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The brash, aggressive Star Patrol captain Madison May finds herself a new assignment on an obsolete starship, and leans on her XO to bring a crew of misfits up to speed...

A new universe and a new cast of characters. Trying something more active and fun than the moreauverse. Don't worry, if you enjoy it, two more episodes (comprising the entire pilot) are already written :) So let me know what you think! Thanks to Spudz for kicking me into finishing this, and much editing help.

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

Episode 1: "Last chances"

---

"I'm sure that the Board of Inquiry will understand," Dave lied, because he'd sort of gotten used to having to do that.

"They'd better."

The golden retriever chose to bite his tongue. Sometimes he did this because it was a way of calming himself. He looked around, instead. The marble floors of Fleet Command, Bremen were spotless, and reflected the soft sunlight-temperature lamps on the ceiling. Somebody spent a lot of time on them.

Who? Was it the kind of person who got demoted by a Board of Inquiry from commanding a patrol ship but didn't know that they were expected to resign their commission? Is that what became of them? 'Report to the supply closet no later than right fucking now to take command of a floor polisher.'

But it was probably robots.

He studied the whorls and flecks of the glossy tile, but Dave's eyes were drawn inexorably back to the black boots of his superior. And her pressed trousers. The cerulean of her dress blouse. Whatever else could be said of her, the akita looked like a commander.

Heavy oak doors opened. "Lieutenant Commanders May; Bradley. We're ready for you."

David Bradley obeyed the steely-eyed jackal, although he was really only there for moral support. Joining the audience, he watched May stride with heavy, solid footfalls to face the panel of stony arbiters. All three of them were admirals.

"Lieutenant Commander Madison May," the most senior of them intoned. "In the judgment of this Board of Inquiry, your actions -- though well-intentioned -- demonstrated a lapse of judgment unbecoming of an officer of your station." Yep, there it was. "You are hereby relieved of command, and ordered to report for reassignment to the personnel office, Fleet Command, Bremen. At once."

No later than right fucking now.

"Unbelievable," May swore, as soon as they were alone. The akita wore a fierce scowl as naturally as she wore her uniform. "Completely unbelievable!"

"You disabled the engines of a pleasure yacht," Dave pointed out.

"They didn't listen to me when I told them to halt, and they didn't have a plan filed. I told the Board that!"

She had. Repeatedly. She'd told David, as well, on the uncomfortable shuttle ride from the patrol vessel Sunshine-203 to Earth. None of it was untrue. Technically the akita had been well within her rights. But Alpha Centauri was unlikely territory for hostile intruders to have made themselves known, and even more unlikely territory for them to have been throwing a spring break party.

Also the ship had been chartered by the son of the Chancellor.

"Their problem is they're soft," the akita went on. "They care too much about public opinion. Always worried about being 'nice.' The Colonial Confederation needs people like..."

David could sum up the remainder of the diatribe in a few bullet points. The Confederation was weak; they let too much slide. The Patrol was 'neutered' -- she would definitely be using the word 'neutered' at some point. The rules of engagement were a straitjacket. In a saner universe, Lieutenant Commander Madison May would already have command of her own dreadnought.

"I just don't get it. Do you?"

"No, Maddy," David said.

It wasn't exactly untrue that the Confederation was a little less than coherent, at times. Sometimes, when he saw the Great Seal, he amused himself by changing the language for his neural implant. The Seal's appearance changed, of course, depending on who was looking at it -- the words around the sky-blue rim, in particular. Verband der Erde, die Kolonien, und alle Bahnbrecher. République de la Terre et ses colonies. Federacio de la Kolonioj de Tero.

Galactic Confederation of Terra, her Colonies, and all As-Yet Unlanded Conquerers of Distant Stars.

Somebody, probably in Washington or London, had voted on that as the official English name. It just barely fit on the seal, but the letters had to become very small to do so. Why hadn't they changed it at some point, over the long years? Because they were soft?

Well, but none would threaten the Confederation (nor the Verband, the République, the Federatsiya...). Nobody had in two hundred years!

"Enter," a stern voice barked.

Commodore Gill Mercure commanded his high-backed office chair like a throne. David, like May, came to attention. "Reporting as ordered."

"Sit," the lion told them. Madison took the left seat; David took the right. "You're a headache for me, Lieutenant Commander May. You know that?"

"Sir -- I was entirely within my rights to --"

"It was the chancellor's son!"

David would've flattened his ears at the reply. It was not obvious to the retriever, though, that Madison even knew how -- not clear that the akita even had the required muscles for ear-splaying. "How was I supposed to know that?"

"Well, he gave his name."

"It's a common name!"

"Baldomaro Manzanares Guerrero-Marcheterre?"

Madison scowled. "I mean, he's not the only one..."

"Yes," Commodore Mercure agreed. "Chancellor Victoria Manzanares Guerrero-Marcheterre, for example, also shares that last name. What do you want me to do, commander? This is your third Board of Inquiry."

"The others absolved me," the akita pointed out. "And this time --"

Mercure glared her into silence. "I like you, commander. But every time you're given a position of authority, you suffer a distressing lack of foresight in applying it. I am going to grant that your actions were legally appropriate. You gave lawful orders, and your crew followed them because they were lawful. But at the end of the day, you fired on a civilian ship, deep in peaceful territory next to a resort station, when you had other options. I had to sign a report. Do you know what it says? Let me read it to you."

David looked as inconspicuously as he could at the akita, who had yet to display a particularly strong degree of chagrin. Mercure put on his reading glasses, and held up a thin glass tablet.

"A firing solution was obtained, and a salvo from turret A was directed at the MV Hell yes, it's party time!. Both ion bursts struck the MV Party time! Hell yes, it's party time! on target aft of frame 38, producing direct impacts on her engine spaces and rendering her thrusters inoperable. MV Party time! Hell yes, it's party time! transmitted a distress call on all frequencies at 1531. Assistance was rendered from the two closest ships, CSS Sunshine-203 and MV Get down, whoop."

Silence.

"I did not spend four years at the academy to review the sentence both ion bursts struck the MV Party time! Hell, yes, it's party time! on target, commander. David Corwin Bradley, get that fucking smirk out of your eyes. What are you smiling about?"

The retriever coughed, and shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing, sir."

"Nothing?"

"Well. They were on target, sir."

Mercure stared at him balefully until the retriever looked away, and then returned to the akita. "Wasn't there a point at which you sort of questioned your tactical decisions? Maybe when you heard yourself order a firing solution on a contact named Party time it's fucking goddamned party time?"

Silence.

"I need you to say 'yes,' commander."

May sighed. "Yes."

"They wanted to demand your resignation. They still expect it, actually. The problem is..." The lion sighed again, and set the computer down. When he removed his glasses he lost a decade or so, but the commodore still looked his more-than-respectable age. "The problem is that you weren't wrong. They should've filed a flight plan. They should've answered a directive to stop. And if it was some no-name tramp ship instead of the chancellor's too-damned-cocky son this would've blown over. So."

When he didn't continue, the akita tilted her head. "So?"

"You have one last chance, commander. You're to report to Gustav Holst, there to take command of the light cruiser Rocinante. She's mothballed now. Get her operational, and I'll give you your assignment. One last chance. Do you understand me, commander?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Your crew will meet you there. You're dismissed. Commander Bradley -- you're not."

The retriever blinked, already halfway from his seat. Nervously, he dropped back into it. "Sir?"

"You're not exactly Chester Nimitz yourself, you know?"

No lie there. "No, sir."

"You made lieutenant commander five years ago. Your evaluations are always the exact same. Competent, well-respected, clear-headed. Lacking in initiative. Appears to have no aspirations for command. And you've stuck with Commander May for three years now, across two ships."

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"Because..."

