried deep in her, to feel him throbbing against her tightly gripping folds. In turn she gave him some fraction of two tightly bonded minds wrapped about one another, acting in perfect harmony while they coupled.

This time, though, was her own version of Terran need being slaked. She rode him purposefully and hard, her whole body arching and flexing as she drove herself onto Dave's shaft. She couldn't growl, didn't try to growl, but the bright purple ripples washing her fur would've looked like aggression to one of her kind.

Dave didn't know that. What he knew was the deliberateness of her pacing, the eagerness of his alien lover atop him. His paws stroked through her plush fur, until what self-control he had began to crack and he came to a shaky stop framing her sides, pounding up to meet her rough tempo.

And when she sensed reason starting to fade from the retriever's mind she let the rest hit her unfiltered. He wanted to finish, wanted to sink the knot she felt pressing insistently all the way inside her, wanted to hold her tight as he bucked in a frenzy, and then stiffened to a halt, flooding her...

She wanted it, too. She let his need become her own. Her grip on his shoulders was so fierce that the white-hot emotion of that desire overwhelmed him, froze his movements at the apex of an upwards stroke, but she slammed herself down so that when their minds cleared enough they both knew at once she'd tied herself on the retriever's shaft.

A groan, bleeding into a growl--it was the only time he regularly snarled, which he hadn't mentioned partly from decorum and partly because he didn't always remember that he'd done it. Dave rocked against her, pushing into the alien in short, powerful shoves, working for the slightest bit of friction in the rapidly decreasing range he had to move.

Ayenni stayed still. She held on to the dog, listening to his ragged panting, feeling climax well up in him, trying to snag hold of it and match it to her own racing thoughts. His movements faltered--then he grunted, holding her tight, as they resumed in a burst of jerky, staccato thrusts, and his muscles trembled... ears pinning, lip curled...

He gasped with the last, hard plunge that lifted her up, focused their physical reality on the thick knot locking their bodies together, and the pulsing canine shaft it forced deep inside. Ayenni succumbed to a gloriously whirling kaleidoscope of color and light, translated from the energy of the dog's orgasm.

The retriever perceived some of that, sparks at the edge of his vision, mixing with the purer elation of release. Groaning, he emptied himself in her, pumping one long spurt of canine seed after the next to paint Ayenni's insides a messy white with the evidence of his own sated tension.

He perceived more of its absence, as the spurts faded to dry twitches, and he slumped under her, and she fell forward atop his chest. The tension was gone, and a relaxing warmth filled the void it left. Ayenni's fur was colorless, and when she nuzzled his neck he felt nothing but their own shared contentment.

"I don't think you've ever been like that before," he murmured into her ear.

"I wanted to see if it would help with the stress..."

"Did it?"

Not like he should've had to ask. Her mind was so clear now that, even without searching for his thoughts, she could feel their subtle whisper. "Dr. Schatz was right," she told him.

Dave lacked the sensitivity of a born telepath, and had no good way to intuit what she meant. "This was his idea?"

Ayenni closed her eyes and sighed happily, considering the work it would take to explain herself to the retriever. "No. About the equipment." With the ability to sort her thoughts clearly, now, she could see where she'd let anxiety get the better of her. "Everything will be fine when Shannon's finished. For now..."

For now, she wanted to to enjoy the silence.

***

Captain's personal log, stardate 67913.1

Maybe Dave was right. Maybe this is what we're good at. We're more than halfway to Inishexi, and as far as I can understand it, we might actually pull this one off. Dr. Schatz is even sleeping, according to Ayenni. Unless she tranquilized him? Still, everything's looking up.

Madison May was, if not as comfortable, more or less as relaxed. The Dark Horse was making decent speed, the progress reports from their Ayenni indicated that a corner seemed to have been turned, and they seemed to be on track to producing enough doses for the affected population of Inishexi.

Everything was going according to plan.

Mitch Alexander, at her usual station, was there to perform her more-or-less usual role of disrupting the Akita's calm. "Captain? We're being hailed. It's a Parixian cruiser--they're asking us to drop out of hyperspace."

