FSE

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When an engine failure leaves her waiting for repairs, freighter captain Sara Katz learns a bit more about her copilot and makes some decisions about the kind of person she wants to be.

Well, it's been awhile, so let's do some more sci-fi. This is an experiment I've been working on, and I'm curious to know what you think of the story. Moreauverse stuff, pretty standard! Thanks to :iconSpudz: for his work in restoring it to flying condition.

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

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"Crash Landing," by Rob Baird

“Left engine: fire. Left engine: fire. Left engine —"

It had all happened very, very suddenly. Fine on the approach. Perfect initial burn. Then —

“Low coolant warning on the port tank," my engineer added helpfully. That was Kosh, always helpful. “Thermal stress on the inboard gauges."

“Great," I said. I'd already pulled the handle for the fire extinguishers; 'thermal stress' could mean anything from a spreading fire to the normal heat and friction of the atmosphere trying to have its way with my wings. “Fire's out, though. I think."

“Think we can make Dessau?"

With thrust from only one engine, we'd started a gentle list. I trimmed us back level, and tapped my hand over the center console to bring up a map of the terrain below us. Our destination was a disconcertingly long way off. “Maybe. See what's closer?"

Kosh nodded, and flicked on his radio. “Hanford center, this is Whiskey Two-Six-Two, we may need a new landing site…"

“Go ahead, Two-Six-Two."

Hey, our radio's working. I let myself celebrate that small victory, the way you have to do sometimes. Kosh kept talking. “We're headed to Dessau via delta-five, delta-one-seven, delta-three-three. Current altitude is nine-zero kilometers. But we've lost an engine, and are likely to come down sooner rather than later."

“Understood, Whiskey Two-Six-Two. Are you declaring an emergency?"

Kosh looked to me. I looked to him, and then I looked at my control panel, where things had settled back down — if you ignored the sullen red lights that marked my smoldering port thruster. I shook my head.

“Negative, Hanford, we can hold it for now."

They settled on Arnby, a little factory town that was, like many of them, out in the middle of God's own nowhere. I checked the navigational plot and, like he didn't trust me or something, Kosh went over them himself.

“Doable," he said.

“Gee, I'm glad you agree." We had a few minutes to wait; rather than getting too comfortable, I let myself stress out a bit by bringing up the diagnostic display for our ship. There wasn't any point in running the automated tests; they all failed immediately.

“Blown containment assembly?" Kosh asked, leaning over to look at the display with me. I knew why he'd asked; our old P&Ws were notorious for going through those.

But we'd done a full teardown not three months earlier, and I didn't want to admit that I might've overlooked something. “Don't think so."

This was where Kosh would tell me I was being stubborn, and that if I just looked at things very carefully I would see he was right. Or at least, it would've been ordinarily. Instead my engineer nodded. “Maybe. Looks like we logged a power spike, then an abrupt drop… then containment failed…"

“Throw a drone at it, maybe."

“I would, but we don't have time… two minutes to the next correction."

“Well," I said. “Fuck."

“Don't have time for that, either."

I rolled my eyes. “It isn't academic. If there's structural damage to the port wing…"

Kosh frowned, and immediately saw what I was getting at. “Oh."

If there was damage to the port wing, any added stress at re-entry could tear the whole damn thing open. And while I could fly the Gamayun on one engine, it was damned hard to fly anything when it had been shredded into a few thousand rapidly disassociating pieces.

My engineer ran the numbers for me: our trajectory, the amount of thrust required, the length of the burn — all of it. Kosh didn't know too much about orbital mechanics, but the computer did the hard work for him. He didn't know too much about flying, either: that part was up to me.

Looking at it, I knew I'd have to point the ship's nose off-center to compensate for the disabled thruster. We'd need to burn twice as hard on the remaining engine. And all the while, she'd need to be kept oriented so that the port wing was kept out of the worst of any turbulence.

Well, that was my job, wasn't it? I wriggled my fingers — quite pale; I could only imagine what my face must've looked like. And I flipped my visor down as decisively as I could.