Well. Because he had come to trust her abilities, if not always her foresight. Madison May was aggressive and slightly chaotic, yes, but the Star Patrol needed officers who were a little more rough around the edges.

"I like serving with her, sir. I think her heart is in the right place and she does more... more good than harm, if that's a saying. And I feel that I've learned to be effective at checking her... more wayward impulses."

"You think she'll make something of this last chance, then, commander?"

Dave wasn't convinced, but it didn't pay to be doubting. "I think she'll certainly try. It's a good opportunity, at least."

The commodore nodded slowly. Mercure had a soft spot for the akita, too. "And you? You're not career Patrol, are you? Be honest with me."

"I don't think so. I'm not looking for a command. I've been thinking about applying for a transfer to something shoreside. I think I'd be better used teaching people, not leading them." Sometimes he considered going even further -- resigning his commission and finding something in civilian life -- but he was not ready for that step, not yet.

"I think you would as well," the lion said with a smile. "Do something for me? Help Lieutenant Commander May get her ship running. After the shakedown, report in to the local authority at Gustav Holst. I'll see what they have that's more... appropriate. Once May gets back, then... well, you can decide if she still has potential."

It was a hell of an offer. Dave nodded. Then he stood, offered a salute, and went to pack his gear for the shuttle ride out to the station -- the Star Patrol's largest fleet yard, orbiting Jupiter. One more ride, he told himself. You can do that...

"Last chance," May frowned. She'd been dwelling all the way from Earth to Jupiter. "Well, at least you're here with me. That's something."

"Yes," David agreed. "For now. In any case, it'll be a good opportunity. It's a ship -- a light cruiser, too, not a patrol boat."

"What am I looking at?"

The name Rocinante did not ring a bell, but that wasn't surprising: the Star Patrol had thousands of ships. "Well, they launched seventy Alabama-class light cruisers starting in 2790, and some of those have already been mothballed." Not even fifteen years later! "Before that, the standard light cruiser was the Salamis class that served from 2760 to about ten years ago, and... oh! The Centauris, can't forget about those. Mainstay of the escort fleet from 2730 onwards. Two hundred Salamises and three hundred Centauris -- all retired. Such a waste..."

The akita nodded. "I'm sure it was. But spare me the recycling pitch. Baseball card stats, Dave."

"Both about two hundred eighty meters long; three hundred thousand tons or so. Did you ever see Moultrie's adaptation of Potemkin? The_Potemkin_ was a dressed up Centauri class. Kimura cannons, singularity torpedo launchers, Moffett PDDs..."

"Huh!" That cheered Madison May right up, as he'd known it would. "Pretty sharp teeth!"

Yes, and because this was an incongruous move for someone who had just been sanctioned David had a fairly good idea of what was going on. They were shifting May out to the frontier, where she could stay out of trouble. No doubt Mercure's 'assignment' would be a routine patrol -- answer a few distress calls, investigate a solar anomaly or two, and generally fly the Confederation's flag to anyone watching.

It wasn't as though the Star Patrol was lacking in warships. She had not fought a war in centuries, not since the skirmishes with the Pictor Empire. New cruisers were still commissioned, but David wasn't particularly impressed: despite May's repeated assertions that she was due for command of a dreadnought, nobody needed heavy weaponry to scare off pirates or rowdy partiers.

Starbase Gustav Holst was just confirmation of that. The huge, sprawling spacedock was home to a large part of the reserve. Ships that were a few years old, past their service life, sat there until they could be retired or scrapped. It made for an imposing display: glittering metal, like empty suits of armor, arranged in row upon row.

Upon row.

Upon row.

Upon row.

Berth 404-C was a six kilometer hike from the central axis of the station. David and Madison walked past big missile cruisers, and the sleek beam destroyers that had been designed to give the Reticulans something to think twice about if those bullies ever decided to press a claim to the Carnival Reach. Supply tenders. Star carriers.

"Amazing, isn't it?" David asked. "An escort carrier like the Graf Spee is three hundred meters long. The hull is an improved version of the Emden class they used in the Pictor Wars -- the Emdens were only twenty meters shorter, and Star Command figured that they could build a new one every four days! Impressive, don't you think, Maddy? Maddy?"

"Jesus Christ."

Lieutenant Commander Bradley wanted to be a teacher at a high school. He knew the history of the Star Patrol inside and out. He could quote the order of battle for the Race at Unarga Prime. He could expound at length on the tactics of the Huoza Campaign. He could tell the silhouette of a Casablanca XV-_class corvette from a _Casablanca XV-bis (it was the shape of the forward radome that gave it away).

And all this meant that he, unlike May, knew what they were looking at.

Confederation Space Ship Rocinante was not a brand-new-only-used-once Alabama. Nor was she one of the ubiquitous Centauris. She looked to be one of the later models of the Sovremenny class, except that her boxy engines weren't entirely right -- in any case, by David's reckoning she didn't have the drone launchers that had been added to the fifth and final version of the class, which meant she was probably a fourth-flight example.

And they had stopped making those in 2583.

Ten years prior to that, Sophie Sundberg had shown off the first of her new designs, using the approach that was still standard practice in the Star Patrol. Dr. Sundberg's ships were graceful and sleek, as though they had evolved naturally from a relaxed life diving Terra's seas or circling her beaches. They had smooth fins that complemented their Kirilov-type hyperdrives, to let them slide easily into the depths of the cosmos. They were painted with cetacean gentleness -- soft blues and blue-whites that shielded their terrifying power in deep-ocean calm.

Rocinante squatted in deep, sulky grey. She did not look like a dolphin. She did not look like a gull. She looked like someone had splintered a two-by-four and forgotten to nail it back together. Her boxy hull was given halfhearted balance by two equally boxy pylons, thick garish things, that held the nacelles of her engines at arm's length as though they were noxious. From the front her profile had the appearance of a box-and-whisker plot, although what, exactly, it was plotting remained a mystery to David.

A kindly biographer might've called the ship utilitarian, though ugly came earlier in the dictionary and was shorter, to boot. "Huh," David said.

"David."

"Huh," the retriever said, again. It was hard to tear his eyes away, no matter how much they wanted to be torn. One of the supporting struts had lost pressure, giving the ship a slight list.

"Fuck. Me. David." May was also staring.

"Well. Huh."

"No," the akita insisted. "Fuck me. I'm serious. You might as well just bend me over this goddamned pier and fuck me. Aren't those my last-chance-orders? 'Lieutenant Commander Madison May, report no later than October 1st to Starbase Holst and oh, by the way, get fucked.'"

David rubbed at his neck. "I..."

"What the fuck?" She latched onto this phrase and repeated it a few more times, until it was a bubbly growl.

"Uh -- can I help -- oh!"

A hapless looking squirrel had emerged from the gatehouse. The sight of the officers pushed him to immediate attention, and he compensated for the belated salute by making it razor-sharp. David ran through facial expressions until he could find one relatively close to a smile. "At ease, spaceman."

"Yes, sir. Are you Lieutenant Commander May? I was told to expect a Lieutenant Commander May -- I've been looking after the ship!"

He was too perky. "I'm Commander Bradley. That's Commander May," he nodded towards the akita, who was stalking towards the gangway with her curled tail jerking in agitation. The squirrel trotted after him when he moved to follow. "I... er... don't think too much of Commander May's language. English isn't her native tongue. She's, uh. Swedish."

The squirrel nodded. "Ah! Naturligtvis! Jag forstår! Kommendör, välkommen til --"

"We're trying to stick to English," David cut him off. "But the gesture is appreciated."

"Yes, sir!" He followed them through the hatch, and into the starship. The power was on, at least. On the inside, Rocinante was illuminated democratically -- which was to say that her lights functioned, but only by a slim majority. "We've ordered replacement parts, uh, sir, ma'am. It's just been hard to find them."