Their news from the Parixian government was outdated; it occurred to the Akita that they might have an update on the plague. "Do it. Commander Bradley, please report to the bridge." She waited for the retriever's acknowledgment, and then pulled up the local map.

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."

Captain May closed the channel altogether. "They just would, wouldn't they? Helm, stand by for evasive maneuvers. Get us back into hyperspace at maximum speed."

"Course laid in, captain. We can get there before we're in weapons range."

"Do it." She turned to look at Dave, glowering. "What's their problem?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. The Admiralty should've told them that we were on the way. Maybe they didn't get the message. Maybe they're not sympathetic to it. We did intervene in a civil war, Maddy."

"Details," she muttered--more concerned, at present, with the unfolding plague. "How close are the mad doctors to their antidote, do you know?"

"Ayenni says they're testing one right now, and they hope to have results in the next couple of shifts. Dr. Schatz says..." He called up the transcript his wristband communicator had tried to make of the conversation. "It was a lot about proteins and... bilayer... something hydrophobic--"

"He has rabies?"

"Not... not that kind, I don't think. Anyway, he said it was 'exciting' and they were making good progress. They've requisitioned more power for the enzymatic synthesizers that they're bringing online, which to me sounds like we're almost in business."

"Great." She let that hang, and then gestured towards their helmsman. "You heard me tell Parnell I wanted maximum speed, right?"

Dave checked the computer quickly. "We are. We're--ah."

"Thank you," she said, with a nod.

"I'll be in engineering." He got up, tapping his communicator as he did so. "Lieutenant Hazelton. You know all those repairs we did to the main reactor because we kept overstressing it?"

The channel, he saw, was open. After a lengthy pause, he heard a sigh. "Passeka. Fine, what do you need?"

***

Torres had spent four shifts working with the engineers on modifications to the shuttlebay--mostly, the Abyssinian correctly understood, because she was another warm body and had a good intuitive understanding of technology. It was not so good for her to be able to tell

"We inventoried the consumables on the fighter. And... we can replace all of them, it looks like. Some of it is just..." She picked one of the components, a fuel filter, and showed the hologram to Torres.

The Abyssinian recognized it at once. "Sure. Yeah, I know these. You should be able to... hmm. I guess... I guess maybe the polarity would be an issue, but... can I see the computer?"

Ciara nodded, handing it over. "The ones we have for the scouts and the Tempest are a lot easier to manufacture... fewer rare materials, I think, if I understand right."

"Mm-hm, I saw that when we were trading with the Dominion. You..."

She trailed off. The answer, she suspected, was simple: looking at the list of components felt like it would take her tantalizingly close to a solution. But she'd also worked a double-shift, and her thoughts were starting to lag.

"Give me a moment," she finally said. "And I'll... let me sort through the inventory. I think all you'd need to adapt your existing filters is a new bypass module. And that's similar to, uh... hm."

Ciara let her work. Over the next ten minutes the Abyssinian's fingers wandered through page after page of the Dark Horse's stocks. Then, bit by bit, the finger moved slower, and she muttered something unintelligible. Ciara watched, curious, as she took another breath and then sighed. "Torres?"

She slouched, and her head came to rest at the vixen's side. Animation had left her remarkably quickly; not even her tail moved. Ciara took the computer gently, although when she shifted the other woman ended up in a heavier lean. Her breathing was slow, and regular, and Ciara found herself smiling at the rhythm of its heat.

Captain Ford had given her plenty of things to study: space combat manuals, and homework on how the Kahil operated so the process of running it could become automatic. She looked through the engine response curves, comparing them to the Type 7 scout that Ford and Kamyshev flew.

Then she tried to match that against the maneuvers he was trying to teach her. It was very different both from her experience as a test pilot, and from having flown the Tempest as part of Captain Ford's auxiliary group. Exhilarating, in its own right--she had to admit that. The vixen thought she could come to master it, at least enough to be useful...

But there were so many models. So many charts, and parenthetical footnotes that led to other parenthetical footnotes. She was tired, herself, and the drowsing cat was hypnotic. And warm, and comfortable. Torres's position looked rather contorted, but having her weight leaning into Ciara was a pleasant--

She blinked before she could finish the thought. God, how long has it been? The divorce was a two years old--well, two and a half, with their trip to the mirror universe. But they'd been effectively separated for a good, long time before that. The Dark Horse hadn't offered any opportunities of its own.