“Have to do this manually."

Kosh knew better than to fight. “Good luck. Thirty seconds."

Inside the visor, I was more than human. I saw the Gamayun and her velocity vectors, and the shape of the air currents, and the way any impulse nudged us — even before I'd made the corrections. I saw the tensile strength of our hull, and our center of gravity. Hell, I saw pretty much everything other than the little implants that wired Whiskey Two-Six-Two and Sara Katz together.

“Five seconds," my engineer warned.

Nose left six degrees, up two. Ninety percent throttle. Left five. Down one. Left six. Left seven. I tightened my grip. Four. Two.

“Twelve hundred meters," Kosh called out.

I knew that, of course. I could see the remaining burn counting down right in front of me. Except it was supposed to be coming down smoothly, and the nose kept drifting. Pulling away. Left six, up three. Up two. Damnit, Sara…

“Seven hundred meters."

I nudged the throttle forward. Just a tap. Our nose settled. The temperature was rising too fast over the port wing. A slight roll helped that — but now we were off course again. Five degrees. Six.

“Five hundred meters," Kosh told me. “You're doing fine."

Don't patronize me! He was just trying to help. Like I said, always helpful. I forced us back on course just as the numbers started to go haywire — telling me to burn thrusters in every way at once. The downside of flying manually is sometimes the computers just give up.

I didn't have that option. With two hundred meters of delta-v to burn off we started to hit serious atmosphere, a little before the computer predicted and a lot before I wanted to. Good news and bad: the friction of all that thick, heavy air slowed us down.

And it heated us up.

Kosh saw it too. “Problem, cap. Trailing edge is starting to ablate."

“That's its job."

“Not the parts that are doin' it."

“Give me aborts," I ordered. Though I knew that one was futile even before Kosh told me: we were too far in to climb back out, especially on one engine. Nope. You're committed, Kitty…

“Fifty. Forty."

“Left engine: fire," the computer said.

“On it," I heard Kosh tell me, and I had to trust that he was; I had other things to be focusing on. Really it was just a question of whether I finished my burn before my ship started its own.

As soon as the velocity meter dropped to zero I killed the throttle and took stock. We'd come in too quickly, thanks to the added drag, and now there were lots of new warning signs competing for my attention.

“Plasma leak," Kosh said. “Not a real fire. Think I've locked it down."

Oh, goody. Finally a bit of luck. “Great."

“I don't smell smoke yet, at least. Port electrical bus just threw an undervolt error. Switching to backups now…"

My instruments flickered and came back. So did the map. “We need to put down."

“Yeah." The way he keyed the radio switch, I knew he was expecting that might've stopped working, too. “Arnby control, Whiskey Two-Six-Two. We need immediate vectors for landing."

“Two-Six-Two, understood. Turn left, zero-six-zero. Descend at your discretion, maintain six thousand."

“Sound good?" Kosh asked me.

“Close enough," I answered. We were still about eighty kilometers out.

“Zero-six-zero, six thousand. And, ah, request fire equipment, please."

That gave the poor controller some pause. Unexpected visitors from the heavens were one thing: unexpected visitors who were also on fire? “Copy, Two-Six-Two. Descend to four thousand. Advise as to your situation when able."

My cockpit displays flickered unhappily again, punctuating Kosh's measured reply. “We've got indications of a possible engine fire and a plasma leak on our left engine. Still controllable, but our instrumentation is nominal at best."

That was one way of putting it. Kosh and I listened for the controller to walk us through the standard approach to the cosmodrome at Arnby, which involved coming in from the north rather than the west, where there were mountains in the way.

Kosh dutifully logged all of this, then signed off, and leaned over to me. “Undervolt error cleared. Now there's no readings at all. Also, uh. I'm pretty sure I can smell smoke now."

“I can't," I said, and then caught myself. “But I trust you. I get the point." Forty kilometers was not a terribly long way to go, in the interstellar scheme of things. But it was a lot further than zero, which was where I wanted to be right now.