"I thought this was the ready reserve? Why weren't they stockpiled?"

"Um." The squirrel responded to David's question with inauspicious hesitation. "Well, see. CL-5662 was part of a different record database, and in the shuffling of some paperwork, um..."

"You forgot it was here," May finished for him.

"Yes ma'am."

"Fuck. Me."

"Ja, exakt. Det var --"

"When was that? The shuffling?" David asked. The bridge of the Rocinante cringed before them. Environmental systems had kept dust and spiders at bay; they had done nothing to replace the cracked computer panels, or to correct a fluid spill that covered the far wall in sticky indigo blood.

"Er. 2700, sir."

"At which point she was already a hundred and thirty years old."

"Yes, sir."

"You forgot about an entire starship for more than a century?"

He glanced between the two dogs. May had asked the question in a growl. "Um. It's... it's a big station, ma'am."

"When does our crew show up?"

"Tomorrow, ma'am. Details are all, um. Here." He held out a tablet. May's eyes flicked to it. "On... on this computer. Ma'am."

She took it from him as she might've taken a used tissue. "I see."

"Your biometrics are already programmed. I, uh... I should get back to my post, to make sure the supplies are being delivered." May didn't answer, so Bradley nodded, and the squirrel retreated hastily from the pair.

Madison May had a very dark face that made it difficult to see her eyes, at times; she turned before he could investigate further and rested her paw on the armrest of the captain's chair before dropping with a thud into it. The plate shields were retracted on the windows in front of them; they could see out and into the sprawling yard of Starbase Gustav Holst. Against the fitful flickers of the Rocinante's lights it seemed very bright, indeed.

"Maddy?"

The akita's ears twitched. "Lay in a course," she muttered. "For the destruction of my career."

"It's not all bad," David tried. "She does have a kind of... charisma? I mean, that seat looks a lot more comfortable than the one on the old patrol boat."

Madison flipped the tablet computer like a frisbee; it skittered to a halt against a console that had once served as the Rocinante's helm. "Is it laid in, Dave?"

He retrieved the computer and, a little hesitantly, flipped the power switch on the navigator's computer. Screens came to life -- the brightly colored holograms that had seemed so high-tech a few centuries before. The ship was old -- well old, back from when manual controls on warships were standard, and the pilot didn't just give vague orders to the nav computer. "Oh, wow..."

"Huh?"

It took some doing for him to remember how a physical computer interface even worked, and a few seconds until he could follow up the hint on the display. "You know the last place this ship was before she retired?"

"No."

"Micar III," he murmured. Sure enough, there it was, an entire adventure written in her navigation logs. Complicated maneuvers -- as intricate as they were vast. "She was in the line at the Battle of Sogak Forge."

The last engagement of the Fourth Pictor War. David loved history, and Madison did not, but even she knew that story -- six hundred Terran ships standing up a Pictor fleet two thousand strong. Had she seen the fierce clash between the Nelson and the superdreadnought Uhulhukiwa? Had her tactical officer gasped, watching Admiral Barros ram the Challenger into the side of the Pictor flagship? "Really?"

"Really."

"Well," the akita allowed, after reflection. "At least she's a museum piece with some history. What about the crew?"

David took the computer and browsed through it until he found the manifest. If he had been May, or anyone less reserved, it would've been his turn to blaspheme. But he liked to think that he was a calmer sort, so he kept his muzzle straight. "It seems the chief engineer is one Shannon Gloria Hazelton."

"Why?"

He'd expected profanity, but that simple question was a fair second choice. "Not sure. It says Lieutenant Hazelton is currently on probation for, uh. Performing 'unauthorized and unorthodox experiments.' I don't know what that means, either. I... I guess we'll find out tomorrow."

"Fuel mixture," Hazelton explained. She was the first of the new crew to arrive, from a shuttle earlier in the day. Bradley had helped May remove several crates of expired rations from the captain's ready room, and they were using it to process the Rocinante's crew. On Day Two of Last Chance, at least, David observed that a few more of the lights were working. And Hazelton was in good spirits: "I experimented with fuel mixtures."

"That's not that unorthodox..."

The raccoon shrugged. It was a sort of mischievous shrug, except that nearly everything raccoons did was mischievous so he couldn't accord it that much weight. "Dumping it unfiltered into the inlet manifold is, Mads."

"Unauthorized?"

Shannon smiled at David. "Not specifically. The captain said, 'do whatever it takes' and, by gods I did! And you know what? We got two hundred percent thrust out of those darn things until they exploded." The last three words were pronounced sotto voce, and facing away Madison and David.

This was not reassuring. David looked over her file again. "Experiments, plural?"

"Oh. Yeah, uh. I can't talk about the other ones. Let's just say Star Patrol told me this is my last chance."

David glanced to Madison, and found the akita looking back. Beggars and choosers, wasn't that the saying? May shook her head. "Welcome aboard."

"Hell of a crate you got here, Mads. Old Sovvy, isn't it? K-type motivator?"

"No," David corrected. "One of the last ships with an Upton-type hyperdrive." Much less efficient, and far rougher.

Shannon didn't seem to mind, though. "Nice. And big ol' Roland sublight burners. Those things were solid. Roland Drives used to make the best impulse engines -- I heard an engineer tell me once you could completely remove the safety interlocks on the --"

"Lieutenant Hazelton."

"Ma'am?"

"Don't explode my engines."

"At all?"

David felt that May sort of needed a chaperone every now and again, which he was used to providing. Hazelton, though, needed a leash and collar. The two were not a good combination, and he was mildly thankful that he would not have to be on the same ship. "Lieutenant, go over the powerplant and get a report back to me as soon as possible. Let me know what we need to launch."

When her ringed tail, waving merrily, had vanished through the open hatchway Madison turned with arched brows. "Can't talk about the other ones, huh?"

"I'll keep an eye on her," David sighed.

"Who's next?"

An otter's head appeared in the door, and then the rest of the otter followed. "Spaceman Wallace," he grinned. He wore his uniform with the gravitas of someone who had scrounged it from a trash can out behind a thrift store.

"Travis James Wallace," David read. "Spaceman apprentice."

"Yeah, or just TJ, man."

Rubbing at his muzzle, the retriever looked TJ up and down. "Assistant engineer, spaceman?"

"Yep," the otter confirmed. "Just got here from stardrive school. I gotta say, man, this ship is wild."

Madison's eyebrows were getting twitchy, David saw. She didn't seem to know what to make of Travis. "You're, ah. You're aware that conventionally we use words like... 'sir,' or..."

"Oh, yeah, totes. Sorry, sir," he nodded to the akita, and raised his webbed paw in a salute that might've scored a passing grade with a suitably aggressive curve. "I get kinda forgetful."

Maddy, bend-me-over-this-goddamned-pier Madison May, could not make a strong case for decorum on her own, so she settled for curiosity. "The Star Patrol isn't... just... about getting to float around in space..."

"Yeah, I know. I hate space."

David couldn't help himself. "Then why did you join?"

"Three years off my sentence, man. I was in a penal colony, yeah? Five years on Raven Island."

Naturally. The rocky atoll was not exactly Alcatraz, but if you were going to visit a paradise like Clearwater there were many better places to spend your time. "What for?"

"Oh, uh. Stealing. I was sixteen though, so, like. Learned my lesson. Ready to get back out, you know?"

"Stealing what?" May beat him to the punch. "What the hell does a teenager get five years prison for on a first offense?"

TJ shuffled back and forth on his feet. "Yeah, uh. A fusion reactor." David's head cocked to an angle nature had precisely calibrated between inquisitiveness and utter bemusement. May's had done the same. "Yeah, so, okay. It was for my friend's graduation, right, and like... we don't fuck around on Clearwater, yeah? So, like, the band needed some serious juice for the amps. And, like, there was this junked freighter I knew about, so I disconnected the reactor and hauled it over."