And Torres was, she decided, a pleasant reminder of what that felt like. As she stifled a yawn, the Abyssinian stirred--briefly, and then startling awake. She found her head craned awkwardly, pressed to her shipmate's side, and straightened up. "Shit. Sorry, I--"

"It's fine," Ciara assured her. "You don't have to apologize."

"How long was I out?"

"Thirty minutes? Maybe forty-five."

Torres decided to gamble, out of a mix of exhaustion and self-interest. "If I don't have to apologize, I might, uh..."

And, although she couldn't see inside the feline's head, Ciara gambled, too. She put an arm around the ruddy-furred woman, and pulled her into a more comfortable hold. "Better?"

"Yeah." She'd expected Ciara's grip to be strong and purposeful--which it was. She hadn't expected how soft her paw would feel, resting against the cat's side. She sighed again, closing her eyes. "Thanks. It's just been a long day. I should... I should turn in, really."

"Bedtime, then?"

Her bunk was close. It was close, and, if she thought about it, it was easy for the vixen to picture keeping Torres for a few hours. There was no point in making her get up and trudge all the way back to her own quarters--was there? "Yeah, bedtime," the cat echoed muzzily. "Comfy as this is."

"You could sleep here, maybe. If you wanted?"

Torres did want, obviously; they could both see that. "You'd be okay with it?"

She slid her arm back from around the cat, and got to her feet, offering her a paw. "Come on, then."

The paw was welcome; her body felt increasingly drained, and she let the vixen guide her the few meters over to her bunk. Most of their quarters were identical--they were, after all, dramatically undercrewed--but as soon as she felt herself sinking into the mattress Torres decided there was something about this one in particular.

She just wasn't in the mood to dwell on it. Her eyes closed again, and Ciara allowed herself a hidden grin. She hadn't even bothered to take her tunic off, or her pants. The long hours were catching up to all of them. The vixen, at least, stripped to her underwear; she was halfway through pulling her shirt off, too, when she heard the cat's exhausted question.

"What about you?"

"I could also sleep here," she said. "If you'd be okay with it."

Eyes still closed, Torres nodded. She sensed, rather than saw, the vixen joining her. Felt her weight, and the heat of her body, and the softness of her fur. Impulsively, she sidled closer. Equally impulsively, Ciara circled her once more with in her arms.

This time, it wasn't leaning but drowsy, comfortable snuggling. Torres tucked her muzzle into the crook of her bedmate's neck, and whispered a quiet 'thanks.' "No problem," Ciara answered, and her paw reached for the lights.

In darkness, she could feel the Abyssinian drifting off, her body pressed reflexively close. Her breathing slowed, lulling Ciara herself along with it. It was a pleasant reminder. And when it was time to rise for her shift, there would be the cat, and...

And. She smiled, and let sleep take her.

***

Captain's log, stardate 67917

We have reached our destination with no further trouble from the Parixian authorities. Now it should be a simple matter to deliver our cargo and make sure that it works--although our doctors are quite optimistic. I have ordered us to a minimal tactical alert, just in case the cruiser who attempted to intercept us might have sent the wrong kind of word ahead, but I don't expect to need that.

"We've been cleared into low orbit, ma'am. I'm sending the details to the helm now."

Eli scanned them, and looked over her shoulder at the Akita. "Course plotted, captain."

"Engage. CCI, is there any sign of Parixian warships?"

"No."

Perhaps, May thought, they've decided to be reasonable about this. But she felt like that was an optimistic conclusion; she told Mitch to deploy a hyperspace probe, just in case, and to try and get a message to the Star Patrol, advising the fleet of their location.

"Uh. Hold on, captain. There are three Parixian corvettes on an intercept course." Mitch tried extrapolating their orbital trajectory: they were not sparing any fuel in adjusting to meet the Dark Horse. "Twelve minutes to intercept."

"Any idea of their intent, spaceman?"