“Arnby control, Whiskey Two-Six-Two is declaring an emergency."

The displays went out again, and took a painfully long half-second to come back to life. “Whiskey Two-Six-Two, turn right, zero-eight-five. Maintain two thousand. Your approach is going to be a bit steep, just so you know."

I nodded my understanding, and Kosh relayed it.

Then the cockpit went dark. “Hey. Kosh, buddy..."

“Uh. Power's out. Backups coming online…" He flipped the switches one at a time; only half of them worked. “Now-ish. You should be okay."

Most of my gauges, and my visor, were dead. “Sure thing."

At least the radio was still operational. “Whiskey Two-Six-Two, you're twenty kilometers out. Verify heading zero-eight-five."

I checked; that was, indeed, what the computer said. According to Arnby, we were actually traveling in a slightly south-easterly direction. One more bit of good news among many.

In this case it didn't really matter; I'd done what I could to memorize the map, and the mountains before the ship's nose were unmistakable. Pretty: not quite high enough for snow, but barren and craggy. The kind of sight you wouldn't necessarily mind being your last, if it came down to it.

We crested the mountains right about the time Arnby cleared us to land wherever we wanted, and about thirty seconds before the radio died, too. The town formed a tight cluster of big factories and glass-walled office buildings. Two glass domes spoke to some time in Arnby's past when they'd needed life support. Not now, now they were probably just apartments.

Certainly they weren't spaceports. It took a little more searching to come up with that, but then I saw the flashing lights ringing a field of empty landing pads — empty, I noticed, because their occupants had been hastily shoved over to one side of the field.

Like they thought I didn't know what I was doing? One-engine landings? Come on_._ Even in a freighter that wasn't much trouble. Although I would need to stick it, sure; if I had to abort, I didn't like my odds that the extra stress on the hull wouldn't be all it took to take the whole port side apart.

Still. “Gear," I told Kosh.

“Emergency override," he said, and I shrugged. A one-time explosive charge kicked our gear down and locked them into place — dramatic, but it had to be done. “Ready for landing configuration."

Moment of truth, eh? I braced my hand on the controls and pulled the lever to set the Gamayun for landing. The engine's thrust switched from being dumped entirely out the back to the big vents on the underside of the ship's blunt wings.

Highly differential thrust, because we were one-engined, after all. But I was ready — hell, if you didn't know what to look for, you might not even have noticed. We sank down, and down; I saw the emergency vehicles, and the firefighters, with increasing clarity.

Clear enough to see them pointing, and to wonder what they were pointing at, but then another second and the ship thumped down into the tarmac. I pulled the throttle to idle and reversed our thrust, sending it up through the wing to push us down securely until I was satisfied we were done moving.

The cockpit door of a medium-haul cargo junk sits about ten feet over the surface, and if you're polite you're supposed to wait for them to fetch you. Normally that happens after they spray you down — freshly landed ships can be awfully warm.

This time the spray was still going, and the skin of my ship was just on the bearable side of dangerously hot, but I pushed the hatch open, twisted myself around to grab hold of the edge, and then dropped the five feet down myself. Much as I love the Gamayun, and I do love her a lot, I wasn't keen on being around if she went up.

Neither was Kosh, since he followed close behind me.

We exited on the port side; that's where the door is. That also meant all we had to do was turn around to see what was left of the engine. It hadn't exploded; it hadn't even caught fire (not a real fire, at least). 'Melted' was closer to the right word; the metal had drizzled back in strange, unpleasant lumps and ridges.

“Son of a bitch," I said.

Kosh was staring at the engine, too, but when I cursed he looked at me with a frown. “What'd I do?"

Kosh — Kanukana Atokosh — is a dog, by the way. I probably meant to mention that earlier, but there were other distractions on my mind. I met him just after I got out of the service and before I'd lost the habit for doing reckless things that naval aviation brings to you.