"You wired an industrial fusion reactor for... a band?"

He shrugged to May's question. "Yeah, dude, like I said, we don't fuck around on Clearwater. Anyway, cops busted it up and when they found the reactor... well... but like, yeah, I haven't stolen anything else and I'm totally ready to be done with prison. Star Patrol sounded pretty cool."

Beggars. Choosers. "Well, go... go down to the engine room and find Lieutenant Hazelton."

"If she's trying to blow anything up, come back here and let me know," David added. Better safe than sorry.

It didn't take long to divine the nature of the game. Their pilot, Elissa Parnell, had lost a rank and the right to fly corvettes after a "slight, no, really it was very minor" collision. She'd spent the last two years on old freighters -- which, at least, gave her experience with the controls of the superannuated Rocinante. Their weapons officer had an itchy trigger finger; his ID hologram had caught him with bared teeth. Their radioman admitted to joining the Star Patrol because she was "bored."

"Dr. Schatz has seven doctorates," Maddy pointed out, speaking of the ship's scientist. The two were alone, making a shared dinner of delivery Chinese food from Gustav Holst's food court; the chicken was already cold when it arrived. "That's something."

"He has enrolled in seven doctoral programs," David felt obliged to correct -- since at no point in their conversations had the Border collie himself seen fit to. "He has a master's degree."

"In science!"

"Well... yes." Particle physics, mathematics, aeronautics, hyperspace propulsion, molecular biology, computer science, and grecian drama. Five dissertations, two more half-finished; none of them defended. 'Real soon,' the ensign had said.

So that was that. A 233-year old starship and a crew of eight... well. Charitably they could be called misfits, and he had to wonder how many of them had received transfer orders with the words "last chance" either implicit or baldly stated. Most? All?

In an effort to boost morale -- his, at least -- he started a "good news board" in May's ready room. He did this by unrolling a computer against one of the walls, and writing upon it the things that were going according to plan. By the week's end, the list had nearly a dozen items.

Some of these, like "discovered ice cream machine in galley store room," were quite mundane. Others were not: according to Lieutenant Hazelton, the ship's engines were both in good shape and did not need to be overhauled in the near future. "Just some fuel," the raccoon had said. "Either straight from the station here, or I can show you a new recipe I've been working on..."

They decided to go with what Starbase Gustav Holst had to offer.

Ensign Leon Bader, similarly, had nothing but good things to say about the ship's weapons complement. Indeed, he seemed quite enamored. "The point defense guns all check out," the shepherd reported. "And I'm really looking forward to testing out the main cannons."

"We should probably wait until we're outside the station," David suggested; the shepherd's tail drooped. "Circuits test out okay, though?"

"Yes, sir. And I bet I know some tricks they didn't have back then, too."

This struck the retriever as slightly odd: "The Star Patrol stopped using particle cannons almost a century ago."

"Oh, I know. I was talking about stuff I learned playing starship simulators. For example..."

Everyone had to have hobbies. The hobbies were not what bothered May; the akita was fixated on the particle weapons instead. The phrase what, don't we have any bows and arrows? was used, shortly before several less polite ones followed suit.

By the time she'd been refueled and the reactor was powered on -- "got it on the first try!" was the shout from the engine room, which did not inspire confidence in the retriever's mind -- most of the lights had been replaced, nearly all of the leaks had been found, and a fresh coat of paint was drying on the hull.

This was, itself, a matter of some effort. In the past the Rocinante had been painted black, or slate, or deep olive. Now it was the fashion of Star Patrol ships to have their top parts done in dark blue and their undersides in white. But the Rocinante had no real underside in the way that a curvy Sundberg-style ship did, and Starbase Gustav Holst did not have enough grey paint to cover the entirety of the cruiser.

The result was a strange geometric patchwork of grey and blue and green. Lieutenant Commander May was less than thrilled, and David was forced to impress upon her the noble history of dazzle paint on warships. "Besides," he said. "It's unique. And you have a unique ship."

"And a unique crew."

Spaceman Mitch Alexander, the radioman, was clinging to the underside of one of the ship's big antennas, inspecting it by hand. It did not look especially safe, but the fearless abyssinian seemed to delight in proving her gymnastic abilities and the inspection needed to be done. "Yes," David agreed, consoling himself with the knowledge that cats were good at landing on their feet. "A unique crew."

"You know, I'm sure you could still come along..."

The retriever frowned. "Well, Commodore Mercure said I would receive other orders. And yours were supposed to be special, I thought."

"You suppose it's just one assignment?"

"I think so. He didn't make it sound like a long-term thing."

The akita took a deep breath, and sighed. "Alright. I think I can make it."

"That's the spirit, Maddy." He patted her on the shoulder, and went back into the ship to see if there were materials in the sickbay for fixing broken cat bones. Just in case.

One more week went by, and the ship looked, if not modern, than at least functional. The broken computers had been fixed, three kilometers of wire and cable had been replaced, and the lights were all working. They didn't always work at the same time, but Hazelton explained this as a quirk of the life support system and promised to look into it.

"Still a museum piece," was Madison May's verdict, looking upon her from the pier.

"Yes," David agreed. "But a ship-shape one."

"Captain on deck!" Ensign Bader summoned the bridge crew to attention -- the shepherd himself, in particular. He was good at it: ramrod-straight, and fiercely martial.

"As you were." May took her chair, and brought the console in front of her to life. "Commander Bradley, secure us for launch."

David looked over his readouts. The hatches were sealed. The lines had been cast off. They were operating under their own power -- for the first time in a century and a half -- and everything was within its expected range. "We're ready, captain. Systems integrity check is good."

"Engineering?"

"Main reactor's at full military power, ma'am," Lieutenant Hazelton reported over the intercom. "Hyperdrive is... well. We'll see, but it looks good so far."

"Spaceman Alexander, do we have clearance?"

The abyssinian rolled her shoulder to tug her arm free of the sling that bound it. "Yes, ma'am. We're clear to depart under our own power. I can depressurize us and open the docking bays whenever you want."

"Do it," the akita nodded. For her faults -- or idiosyncrasies -- she never failed to appear commanding. "Ensign Parnell, stand by to make the ship's controls active."

Ensign Parnell was a wolf who looked a little more like a coyote than was healthy -- slightly too red-brown, slightly too skinny, and far too nervous. She placed both her paws on the ship's controls, nodded, and then removed them again. Repeating this process, she took a deep breath to beat back the shudder that animated her frame. "R-ready. Captain."

"Docking bay doors are open," Alexander announced. Below them, now, was nothing but empty space.

"Helm, take us out. Straight down, please. Zero lateral motion."

Parnell was so rigid that, for a moment, David wondered if she might not have been electrocuted. The wolf's ears twitched. David was not aware of her moving the controls so much as he was aware of an imperceptibly slow drift of the space station visible through the forward windows.

According to the books, the Rocinante's sublight engines could move her forward with seventy meters per second per second of acceleration, and her maneuvering thrusters could manage ten. A quick survey of his sensors revealed that they had accelerated to the grand speed of half a kilometer per hour, and then stopped. It was at this snail's pace that they slid from the berth at Gustav Holst.

"Ensign Parnell?" May asked.

Eli didn't move. The wolf's ears flicked to show that she'd heard the captain. "M-ma'am?"

"Are the engines... working?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Ah... well..."

"She's being cautious," David explained. "This ship hasn't moved since long before any of us were born." And, he did not add, the last time she had taken the controls of a Star Patrol vessel it had been to crash it into a communications relay. It was fair to expect her to require some confidence.