"Their weapons don't seem to be active. Their targeting scanners--wait. Incoming transmission. It's General Zehev. He's asking to meet with you about our, quote, 'plans for addressing the situation.' They say they can have a shuttle aboard within the hour."

May frowned. "Well. Alright, then."

She left Commander Bradley in charge of the bridge, and asked Ayenni and Felicia Beltran to meet her in the landing bay. Ayenni would, she hoped, be better at explaining the treatment they'd invented than Barry Schatz. And Dr. Beltran would keep the Akita from saying anything too rash.

Both of them assumed it would not be necessary, even allowing for May's occasional lack of subtlety: they were on generally friendly terms with the Parixians, and her ship was on a sorely needed relief mission. Maddy figured it would be easy enough to smooth over their altercation with the cruiser, particularly with a working antidote.

She had not seen General Zehev since the end of the Parixian Civil War--and it was strange, indeed, to see him wearing the uniform of the Royal Parixian Navy instead of their erstwhile foes in the Outland Democratic Front. The frills that ran down the sides of his broad neck--the only things that kept him from looking rather like a golden-furred Terran bull--rippled.

"The Republican Guard," he corrected, with a deep chuckle to match the frills before they settled back down. "The monarchy formally abdicated all such power."

"In that case, the uniform of the Republican Guard suits you, general." Maddy met his smile with one in kind. "Is 'general' still correct?"

"Formally, yes. We don't have a special rank for the overall commander of our navy. That used to be a title bestowed by the king, who remains otherwise occupied."

Imprisoned, as she understood it, in punishment for allying with the Wanesh in their attempt to reconstruct the superweapon Paghuk-Hån, and for ordering the destruction of the moon Vallanax. Dr. Beltran had produced a summary of the peace accords, which she'd read--to Felicia's unvoiced surprise--but neither of them had really had the time to stay up to date on what followed.

"I would invite you to Inishexi itself, but I feel it's not really a particularly good time for tourism. The planet remains under quarantine. And you... I have been told that you might have the answer."

Maddy nodded towards Ayenni, who held up a exodermal probe. "May I take a quick scan, sir?"

She perceived a moment of nervousness from the general, but he gave his assent. "Do what you will. Me and my assistants--they also volunteer, I'm sure."

Ayenni started with General Zehev, letting the probe run its survey and process the results in totality before moving on to anyone else. "You appear to have existing antibodies to the plague, general. You'd be safe, as it happens. For those who don't, we can produce a synthetic version, as a sort of vaccine. We have around four million doses so far: enough to inoculate the larger population centers, which we hope will slow the onward propagation long enough to finish enough for the entire population."

"You've tested it?"

"Against the samples we have, yes. I can send the details of the modeling to whatever scientists on Inishexi can verify them." She scanned his bodyguard, next; Zehev's calm had reassured the man, and he barely flinched. "You do not have the standard antibodies--we think that you probably pick them up in the course of ordinary space travel. A long career in the navy, for example, would help."

"I was in the army, first, before I enlisted in the rebellion. I hadn't left my homeworld until then," he explained. "Nor did Major Lemaxa."

"I joined the ODF on Inishexi itself," the major went on to say. Ayenni ran the probe along her arm. It gave a brief chirp, and while none of the Parixians were doctors, they all seemed to realize it was the first time anything like that had happened, and that Ayenni's fur was darkening. "Is there a problem?"

"The Yara are naturally empathic. We have a degree of telepathy, as well, although it benefits from physical contact. Would you mind?" Lemaxa's frills and ears both wilted, but she held out one well-muscled arm nonetheless. Ayenni took her paw. Did you know you were ill?

_No, is the lie I would tell you if we were speaking. I've been concerned about some of the symptoms, which is something I don't wish to tell you but I seem to have no choice, I--_abruptly she jerked her arm away. "No one I know has become ill," she stammered.

Maddy and Dr. Beltran, like the other Parixians, hadn't been privy to the revelation. But, like the Parixians, they knew immediately what had happened. Unlike the Parixians, and also unlike Felicia Beltran, Maddy spoke without the pretense of polite ignorance. "She has the plague. Is it too late to treat her?"