He claimed to be a purebred husky, though that was a transparent lie. Purebred huskies, for one, walk on four legs. None of them talk, unless you count that singing thing they do. None of them wear clothes, at least not by their own choice.

When he said “purebred husky," he meant that the company that created him did so by messing around with relatively pure stock, and then twisting it into the kind of creature that can program an engineering drone and write a test suite and knows enough astrogation to plot an intersystem jump.

Some people don't like them. Not just huskies, but all the engineered dogs and cats and pigs and what-have-you. Why? Eh, pick your reasons. Me, I was happy to have Kosh standing next to me, looking at the remains of a Pratt and Whitney DDG-62 that had clearly seen better days, they're prone to containment failure or not.

“What do you think happened?" Kosh prompted.

Hard to say. Easier to say was what would come next. First things first, I needed to make things right with my client. Marty Rich ran a little company that subcontracted for Honeywell. We knew each other from the military, and he'd be understanding — I hoped.

The fact remained that my cargo hold, full of precursors for etching holographic chips, was supposed to be in Dessau, six thousand kilometers away. Even if the Gamayun was in shape for that kind of journey, it's never cost-effective to send an interstellar junk to do a suborbital job.

So I'd need to find someone who could finish out the job at anything close to a reasonable price. We're all mercenaries, the guys like me who handle the unscheduled runs. And they're like sharks: they can smell blood. Arnby, population twenty thousand, was a mining operation. A company town; as a planet, Hanford was under Confederation control, but Arnby had corporate autonomy. Corporate autonomy can make you do some funny things. I hear.

I'm from a kibbutz; I know about funny autonomy. But we never forced all our residents to wear tracking bracelets so they could be called onto shift at a moment's notice. We never paid them exclusively in company scrip. And we never banned non-company merchants from landing at our cosmodrome.

That limited my options. I left Kosh behind to talk to the repair team and went looking for a hotel. There was only one, Arnby Suites, a tall building at the edge of the cosmodrome with the kind of color-shifting windows that were really popular eighty years ago.

Remember that? You could make the window see-through, or completely black, or change the tint to whatever you wanted — so you could pretend to be back home, if you lived someplace with a purple sky or something. It seemed very modern back then, I'm sure.

Now it was just silly, and the room was too expensive for the cramped, worn quarters I found. At least it had a bar, and from a quick glance inside the bar was well-traveled. Go figure that nobody wanted to stick around Arnby longer than they had to, and certainly not sober.

Marty Rich and I had some good history together, but I made sure I had transportation lined up for his cargo before I called him up to tell him about the delay. It was only thirty-six hours, I promised: I'd found a company lighter willing to take everything in my hold the rest of the way to Dessau.

I didn't bother to tell him how much it cost me. Wasn't his fault, after all; he wouldn't be paying for any of it. He also didn't hint that he wanted to dock me any of my fees; that was a small victory. Six hours after our less than auspicious arrival, and with all the details taken care of, I set out for the hangars to see how Kosh was getting on.

He was nowhere to be seen. The Gamayun had been cleaned up, though; if you ignored the gaping hole where her engine had been everything looked fairly orderly. I dropped into my seat and paged idly through the computer screens.

Some of them were nice. I kept us up to date on our maintenance and insurance, unlike a lot of captains. I had a good reputation in the sector for timeliness and professionalism. In a decent place — that is, anywhere but Arnby — I could get contracts easily. I already had a few messages.

Some of the other screens weren't quite so friendly. The budget, that was one of them. When I started out, I'd figured on paying back the loan in five years. But there'd been too much work — repairs, for starters. Kosh was supposed to have been a temporary hire, after three years going solo.

He was good at his job, but I still had to pay him — and he'd been costly to start out with. Nine years of work and I still owed a garish six-figure sum on the freighter. I no longer wanted to think about when I might get it paid off. Not when a decent job paid maybe ten thousand, after expenses. This time we were going further into the red.

Kosh poked his way in, tapping on the bulkhead. “Hey, cap. You look happy."