May was having none of it. "I mean, there's caution and then there's... whatever this is. Some haste, please, ensign."

"Yes, ma'am," the wolf murmured. 'Haste' netted May another two kilometers an hour, but at least they could now see deep space before them. The bridge was located at the front of the Rocinante, near the top, so at least it was easy to tell when they were all the way out of the spacedock.

"Clear," Alexander sang out. "Gustav Holst says we're clear and we have clearance to depart."

"Helm, plot a course for Ganymede that takes us clear of the outer beacons."

"Course plotted. Ma'am. Ready. Yes."

David saw Madison purse her lips and, in disbelief, give a jerking shake of her head. "Make it so, then. Ahead two thirds."

"Uh. All the way to two-thirds? Captain. That's -- uh. Captain. That's awfully, uh --"

Madison turned to him. "Safe, Commander Bradley?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"Then do it, ensign."

With a gulp, the wolf twisted the ship's throttles, and the Rocinante thrummed with the power at the helmsman's command. Two centuries of idleness seemed to have spurred her engines into nervous agitation: the cruiser moved like a predator, graceful and swift despite her ungainly appearance. The big guidance beacons that marked the entry to the station's traffic lanes loomed, and swept past silently.

A bulk freighter making use of said traffic lanes was a different matter. "Uh. Ship dead ahead, captain," Ensign Bader raised his voice. "We're going to come within less than two kilometers of a superheavy on approach."

"Ensign Parnell..."

The wolf stiffened again. "Captain?"

"I don't want to hit that freighter, ensign. You don't want to hit that freighter. The freighter definitely doesn't want us to hit them."

"Collision alarm. Thirty seconds," the ship's computer intoned. "Twenty-five. Twenty."

"Ensign!" The wolf was panting, her eyes wide and staring into the helm's display.

"Fifteen," the computer went on. "Ten." Parnell shoved the controls, and ship's prow dropped smoothly. "Clear."

"Wasn't so hard," David tried to be gentle. "Good work."

"Resume our course for Ganymede," May gritted her teeth. "Ensign, you have the conn. Don't hit anything."

Over the next hour, David accompanied her to each of the crew in turn, listening to their report and taking notes. For a ship that had been slumbering better than two centuries, everything seemed to be in fairly good shape. Ensign Bader confessed that he wasn't certain about the fuses on their old missiles, and Spaceman Alexander said she thought one of the sensors was dusty, but really... really, that was much better than they could've hoped for.

"There's a saying amongst my people," May grinned to him dangerously as they returned to their stations. "'So far, so good.' I think we're ready for our first real test." The akita stood -- looking lupine and regal before the captain's chair, though she had to tug her uniform blouse back down and into shape. "Status report! Engineering?"

"Reactor's developing full military power, ma'am."

"Systems?"

Mitch Alexander looked up dutifully. "Sensors operational; nothing to report."

"Tactical?"

"Sir! Weapons are in ready-standby! Particle cannons aligned! Missile tubes one through eight are loaded! Point defense grid is operational, and targeting scanners are charged and waiting! Just say the word -- sir!"

Maddy gave her first officer a quick sideways look. "Right. Helm?"

Parnell looked over her shoulder. "Engines nominal, ma'am."

"Plot a hyperlight course for the Miranda Transfer Station."

Dave stepped forward to look over the wolf's shoulder. For the moment, she ignored him, focusing on the flashing ghosts in her holographic readouts. "Course laid in," she said, and the path illuminated itself in colorful polygons.

He checked it, for this was his responsibility -- but despite her self-doubt, it had been done both quickly and well. "Course confirmed, ma'am."

"Engage!"

"Suspension field at full power. Generator charging. Lightspeed in five," the she-wolf announced. Commander Bradley counted down silently. Five seconds later the space before them was rent in a brilliant flash that faded to reveal the bright, painful iridescence of the Ka gateway. The suspension field pulled them into it inexorably, like a ship drawn into a maelstrom: the Rocinante rushed forward, faster and faster, until they slipped into the hot glare of hyperspace and the aperture snapped closed behind them.

"Report?" Kirilov-type FTL engines worked on different principles than the antiquated Upton stardrive used by the Rocinante. May had never been on a ship with the older style -- neither had David.

Eli Parnell had, though, and she didn't seem nervous or confused. "The field is stable... we're making 1.5 megajärvi on course."

"We're designed to cruise at, what, twenty-five?"

"Yes, ma'am," David answered her. "Twenty-five cruise; thirty-two maximum. I know she's old, but we should be pretty close to the design specs. Wouldn't you agree, Ensign Parnell?"

"Ah -- yes. Yes, sir. We could probably make thirty-five, in a pinch."

"Good," the akita nodded. "Take us to thirty-five then, ensign."

The she-wolf's eyes flicked between her control panel and her computer displays as she played with the throttle. "Thirty... thirty-two..." The cruiser was now at its design maximum speed -- 32 megajärvi, or 2.7 light years per day. "Thirty-four... thirty-five," she finally said, and her voice carried a note of relief. "We're at thirty-five."

"The engines?"

"The suspension field is at a stable... 3.2 kilohertz, captain. Reactor outputting 855 gigawatts. Also stable."

Commander May's eyes lit from within, a dark fire that David had come to know all too well. "Good. Take us to forty, then."

"Um... that's not..."

"Not what?"

"We don't have the power, captain. We're already at the limits of the reactor. The cost to maintain a stable field, um..." Parnell turned, and her soft ears twisted back submissively when she caught the captain's gaze. "Er... on... on these engines, um. Field power goes up exponentially with speed. The reactor can't take us beyond where we are now... it's at its limits."

"No such thing." May put her paws on her hips. "Come on, ensign. Forty. Make it happen."

And in the end, Madison May always got her way. Ears still pinned, the wolf looked back to her console. "Engineering, this is the helm. We need reserve power from the reactor. What more can you give us?"

"Nine-fifty," the raccoon answered. "Not one blessed watt over. I'm trying."

This was not going to be enough. Eli knew it, Dave knew it; Shannon Hazelton knew it, but she gave them the power anyway. "Just under thirty-seven megajärvi, captain. That's 3.2 light years per day. We..."

"I can count," Madison said evenly. "It's still not forty."

The wolf gritted her teeth, staring forward and into the holograms as though willing them to say something different and less futile. "I can't change the laws of physics, captain. Power goes up with the square of the frequency -- there's no way to establish a stable field at a higher..."

She had trailed off. "Ensign?" Dave prompted.

"I... I could narrow the diameter of suspension field. It would decrease our Atias drag, at least..." Eli took a deep breath, and leaned forward to start work. "Sort of... there we go. I'm decreasing the field radius to thirty-two meters."

"That's awfully close to the hull," Barry Schatz spoke up. "Don't take it any more than that..."

"I know," she breathed. An alarm went off, and Dave saw Eli flinch, shutting her eyes for a second to calm herself. "Alright. Thirty-two and... and captain, we're now stable at... forty... forty-three megajärvi."

"Excellent! Good job, ensign."

Their science officer was less pleased; the Border collie was licking his lips nervously. "With the Upton field this close to the hull, we're going to start experiencing threshold ablation... I really recommend increasing the radius again, captain."

"Threshold ablation?"

"When the field permits normal matter to come into contact with Chaikalis particles, they... react. Mostly by disintegrating in a shower of tachyons and a gamma rays. Captain, this is really not healthy. We should have at least two meters of space between the outer hull and the fringes of the suspension field. Captain..."

While his agitation had David on edge, May seemed less concerned. She waited, and let the silence fill with the rhythmic alarm of the ship's engine, announcing exactly the same danger. A minute passed. Two.

"Temperature is rising in the port engine nacelle," Alexander raised her voice, over the alarm. "Signs of high-energy radiation and temporal stress on the structural integrity generators."