Ayenni had desired the conversation to remain private, which had been her reason for the telepathic link in the first place--she'd underestimated the Parixian's lack of ability to control her own thoughts. "In the interests of confidentiality, ma'am, medical discussions--"

"Respectfully, doctor, this goes beyond a medical discussion." General Zehev was, she could tell, genuine in his respect--but his concern was greater still. "I would like to know the answer, too."

"So would I." Lemaxa's voice, though quiet, was full of resolve. "If you know."

"There's no sign of widespread systemic damage, yet. I would imagine that you're barely into the prodromal phase. The antidote would still be highly effective, in theory. In practice, of course, we're not certain."

"I could be the practice," she offered. "Wouldn't that be better than the alternative? Waiting to get sicker and sicker, like my friends and relatives? Even if it's just a theory you have, wouldn't it be better?"

"That's your decision to make, I imagine. If you wished to be taken to sickbay..."

"You're relieved," General Zehev said. Ayenni looked to Madison for approval and, receiving it, guided the Parixian major out the door and towards the ship's medical facility. "She was with me at Vallanax. With us, that is. She trusts you, Captain May. Not everyone does... not so explicitly."

"You mean our encounter with the Amata?"

"The Amata's captain was not with the Outland Democratic Front. There are... there are sensitivities. I'll be honest, though, I'm not a politician or a diplomat."

"Be blunt, then," Maddy suggested. "I like blunt."

"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."

Dr. Beltran saw, she thought, what General Zehev was hinting at--the genuine insult his military had been dealt. "You will let us deliver the antidote?"

"If it works, yes. Your captain is right: do we have any alternative? I certainly don't see one. My government is deeply concerned with what's happening on Inishexi. Why else would the head of their military be sent to meet you?"

"If it works, then what you should not do is impound the equipment used to produce it, and the data generated by our scientists with the information your government provided to them."

The general's head tilted. "I should not do that?"

"Certainly. Nor should you confiscate the stocks of the antidote itself, and any necessary precursors that might be found alongside them. Were you to do that, Captain May would certainly protest. Even if she might eventually consent, that would only be to avoid the possibility of armed conflict with the Parixian Navy."

May frowned, trying to follow along. "Protest having Star Patrol equipment 'impounded'? You're damned right. General Zehev understands that we were on an errand of mercy."

"So you would fire on a warship like the Amata to continue that errand, Captain May?"

She scowled at the diplomat. "I didn't say that."

"My communiqué to the Foreign Ministry will certainly reflect that we violated the sovereignty of a neutral power on your authority. I assume, in that case, you will appeal to your superior officer about the exigent circumstances."

"Probably..."

"Admiral Mercure will no doubt counsel you the same way I would. Allow the Foreign Ministry to handle the details of reparations for any unfairly seized goods, and offer an apology to the head of the Parixian military--at your convenience--for trespass."

May's scowl deepened. "The Confed doesn't have an embassy on Parixia. What would the Foreign Ministry do?"

"What diplomats always do," General Zehev answered, with a wry, growing smile. "Smooth over transgressions like this. Provided an apology, I could be convinced to allow your ship to leave unharmed... with a Parixian escort to ensure compliance with an immediate departure from our territory, of course."

At last, to Felicia's relief, the Akita began to understand. "Some way of thanking us, huh?"

"If the people of Inishexi wish to extend their gratitude, I would not think to stop them, captain. But that's no excuse for violating our borders and defying an order from one of our military vessels."

"How was I supposed to know they weren't the ones acting on their own initiative?"

"A reasonable objection," Zehev granted. "Nonetheless..."

Maddy gritted her teeth. "I... did not intend to imply that your territory wasn't your own to protect. I guess we could've negotiated passage or something. That was a... that was my mistake. For that I--well--but you could've told the Amata we were coming, you know. Frankly, I think we did a good job de-escalating."

General Zehev looked to his aide. "Was that an apology?"

"I... I don't know, sir. For a Terran, perhaps."

"Perhaps. And they had good intentions. Largely, this was all a miscommunication--this 'Admiral Mercure,' will he understand that? He will not censure Captain May too harshly?"

"I doubt that he will even mention knowing about this incident to her, honestly." Dr. Beltran turned her paws up in a faint, knowing shrug. "The two of them have a complicated understanding. For my communiqué to the Foreign Ministry, may I record your receipt of Captain May's apology?"