“Start with the good news or get out."

“I can get out?" Kosh asked, teasingly. “What about my collar?"

“Hey." I scowled. “You can leave any time, Kosh."

Kosh didn't wear a collar. With a coat of shaggy, uncomfortably thick fur, he looked like a wolf — which is what he'd told me when we first met, before I saw his curly tail. Mind you, I wasn't looking at his tail very often.

Because while some people don't like the engineered animals — moreaus, they're called — others really, really like them. That's also a bit suspect, if you ask me. I was happy to have Kosh's expertise, and in general he was happy to provide it.

“The good news," he said at last, “is that we can get a replacement engine."

I have my ship registered as a Cirrus Condor, which is what's in the certification plaque in the nose. It's actually cobbled together out of a few bits and pieces — mostly the Condor's larger, rarer cousin.

Those have bigger reactors, and can carry more weight — which means they get taxed more. Which means I was content to let any harbor authorities think the Gamayun massed a few hundred tons lighter than she really was. I just had to put up with the difficulty in finding spare parts.

In this case, Kosh said he'd done it. But he was waiting expectantly, which meant there was more bad news. “Expensive?"

“Not too bad. There will be more good news there — in a second. You're being impatient. The bad news is that it'll take a week. The even more bad news is the wing needs a rebuild. Not here, and not now, but definitely the next time we put in back at homeport."

Even scheduled in advance, that's… what, another two weeks out of commission? And of course, drydocks weren't good places to find contracts — there were always hard-up freighter captains looking for a quick buck, and the competition was bad for prices.

“Insurance will pay for all of the engine and eighty percent of the wing."

Kosh handed me a computer that summarized this all up neatly. “Lens, huh?"

It started with the lens. Somehow that had gone misaligned, which partly focused the laser on some sensitive wiring. Which abruptly disabled the electromagnets — a quench, they called it — and sent a shock of heat that destroyed the backup containment mechanisms.

And then there was very hot, very angry plasma flinging itself about and turning the engine casing and everything else into shrapnel. Not a great situation to have been in, although I guess it could've been worse.

“It's a known problem, apparently," Kosh said drily. “Full payout, including shipping. And a few hundred for our trouble."

“Won't pay the shipping fees to Dessau," I felt I had to point out. “But hey, I guess it's something. Any more bad news?"

“You'll have to rent a room for me."

I didn't have any reason to think that Kosh was too stupid to figure that out on his own; something must've come up. To be honest, I could already guess what 'something' was liable to have been. With a sigh, I locked the ship down and followed Kosh back to the hotel.

The front desk clerk's face fell when he saw my companion; he tried to salvage the encounter by speaking only to me. “Welcome back, miss Katz. Can I help you?"

“Sure," I said. “Kosh, what's the deal again?"

“I need a room for the next few days."

With the husky having spoken, the clerk's mood dropped again. “I already told you where the communal room is. I already," he repeated himself — to me this time, “told it where the communal room is."

“What's a 'communal room'?"

“Pets and owned property that aren't staying with an owner need to be stored in the communal room, which does have a kennel already. It's climate-controlled, and food and water is provided regularly. So you don't have to worry about the cost…"

I rolled my eyes. “I'm not asking for a free room. We'll pay for it."

The clerk shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “But it's not a question of paying, ma'am; that's just not how company policy works. I can't change policy."

Sometimes they ask you…

Let me start again. Sometimes my mom and dad ask me why I chose to stay in space. They understood joining the service. Service means citizenship, and a good education — the Colonial Defense Authority paid for my graduate school. And when my parents said that I could've done nicely for myself in the kibbutz with a master's degree in mathematics? They were absolutely right.

There's a lot of chickenshit in the service, of course. But for the most part, when I was a pilot the rules made sense. The people enforcing the rules made sense. And there were fewer gutless, spineless dickheads hiding behind them just to continue being gutless, spineless dickheads.

“You understand that Kosh is my engineer, right?"

“Yes, ma'am."