May nodded her acknowledgment. But she let the ship carry on for another thirty seconds before giving any orders. "Ensign Parnell, restore the original field and slow us to our normal cruise speed."

And that was that.

David had grown used to her doing such things, over time. It rarely seemed hazardous -- mostly the pursuit of a razor's edge avoided by most of the others in the Star Patrol. She wanted to know the boundaries of everything she touched -- the real boundaries, not what was written in the engineering manual. So now she knew that the ship -- in an emergency -- could make more than a third over her official maximum speed, and all it had taken was some stress on the hull and the science officer.

In the two days out and two days back, nothing went wrong. May ordered all the sensors energized, one by one, and the weapons powered on -- to Leon Bader's great pleasure. The shepherd was practically salivating at an opportunity to fire the particle cannons. None presented itself; they wrapped up the shakedown cruise right back where they'd started, in berth at Starbase Gustav Holst.

"Orders, Dave," Madison told him, after summoning the retriever into her ready room.

"You have yours?"

"Sort of. It's a message from Commodore Mercure. He says that we're to take on two new crewmembers. One of them we'll pick up at the university complex in orbit of Sarikaya -- and they'll have our actual mission. Shame you won't be there for it..."

"Yes," he agreed. "It is."

"The other one we're getting now. Not a new first officer, strangely enough." Her look became icy, and Dave was given to understand that whatever she was about to say was also supposed to anger him. "Inspector Velasquez, COD. We have overwatch for this assignment. To keep me in line, no doubt."

"Really?"

May grunted, and showed him the orders. He was able to scan the first few sentences: a civilian was to board, providing an inspection of the ship's systems and crew; they would also be there to supervise the mission. "Supervise! Inspect! Meddle, is more like it," the akita spat.

"Maybe you'll learn to get along?"

"Not a chance in hell. Dave -- I need one last thing from you."

The retriever sighed, but only inwardly. "What is it, Maddy?"

"The inspector is not coming. Convince him we'll be fine. Make sure you two miss the boat. Or something."

"It's in your orders..."

"The inspection is in my orders," May disagreed. "And the existence of an inspector. It says that inspector Velasquez will report aboard -- it doesn't say that he'll stay there. And I'd rather that he didn't. I can't run my damned ship with some nosy-ass civilian trying to shove their muzzle where it doesn't belong. I bet he's some fucking bloodhound type. All sharp bones and hard eyes and growlin' at me 'cause..."

David permitted her to vent her spleen for a minute longer, and then excused himself.

Nobody liked the Overwatch. Not May, not Bradley -- nobody. It was built into the name. They could've called them "assistants" or "advisors" or anything like that, but Civilian Overwatch Division? The Orwellian terminology belied a much more mundane task: the Overwatch existed to make certain that the Star Patrol, in the eyes of its bureaucratic handlers, didn't overstep its bounds.

Larger ships invariably had a permanent representative assigned; five or six smaller ships might have to share one between them. A Star Patrol captain's fortunes depended entirely on how permissive the Overwatch felt like being. Some of them cared mostly about the high-minded ideals of the Confederation, and were willing to let minor "transgressions" slide.

Some of them, however, were deeply concerned with how closely Subparagraph 3 of Regulation C, Book 540 (Revised Codicil Appendix X) was being adhered to. As an ensign, David Bradley had once been yelled at severely for skipping lunch in the mess hall two days in a row. It was, Overwatchman Alvil Willbanks explained, an officer's responsibility to set a good example for his men.

Velasquez arrived in the middle of the afternoon, right around the time that civilized people were knocking off for a bit of tea or a beer. The inspector was not a sharp-boned, hard-eyed bloodhound. The cacomistle had a wide, brown, inquisitive gaze that made her appearance on the Rocinante seem nothing so much as a field trip, and she asked him straightaway to call her "Ali."

"Welcome to the ship," he gestured to the hatchway. "I can show you around, if you'd like?"

"Of course, I'd love to see it. My belongings are still being transferred," she explained, curling her impossibly long tail out of the way of the hatch when he closed it behind them. "I've been behind a desk for a few years..."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm," Ali nodded. "After I got married, Jim wanted to stay on Europa and look for a house. I've gotten used to a shore posting! This is, um... a rather unusual ship. Your color scheme is -- is it original?"

"No." He deftly pushed a wall panel shut, hoping she didn't notice the wires that had been threatening to escape. "We had to cobble together some paint. This ship was mothballed two centuries ago, and a lot has changed in the meantime. Spaceman! Spaceman Wallace, this is Inspector Velasquez, from Civilian Overwatch."

TJ seemed to know that he was not expected to salute, but not what he was meant to do. "Uh. Yeah, hey there." The otter caught David's expression, and stood straighter. "Uh, ma'am. I mean."

"Spaceman Wallace is our assistant engineer. Everything's in order?"

"Y -- es, sir? Just rebuilding the coolant cycler. After the captain's first hyperspace jump, you know..."

Suddenly the bright-eyed cacomistle became more animated still. "What happened?"

"Oh, yeah, uh, so like, the reactor's only rated for eight hundred fifty gigawatts. But, uh, the first time we took her to hyperspace, the captain ordered us to..." He looked to David, and then flinched -- as if the daggers in the retriever's glare had physical presence. "Uh, to... stress-test the engine, 'cause it was the ship's first time at FTL speeds in like... years. So we ran it up to exactly eight-fifty, not a single watt over, and she held up okay! Yep, just... want to check that cycler..."

"Old technology," Ali nodded sympathetically.

"Indeed," David nodded. "Carry on, spaceman." When the otter nodded eagerly, and made his escape, Bradley continued his narrative. "So far, I've been pleasantly surprised by how little primary work we've needed to do. Lieutenant Hazelton, our chief engineer, has done an excellent job working with Mr. Wallace -- we've actually not had one single systems failure, did you know that? Not one."

He kept her away from Ensign Parnell, who was probably hiding under a rock anyway, and from Leon, their tactical officer; the shepherd would learn that she was part of his flock in due course, anyway. With the tour over, they found themselves back at the hatchway -- and then Ali tilted her head. "Dinner? I'd like to talk about my role. What do you say to one more dinner shoreside?"

Well, station-side -- but the central hub of Starbase Gustav Holst was every bit as vibrant as downtown San Francisco or London. The cacomistle picked an Italian restaurant, and that suited him just fine. In any case, by the looks of it Ali knew how to eat well, indeed. He let her order for him -- bruschetta, carbonara, and a bottle of syrah. The first toast was raised to the Rocinante, and her proud legacy.

The second was raised to their mission; David admitted that he didn't really know what it was. Ali did not either -- only that it was remote, and that they would learn more after departure.

"But, I think I was told that you're not actually coming along?"

"Right," the retriever said. "I guess we'll be trading places. I'm taking a posting here, I think..."

"Do you mind that?"

The syrah -- and just when had another bottle appeared? -- softly blurred the crisp edges of the dog's brain, but what did it matter? This was his last night having to care about the ship for awhile. He took a gentle sip, and smiled. "I think I'll manage. I like May, you know, I do... but... I guess I can't always be there. I'm sure a shore assignment will be good for me."

"I bet you'll miss the stars..."

"I will," he answered truthfully. "But, you know..."

Ali, despite her stocky build, was feeling the alcohol too, judging by her lopsided grin. "How'd you get into the Star Patrol? Why did you join?"

"I was in the Scouts." He snickered at the memory -- dopey-looking retriever pup in a dun uniform mottled with the merit badges he'd chased so earnestly after. "We had a camping trip to an old asteroid mining colony. A full day of zero-g to get out there... could just look anywhere and see the stars all 'round the shuttle... I decided then I was going to try for the Patrol. After the Scouts, I was in the Rangers, and then in university, ROTC."