"And my acceptance of it," the general said with a nod. "And the gratitude that Inishexi extends, of course."

"Of course."

"For your communiqué," Maddy muttered. "I wasn't informed of this, evidently."

"I do make them, captain, yes. It is my privilege, as a member of the Diplomatic Corps."

"I don't remember you requesting transmitter bandwidth."

The leopardess smiled. "I will, eventually. When it is something the Foreign Ministry needs to know with any degree of urgency. Of course... if, at that point, some details need to be left out for space, that selection is my privilege as well."

"Like this... pretense?"

"This pretense, captain, ensures that countless millions of lives will be saved. The self-respect of one Star Patrol officer... I would call that a bargain."

Something about her diplomat's continued smile--those were rare, in Maddy's experience--was unsettling. "You know... sometimes, I think you enjoy this kind of thing."

Dr. Beltran let the smile slip back into her normal, composed expression. "Really. Only sometimes?"

***

Such political complexities were completely lost to most of the crew, however. The following two shifts had passed without much difficulty; they'd nearly finished offloading the medicine, and the bridge crew was occupied with more important affairs--the kind that happened when Chandrika Srivastava, the junior helmsman, and Francisco Vasquez were placed in close proximity.

"Well. I'd say the problem is that Paolucci never saw a ball he wouldn't throw himself in front of."

Rika scowled. "PaPa is..."

"Easily confused?" Vasquez offered.

The dhole's scowl deepened. "A very good batter, when he connects." Admittedly, this did not happen as frequently as she would've liked. "But I think they'll probably try someone else next season. This doesn't seem to have been a great one for us."

"I wonder what it was like in the mirror universe."

Mitch had been staying out of a conversation she found both terminally boring and exceedingly arcane. "There is absolutely no way they play cricket in the mirror universe."

"You don't know that," the wolf protested. They had not, for obvious reasons, prioritized finding out athletic habits in the Federal Planetary Union. "Maybe they're really intense about it."

"Ask your friend," Rika suggested. "She'll probably know."

Gut instinct told Mitch that the other Abyssinian was not any more likely to follow sports than she herself was. Torres had switched her communicator off, though. "Maybe later. I'm pretty sure Hatfield is more of a bloodsport type, anyway."

"That sounds about right. Do you think Paolucci could bite someone successfully, ensign, or would he miss that, too?"

Ensign Srivastava huffed, waving her paw as though she could bodily swat the question away. "It's not like Renniki had a great showing either, is it? You want to dissect the Razors versus the Staran Bluewings, Pancho?"

"I would... rather not," Vasquez admitted. And the Renniki Razors were a team that required some degree of sacrifice to truly love. "In fairness, the gravity on Staran IV is complex. There are allowances made for that."

"And?" she prompted, letting the question trail off.

"And, admittedly, two five-run hits in a single game was not a great look for us. But--"

"Hey," Mitch raised her voice. "Not to interrupt this, uh, scintillating discussion, but we're receiving a transmission."

"Put it through."

"I can't, sir. I'm not authorized."

That perked everyone's ears a bit. "Not authorized? Raise Captain May, then. Right?"

"I guess." She paged May, albeit warily--the message was disconcertingly mysterious. "Captain, this is the bridge. Flash traffic from a hypersonde. It's from the Admiralty."

"What does it say?"

"Uh. Your eyes only, ma'am. Even the routing codes are restricted. I can try to crack 'em, if you want, but..."

"No. Send it to my quarters."

Mitch did as she was asked, although she couldn't help the way it piqued her curiosity even without permission to try her hand at codebreaking. "Hey, uh, Pancho? Sir? You ever see a message with level 6 encryption on the routing record?"

Lieutenant Vasquez hesitated. He had; the wolf was, after all, in Star Patrol's intelligence division. At the same time, it didn't seem like the kind of secret one was supposed to betray. "I'm not sure. I don't normally look at routing codes."

"I don't, either," the Abyssinian said. "But that's because most times they don't give me errors like this. I dunno. Things have been weird since we got back."