“You want me to put my engineer in a kennel?"

The clerk glanced between the dog and I. “It's not a kennel."

“You said it was a kennel."

He twitched a little. I may not be all that tall, and I may not be all that loud — nobody in my family is. But you pick up a few tricks with twenty years in the Fleet Air Arm, and one of them is a voice of capital-a Authority. “It's not… exactly…"

“Well, anyway, it doesn't matter. A room. I'll pay for it."

“But the dog will be staying in it? I can't allow you to, ma'am."

I was beginning to realize that I had endured a very stressful day, and was not ipso facto required to submit to any more stress just to please random idiots. “It would be okay if he stayed with me, though."

“Well. As your property…"

“He's not my property. Do you see a collar?"

“I take off the collar when we're indoors," Kosh added.

Always helpful, that dog. “My point is that you're saying he could stay with me."

“Yes, ma'am."

“So he can sleep in one of your precious beds."

The clerk swallowed, and his finger discreetly fidgeted with his bracelet. “Uh, it… it depends…"

“It can't depend. Either he can or he cannot. There is no way to half-sleep in a bed. Can he or can't he?"

“You see, ma'am —"

“ Can he or can't he?"

“Yes! But —"

“Then I'd like another room!"

Before the clerk could actually wilt, his manager appeared from around the corner. I'd say 'unbidden'; it was fairly clear that the bracelet had summoned him. “Commander Katz, it's a pleasure to welcome you to Arnby Suites."

“I'm retired," I said, with a tone that kept him from extending his hand before I had to refuse to shake it.

“Of course, ma'am. What seems to be the problem?"

I abandoned any unhelpful niceties — no I'd like to or I'm trying to or would it be possible to. “I need a second room for my engineer. For about a week, until the repairs on our ship is done."

“Ah, yes. And when does your engineer get here?"

I pointed to Kosh, who smiled politely.

“I see." The manager nodded, as though I'd forced him to confront an extremely thorny problem.

And speaking as someone who had just — with Kosh's help — solved the problem of how to land a laden freighter with one engine on fire and no instruments, I wasn't in the mood. “I'm starting to have my doubts."

“The situation, as Mr. Graham no doubt explained, is that we can't legally permit a room to be sold but unoccupied."

“What do you mean, 'unoccupied'? I just told you it's for my engineer."

The manager _ahem_ed and shuffled uncomfortably, the way you do when your job requires you to be an obstinate asshole but your heart isn't entirely in it. “I meant occupied by a person, ma'am," he said. “Now, let's see if we can find some solution to your problem, perhaps."

“I want to make sure I understand this. You don't think it would look very good if you rented a room to my engineer. Because… you don't want him to get dog all over your sheets or something. But having him sleep with me, that's okay?"

The manager did some more shuffling. “You see, ma'am…"

“Aren't you worried about what the other guests might think?"

“But… ma'am, the… the rules are very clear."

“ Fine. Thank you for your help. He'll be staying with me. That's okay?"

“Yes, ma'am."

I put on my best smile, and returned my attention to the clerk. “I'd like a second room key, in that case."

The clerk, Mr. Graham, nodded swiftly, happy that the situation had been resolved. “Of course! My pleasure."

Speaking of that. I pointed behind the counter to the rack of supplies Arnby Suites carried. “And a box of condoms."

He turned to look at where I'd pointed. “Uh…"

“No. No, the big ones."

Once we were back in my room, Kosh shook his big, fuzzy head. “You didn't have to do that."

I tossed the pack of condoms into the trash. “Let me have my fun."

“More fun than we've already had today?"

“It could've been worse, I guess."

He nodded. “Could've been. Thanks for your help back there, cap."

“Hell with those guys, anyway. People are bastards, Kosh."

“Trust me, I know. I guess the less time we spend here, the better. You figured out what we're doing with the cargo?"

“The good news is I found somebody willing to carry it the rest of the way to Dessau," I said. “The bad news is we're empty." Empty was a bad way to go through life, as a freighter captain.