"On Curma... Car... Cumaribo," she finally managed, rolling those big eyes of hers at her own foibles. "The Scouts never did star field trips. But there's a big observatory... the Confederation runs it, with help from the Ulzan Nizir. They even had two there, oof... oof!"

"Yeah?"

"Three meters tall. Big, soft wings... they couldn't fly on Cumaribo. It's such a sacrifice they made, to give that up so they could help us with our telescope. The Nizirish make the best astronomical equipment in the universe, though -- in their flying cities... Awzeh Naqlaash told us about diving from one all the way down to the oceans, it sounded so fun..."

Ali stabbed for some bolognese, and nearly all of it made it into her long muzzle. "You've got some, um. Some sauce," he pointed.

The cacomistle dabbed at her muzzle, giggling softly, and then dismissing the incident as deftly as TJ had managed to brush off the coolant system damage. "Oh, dear. This is my favorite place, you see! Where was I? Nizirish living with Terrans. I was sad when they left and the new caretakers came, but happy they could go back, you know? It's not good to be out of your element for too long..."

"True," the retriever said. "That's very true. We know where we belong, right?"

"Like you and space," his companion murmured. "To knowing where you -- we -- we? You? Belong," she offered, and lifted her glass of syrah.

Clink. "To belonging, period."

"Right!"

Dave suggested that it was probably time to retire, but Ali's round ears wilted at the very notion. They had not, she countered, even had dessert yet. And he had something to celebrate -- a new position, somewhere on the station -- so when she ordered the panna cotta and added two glasses of Centauri rye he agreed, on the grounds that it would be good to have something to toast with.

They were quite large glasses, but it was quite good rye -- so in the end, the universe was properly balanced. And the panna cotta, drenched in caramel and chocolate, was fantastic. He would have to come back -- and often. Starship food, freeze-dried if it wasn't badly synthesized, was not a culinary proclivity one aspired to.

After rye, finally -- one glass? Two? -- they left. The metal walkways branched off in all directions and the dog had no idea which one was the one he even wanted. "You'll... you'll get to know this place," Ali assured him. "In time... shame you can't come with me into space, though..."

"Shame?"

"It's nice to have good company." The cacomistle smiled -- and when he paused, resting on a wall to try to get his bearings, she leaned upon him. "Star Patrol and all that... so exciting. You guys are so exciting!"

"Well..." David tried to parse what was happening. Her weight was very warm on his side, and not unpleasant at all. "Yeah, it's a shame," he decided to agree. What was the harm?

"You're going back to the ship now?" Ali turned, and did not pull any further away; she looked up, her big eyes melting the retriever's ears so that they pinned guiltily.

"I... I'd have to. Right? Eventually..."

Even though he didn't really want to -- both because he wasn't certain he could make it unaided and because it was more enjoyable to have the inspector pressed into him. "I could get you something in one of the hotels here... the government runs them for traders and other civilians..."

"A hotel..."

Her mind made up, Ali nodded. And then she licked his nose, and slid away from him, grabbing his paw. "Yes. That's exactly what we're going to do!"

By his reckoning, Ali's steps were about as unsteady as his, and by the time they'd gained the next walkway any further journeying seemed a bad idea. Fortunately her next move was to slap the control panel of a door with her paw; glass panes slid wide, revealing a crisp, antiseptic lobby and a wooden counter staffed by a night clerk who eyed the pair warily. "Can I help you?"

"We need a room." She had to lean on the counter to support herself; the hapless dingo behind it splayed his ears and leaned back, as though worried she might fall through somehow. "On the COD account. We have -- we have an account."

"Uh. Y-yes, ma'am." He had the clean-cut look of Star Patrol, but his uniform was a black suit and tie -- so if this was an assignment for the canine, it was probably not an especially plum one. "I can get you set up, of course. Um. One bed?"

"What do you take me for?" the cacomistle glared. "Two. Good lord, man."

His ears went even further back, although the dingo couldn't see the way Ali's paw rested on her companion's hip, and he certainly couldn't feel the little squeeze she was giving him. "Right."

In the end the result was a room on the sixth floor, looking out on the central hub of the station. It was not poorly apportioned; both beds looked comfortable enough, though they seemed to have the coarse sheets typical of Star Patrol barracks. All the same David was happy with his environment and his company.

The arrangement presented only two problems. The first problem was Ali's husband, who had not yet been consulted or acknowledged, and also that the Civilian Overwatch was supposed to be unsullied and irreproachable. The second problem was that it had been a very long time since the dog had been this close to someone, and nothing in the soft gasps she made when he touched her did much to dissuade him.

Two problems. Serious indeed. Nobody knew they were there, though, and the syrah and rye had formed some alliance that made for a pleasant warm fuzziness -- a nice, fur-rimmed halo on all his thoughts. For example, a kiss would not be so untoward, would it? The retriever lowered his muzzle just as Ali raised hers, and their lips came together hotly -- a fierce, urgent meeting that was a little hungrier than he'd expected at first.

Not bad, though. Her back was against the wall; she could use it for leverage as the dog leaned into her and her muzzle tilted obligingly. He tasted caramel on her tongue, and felt the sound of the cacomistle's heady moan. Ali's body made for nice, heavy pawfuls and she failed utterly to protest his groping squeezes.

Indeed, she used her leverage, finally, to push the retriever away. His response at first was a reflexive growl at being denied -- he would've said something, too, but they were both panting heavily. So instead he watched her paws go for her dress, and then the swift revelation of long expanses of silky fur. David ran his fingers through her pelt and growled again to her shivering; she was so nice, and warm, and soft under his touch...

That wouldn't be so untoward either, right? Just a bit of exploration. Just stroking that plush fur down until it was smooth and shone with its inviting lushness. Just testing the difference between the thick bronze of her haunch and the shorter cream of her belly. Just unfastening her bra so that he could feel the heavy flesh between his fingers and the jutting smooth nipple that made her gasp and squirm when he teased it --

No, so far there was nothing untoward at all. Fingers that were not his own sought the buttons of his uniform tunic, and he wriggled from the garment to let it fall heavily and then the world spun -- he had her down, her back against the bed, and their lips came together again so that he could muffle a needy groan in the cacomistle's sharp muzzle.

His pants were gone. A lot of things were gone, actually. All of them? No -- the dog's fingers caught on the chain of her necklace, momentarily. So she wasn't completely naked; that was something to fall back on. But she shuffled back on the bed, and he had to answer, following her forward until he fell between the valley formed by her warm, broad thighs. One of her legs wrapped around him, securing the dog from anything so cowardly as escape and -- well --

Could've been an ethics exam question. When is it acceptable to sleep with an inspector of the Civilian Overwatch Division? But the question only had room to write never so you'd have to scrawl real tiny: well when the two of you really want it and she's so fucking wet that -- David sunk himself all the way inside on his first, fluid thrust and their moans met, and mingled as he entered her.

He allowed himself a moment of contemplation, buried in the wet, enveloping warmth of her velvet folds. But none of the contemplation rose to the level of is this a good idea and it certainly didn't rise to the level of no, Christ of course not so instead he began to thrust, slowly, and she groaned again. Her big brown eyes fluttered, and shut. The retriever kept his pace gentle and smooth, working himself deep as she opened up around him.

Could only do that for so long, though. There were a lot of distractions. The way her body caressed him as he slipped into her. The touch of claws on his shoulderblades. The wet squelch of their rhythmic movements -- lewd was the word that sprung to mind, but that made it sound so tawdry and, really, all he was doing was fucking a married ethical expert on the stiff sheets of a cheap starbase hotel. Was that so wrong?