Ensign Srivastava, at the helm, had been following the conversation with one ear. She looked over at Mitch. "We are still trying to get up to speed, though, you know? With everything that happened while we were gone..."

"I guess. But we had Admiral Mercure aboard for, like... three hours and then all of the sudden we're on our own again. It's kinda mysterious, right? Rika, you're with me, aren't you?"

Vasquez cleared his throat. "You know what they say about curiosity and cats, spaceman?"

Her tail lashed, and she narrowed her eyes. "That cats get curious when the officer of the deck clearly knows something?"

He knew enough, at least, to put on a grin. "The officer of the deck is ISD. You know how many highly classified reports I've gone through? You know how many of them are about a new directive to change nutrient stocks or increase the maintenance intervals on a waste disposal system? If it was serious, Captain May would be summoning people for a briefing. We'd be at action stations or something."

Still not entirely satisfied, she at least did him the courtesy of thinking that over. "I suppose it wouldn't surprise me if it was a mistake or a misclassification," the feline admitted, although she still felt the temptation to try and break the cipher on the routing data.

"If it wasn't, we'll find out. We--"

The captain's voice interrupted him. "This is May to all hands. If anyone aboard attended Dr. Maan's 'Carthago Delenda Est' seminar at the Fleet Academy, can you please report to my ready room at your earliest convenience?"

Vasquez's ears lifted, but he tried to betray as little as he could. "Always wondered when that would come in handy. Ensign, you have the bridge." He left without another word, containing his nerves until he was at the door to the ready room.

Chandrika drummed her fingers on the ship's conning station. "Okay. Yeah, it's a little weird. I don't think it's about waste disposal. Unless... unless maybe they want Pancho's expertise on--"

"If this is a joke about cricket, Rika, I swear to god..."

"No, it... it. I was going to--well. Fine, what do you think it's about?"

***

The message was, of sorts, a duress code--there was no such seminar. Maddy skimmed the memo she'd received again, waiting to see who all might make their appearance. In the end it was Francisco Vasquez, Felicia Beltran, Tsukiko Kimura, and Jack Ford. Of them, only the coyote did not seem visibly on edge.

"It's bad?" he asked.

"Not yet." She desperately wished Commander Bradley had been briefed, or Dr. Schatz, or Lieutenant Hazelton. "How much has everyone read of their Carthage documents? We're all clear on what's going on?"

Beltran shook her head. "I recognize the phrase, captain. But the diplomatic corps was not given explicit instructions on what to do in this kind of scenario."

And, Maddy knew, if anyone would've been well-read, Dr. Beltran was that woman. "Right. The Confed keeps an eye on the use of hyperspace weaponry. Particularly, denial weapons intended to make hyperspace travel difficult or impossible. The internal term for this is 'Carthage.' I... guess like... 'carnage,' but... more so? I don't know."

"Salting the earth," Vasquez explained. "Like the Romans did to Carthage. Hyperspace-destroying weapons are asymmetrical. You might use them if you wanted to punish a superior opponent, or as a last resort of some kind."

"It's part of the command track program to learn about it," added Captain Ford. "And we occasionally gamed it out, just in case, in my old squadron. I was worried about the Pictor--Hatfield wouldn't have anything to do with it; called me paranoid. But after the incident with the Hano, I sent a proposal back with Ciara Munro: some strategic threats from the Pictor or the Wanesh, if they learned enough about that superweapon to try and adapt it to hyperspace. Is that what's going on here?"

"Perhaps." May brought up a map for them to look at. "We intercepted and ambushed a Pictor supply convoy eight hours ago. One of the ships attempted to self-destruct with its hyperdrive active. The Star Patrol commander detected elevated beta-chaikalion readings and was able to destroy the ship before anything happened. I don't really know what that means."

"Dr. Schatz likely would," Felicia pointed out. "You could ask him."

"He might, but the classification is quite explicit. Revealing details to anyone without express authorization from the Admiralty is a class one-level violation of the general code. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I don't think they just slap you on the wrist for that."

"No, the punishment is generally more severe." Extensive imprisonment--at times, the diplomat had heard rumored, indefinite confinement without public acknowledgment of what had happened at all. "Captain Ford, a question: Lieutenant Commander Munro had no idea what you had given her?"