“I might have some good news there, too," Kosh said.

“Yeah?"

“When I was trying to find somebody to get the right engine scoped, I had an… unfortunate incident."

I leaned back and let him tell the story. In the process of asking around, Kosh had been mistaken for a mining worker — told to report back to duty and then, when he refused, detained. It was the kind of thing, the dog said with a shrug, that he was used to.

“After I got out, though, somebody stopped me. They said they overheard I was the engineer on a freighter. They said they were looking for one."

“There's a catch," I intuited. Kosh smiled. I wasn't quite certain I liked it when he smiled; dogs have a lot of teeth, after all, and most of them are a bit unsettling. “Out with it, mutt."

“It's off the books."

“That's all?"

So, a digression. Let me tell you how this works. Somebody comes to me and says they have a palette of something they want to go to, say, Hunters Run. If it's worth under twenty thousand obols, no problem. If it's over — and it's always over — then that means filing a form CTC-640A to report the value. Anything potentially sensitive, and you need a countersigned Form 8000 from the local authorities.

If, when filling out the 640A, you checked anything in box 20, 21 or 32, you need to attach a CTC-790 waiver. In any case, you need to pay the amount in line 154 to the harbormaster. She gives you a stamped and certified Material Inspection and Customs Cert good for at most one week over the transit time you declared in your ITA-50 filing.

You filed an ITA-50, didn't you?

I'm not gonna say that no captain is completely clean and always does everything by the books, but I am gonna say that most of us know to bend the rules a little bit, now and then. Technically speaking, this makes me a smuggler, and Kosh an accomplice.

When people hear I'm a smuggler, they tend to think that means I hang out in seedy bars to pick up wooden boxes full of stolen laser pistols. The last shipment I smuggled was full of chopsticks — real wooden chopsticks, for the Nisiko enclave on Redfire. It's organic material; that needs the CTC-790 and an impact assessment.

And now, whatever it was Kosh had in mind. “That's pretty much all," Kosh said, and I wasn't in the right mind to ask him what 'pretty much' meant and wouldn't be until it was too late.

I had more pressing questions. “What's the actual deal?"

“Used mining equipment. Sixty tons worth of small parts. They'll load it and they'll send somebody to keep track. It's bound for Jarvis Station. Fifteen thousand now, thirty-five on delivery."

The gears in my head were starting to turn, and I was torn between whistling appreciatively and sucking my breath in. Lots of stuff going on at once. “Fifty, huh?"

“If you want to be technical, they said twenty now, but I was taking a finder's fee. It's not a catch, but I will say I've heard of these guys before — rumors, mostly. But they should be good for the money."

“Jarvis, though."

Everything that went to or came from Jarvis was implicitly smuggled, anyway: it was one of those stations with a Confederate charter but no Confederate government. Hardcore Starlight Faction territory, those lifetime spacers with a grudge against the government back on Terra.

I didn't mind that part. I'm not a citizen — I never paid my dues, although by that point in my career I could've. The Starlight Faction seems to have a good point to me, what with not being represented in Congress.

Delivering cargo to Jarvis would mean leaving Jarvis with more undeclared cargo and hoping I could find a friendly planet to wash the paperwork. On the one hand I'd be charging a premium for that. On the other hand, it was a lot of hassle.

“I was thinking," Kosh said, looking at my hesitation. “Because of the incident, the ship should go in for repairs. Repairs could take a while. And as your engineer, I would strongly advise you to consider a non-revenue shakedown flight afterwards."

“To Jarvis, say. And then somewhere else. With no cargo. But a good excuse for anybody who wanted to know why…" Always helpful, like I said. Always helpful.

“That's what I figured."

“No more catches?"

He shook his head, and I agreed to meet with his contact the next morning.

We met at the Gamayun, which should've been my first clue. If I'd been less charitable, I also should've guessed that his contact would not be human. It was shorter than Kosh, with folded ears rather than pointy ones and a black and white coat that made me think of sheepdogs.