Soon enough the pair were moving faster -- he was driving himself into her in hard, clashing bucks that rammed his golden hips between her spread thighs, and she was begging for him in heated whimpers and cries that filled the little hotel room. The bedframe groaned its protest at their coupling to no particular avail. Faster, starting to shudder and grunt into the cacomistles neck, feeling a familiar pressure building in his loins --

Ali had her fingers dug into his sides and her legs locked to force her lover into shorter, sharper thrusts. He obliged greedily -- anyway his knot was starting to swell and his earlier long, deep strokes weren't so easy now and he didn't want to be anywhere but inside her anyway and -- and -- Ali's claws scored marks and he felt her jolt and quiver a second before she went very snug indeed on the dog's shaft and her trembling spilled wet heat into the fur of his crotch. Her mouth was open, shivering; her cute round ears were pinned.

He had to stop moving because he couldn't move but when the last convulsions had gripped her and she panted to him he wasn't -- quite -- yet -- there and he buried his blunt muzzle down between the bedsheets and her trapped ear. "Turn over," he whispered. The low pitch helped mask how strained his voice was.

Ali whimpered when he pulled out of her. But she did as she was told, twisting beneath him on the bed and then, even, raising up onto her knees invitingly. The dog growled his pleasure and sat up, nudging her spread thighs wider so he could get a nice view of the action, guiding himself back to her dripping pussy and filling her again in the deep, claim-staking thrust that he'd really wanted all along.

That was how you were supposed to do it, Dave decided with a groan. That was the answer. It was acceptable to have sex with an inspector when she was bent over on all fours and moaning into the pillows while you fucked her like a -- well -- like a dog. He rutted her from behind with snarling urgency and her long ringed tail curled 'round him like a stole -- tugging, pulling him closer...

His paws held on to her nice, plump hips as he plundered her in powerful, feral strokes, knowing already that there was not a chance in hell he could hope to last much longer. His thick knot slurped between her lips when he forced it into the mewling cacomistle, and already it was a tugging effort to pull out. Not worth it, although -- decorum -- he was an officer and a gentleman and --

"Can I -- tie with --"

"Please," she gasped in time to the inward plunge that filled her. David didn't try again. He settled for rolling grinds of his hips while his knot pulsed and swelled larger, stretching the ringtailed girl wide 'til there wasn't a chance in hell he could pull out. All there was now was to buck and hump into her strong, heavy hips as the sensations tingling in his cock rose, and sparked, and started to consume him...

That pleasant rush where there was nothing he could do to stop himself. Erratic, reflexive thrusts he had no control over, shuddering and growling behind her as pleasure bore down on him -- hot, pounding waves of it, and with her so tight, grasping his length he could feel every pulsing twitch as his warm canine seed jetted into her.

And by her gasping, her frantic squirming, the way she bit back a wail, so could she. David gritted his teeth and let the orgasm take him, filling Ali with the long spurts of his cum even as she rippled and clenched on him like she, too, craved nothing but the slick warmth he was busy pumping into her.

His desperate grasp on her hips weakened, slowly, and when he fell forward -- spent and out of breath -- she slumped and collapsed too. He was heavy on her back, separated by the thick curl of her lovely tail, and the two panted together for a good long while. Finally she rolled to the side, and let him circle her belly with his arms.

Ali had a very nice tail. Its flicking tickled him, and when he reached down to pet it she only waved the thing all the more. Yes, rather nice indeed -- dogs had such uninteresting tails, by comparison. May's was curious only because of its incorrigible curl, but he dared not stare too long at it. He didn't want to imagine what she was like in bed.

Or... well... he did, actually, but he thought that it would end in his decease. Not like Ali, who was wriggling in his arms in an extremely fetching way. The plump cacomistle made for a good armful and he took full advantage of it, hugging her back and into his chest... nudging his muzzle in between her ears to inhale the faint scent of her perfume... sighing deeply, as he worked his paws into her fur...

And then darkness. Space-black darkness, and incoherent dreams filled with frantic, hot motion...

David awoke with a groan and the sense that he was either dead or well on the way to it. His temples had the throbbing oh-god-it's-all-gone-wrong ache of one of Hazelton's unauthorized and unorthodox experiments. "Oh, fuck..." The word had a certain anodyne quality. Maybe that was why Maddy enjoyed it.

Ali poked her head in from around the corner. She was wearing a robe, and carrying a tray that she set before him with an awkward bow. Toast. Eggs. Coffee. His stomach quailed, but he made a game attempt for the wheat bread.

"I don't know why they make alcohol."

"Yeah," Ali nodded. She didn't look to be doing so hot, either.

'Hot,' though, was in any case a strange word to be using to describe a member of the Civilian Overwatch. Wasn't it? Why would -- suddenly a great number of memories hit him, all at once, and he dropped the toast onto the bed. "Oh god. Did we, ah --"

"Yeah," she said again. "That happened."

"You're certain?" She raised an eyebrow, and then nodded once again. "Oh. Fuck."

The cacomistle curled her long tail forward and around her body, hugging it with a slight frown. "This is... awkward. I don't think we really... planned it all that well..."

Wasn't she married? Oh, god. She was. David shut his eyes tightly. "No..."

"You, um. You can't get me pregnant, at least? That's some... complication avoided. God knows we tried."

"More than once?"

She didn't move, but her eyes flicked to the wall.

He turned. Stared. "Are those claw marks? Whose?"

"I... don't know."

Relatively simple examination could've determined the size of the claws, but neither of them felt inclined. "So, then..."

"We both agree this didn't happen, right?"

David nodded. "Didn't happen. No idea what you're talking about."

"I, um..." Ali pursed her lips, and sighed. "Look, I have some good news, though, right? I got you a place back on that ship of yours. Lieutenant Commander, um, Madison May is her captain."

Once more the toast fell from his fingers. The retriever's voice was flat: "What."

"Your ship. You're the XO. You can... what? Are you alright? You said you were going to miss it..."

"I was, but..." But that was smalltalk! and but I wasn't being serious! Many other 'buts' entered his mind -- not all of them polite -- and he stammered into the first one that seemed repeatable. "But I -- I had an -- I was going to -- an assignment, here..."

"I know." Ali seemed a little bewildered at his response. "I talked to the station commander and got you freed from it. You're cleared for active duty again, on your old ship. I just, um. I think it would be best if I didn't join you, that's all. You know... awkwardness... and... and all..."

Oh, of course.

The ramp to the Rocinante was down, and he found an akita leaning against the open hatchway with a grin. "Request permission to come aboard, Maddy," David sighed.

"You look like shit."

"I'm hungover," he mumbled.

"Must've been some night," May laughed, and patted him on the shoulder as he slumped his way inside.

"Inspector Velasquez will not be joining us."

Madison's dark eyes widened. "Must've really been some night!"

"You owe me," David growled. "God damn it, May, but you owe me..."

"Captain on deck!" Bader shouted to their entry. The shepherd, as was his custom, came to flagpole-stiff salute.

"As you were," Madison sang out, leaving her first mate to whimper a plaintive request for both to keep to their inside voices. "Helm, take us out!"

Two hundred thousand tons of starship lurched, and then dropped slowly from her pier back and into open space. Inky blackness, and the beckoning gleam of a billion stars. Rocinante's prow swung out to face them, and while David hid his head in his paws, his captain stood to watch the great canvas of the galaxy unrolling...

"Ensign, plot a hyperlight course for Sarikaya Prime, speed mark twenty-five."

"Aye, sir." The wolf wasn't yet completely at ease, but she set about planning the journey at once. "Course laid in."

It was David's job to check it; the retriever grimaced, and padded over to investigate. Why did they have to make the holograms so damned bright? Who needed all those colors? Squinting, he looked it over. "Course confirmed."

May did not strike poses as an affectation; they came naturally to her. The akita grinned at the cosmos and all that awaited them. "Make it so."