"No. And it was specifically locked to the recipient. They take this pretty seriously--also means we don't know who else the communiqué our captain got went out to. Maybe just us, though I'm not sure why."

"I can guess, sir."

All eyes turned to Petty Officer Kimura, whose long tail had started to sway nervously. Now Maddy, too, could guess. "Ms. Kimura?"

"The Star Patrol has conducted some research into the phenomenon, including an operationalized, small-scale weapon in a testing chamber--"

"How 'small'?" Jack asked, eyes narrowing. Weapons scientists, in his experience, could either be interesting people or highly questionable ones, and the odds always seemed to favor the latter.

"The testing chamber is about the size of this room. The goal of the project was finding ways to mitigate any use of a full-scale device. We treated it very academically, though, and I was only on the team for about four months. We were hoping to come up with better ways to study their effects if we encountered anything in the wild."

Madison, too, was suspicious of such science. "Is the project still going?"

"I don't know. I was transferred to the particle cannon team after that. But my computer will probably still have some of the records. We didn't get to the point of coming up with a good way of counteracting their effects, I know that much. 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?"

***

Torres opened her eyes to discover her vision perplexingly fuzzy. Blinking didn't fix it. Neither did resetting her ocular circuitry. It took half a minute of becoming gradually more conscious to realize the fuzziness came from a shoulder, and that the shoulder belonged to Ciara Munro.

The vixen was still sleeping. Torres extricated herself carefully, poured a mug of water, and tapped one of the ship's coffee capsules in. It fizzed softly, infusing the water both with something that had once encountered arabica beans and with the heat of a generously exothermic reaction.

After thinking for a moment, she poured a second mug, and watched Ciara gradually stir. The 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."

"No! No, it's fine. I was just... oh," she realized. "You're teasing me."

"Sure am. I mean, at least a little... I really didn't want to leave--was pretty beat last night. All these double shifts catching up to me..."

"No kidding. Me, too." The coffee was hot, but not undrinkably so, and Ciara took a slow sip. "So were you figuring that dinner the other day was a date, after all?"

"It could've been. I asked you out."

"That's a good point." Another, longer sip served as a buffer for the vixen to delay what she needed to get out. "I wouldn't mind it. I like spending time with--I like you. I do like you. There's just a... a hitch."

"Another woman?"

"No. The opposite."

Torres, who hadn't thought she was that unobservant, cocked her head. "Are you not--I thought you--didn't you have a wife?"

"That's what I'm talking... oh. No, not that opposite." She allowed herself a quiet laugh, almost a giggle. "I mean it's been a long time, and I don't know what I'm looking for, exactly. I don't think I know what I'm looking for, I mean. I'd like to take things slowly."

"I grew up in a junkyard. I know I don't know what I'm looking for," Torres pointed out. "So, hey, why don't we take it a step at a time? Right?"

"I think that would be good. I mean... there's no harm in seeing where it goes, is there?"

"None at all! We're adults! We can make our own decisions." Her own decision was that she wanted, very badly, to give the vixen a kiss. That wouldn't be too forward of her, surely. Ciara could stop her, if she wanted.

With the cat's arm around her, though, and her muzzle drifting closer, Ciara was not about to do anything of the sort. "Sure," she answered, and canted her head. The Abyssinian's paw buzzed. "Wait..."

"My communicator." Torres looked it in open irritation. "It's supposed to be silenced."

"Captain's overriding it, I guess?"

She took the message: a page, with the link to reply already closed: "Ms. Torres, please report to my ready room immediately."

Munro frowned at the tone in the Akita's voice. "Sounds important."

"Hope so. Your quarters aren't, like... bugged, are they?"

She laughed, and just barely kept herself from the childish gesture of sticking out her tongue. "No. Not as far as I know. I'm sure it's something to do with the work you were doing, they want an update or... something like that."

"Better be. We weren't even doing anything!"

"Yet," Munro amended. Then, realizing what she'd said, she coughed, and looked away. "You'd better go, though."

"Uh huh. And you'll wait here?"

"Yes." And then, seeing the Abyssinian's expression, she smiled. "I promise."