“This looks a lot like a catch to me."

Kosh flicked an ear. “Maybe."

“ Alhakhnan goru, janangaja," the dog said, in that growling tongue they have. I've never bothered to learn, since Kosh is the only one of them I interact with.

“ Shu nankishega," Kosh answered. “She does not speak Rukhat. We'll use English, of course."

“Yes," the other dog said. Its muzzle hung open for a bit, then closed as they encountered some sort of difficulty. “No."

“We will," Kosh said. “Captain Katz, this is Ela. She is a negotiator with the Arnby Mining Corporation."

“A negotiator who doesn't speak English."

“You… I English with," Ela managed. “Speak English I problems. I has problems. The understanding slows. I try."

“Good… Kosh tells me you have some mining equipment you want transported. To Jarvis, right?"

She nodded. “Yes. Fifty-five thousand obols. Mining pieces you carrying… carrying will? What we — yassuja. Blyad. We need —"

If I'd been able to perk my own ears, I would've. “ Podozhdi. Ty govorish po-Russki?"

Ela jerked between Kosh and I. “ Da…"

“We'll do that, then," I carried on in what had been my grandparents' tongue — a bit rusty, but far better than Ela was managing in English. “I thought Arnby Mining was a Confederate company?"

“It is. But we have… well. International business is complicated."

Additional pieces started to fall into place. Arnby paid dues to the Confederate Congress in exchange for protection, but in other regards they were an independent state. They weren't required to keep all their commerce within the Confederacy.

And if they traded with the Orion Soviet, that explained both why she spoke Russian and why they were trying to keep a trade route under wraps. I gave myself a little pat on the back for that bit of deduction.

“So why are you looking to hire someone off the books? What's the deal, exactly?"

“The branch has some old equipment that they want to… disappear. So that they can report it destroyed to their head office. From Jarvis, it can go anywhere untraceably, as I'm sure you know."

“Not quite my line of work," I told the dog. “But yes. I'm familiar with how it works."

“All we need is for someone willing to take it there discreetly. The discretion part is why I would be asking you. I can provide you with paperwork that will clear the authorities here in Arnby, and make certain you don't appear in any logs."

“Appreciated. And it's bulk cargo?"

“Sixty one-ton containers. Sealed containers. Plus one supervisor to negotiate their further transit once we're at the station. I would be that supervisor. I have no special needs of my own."

Not that I wanted another passenger, but Jarvis wasn't a complicated trip and I could put up with another dog for that long. “Sixty tons of old equipment, and someone to oversee it. We can handle that."

“Do you have a powered hold, for the equipment diagnostics?"

“Yeah. I'd rather you not put a drill through the pressure hull, but I can give you what you want." I was joking; the request for power wasn't that unusual.

“Good. One question, when I look at your ship. The Gamayun was registered as a Cirrus Condor. But it appears more like a Cirrus Albatross, with the stern ramp. I don't understand why inana Atakosh was asking about a DDG-662 reactor manifold, which would only matter for an Albatross…"

I studied Ela's face for any hint of why she was asking the question, and found none. “It's a Condor. I replaced a few of the parts, including the thrusters."

“Ah. Then you must be driving the thrusters off the original GE Twin-Nova reactor. I wonder if that explains why the damage inana Atakosh explained was so minimal."

Hearing his name, and the mention of the engines that were his pride and joy, Kosh raised his voice in English. “Our reactor? It's fine. Tell her it's fine."

“ Twin-Nowa al-sudna rålwasa," she spoke to him before I could answer.

“ Ku. Kuja. General Electric Pulsar-eska janchadanit. Di al-sudna kashalo al-soltekja rålhashut, huz —" he said right back, then pinned his ears when he saw me glaring. “I explained that we're using the upgraded engines from the Albatross."

“Albatross," Ela echoed, and switched back into Russian. “I see. Never mind, in that case; I'm sure it is fine. I think we can deal."

Dogs. I felt no particular way about them, and the money was good — she transferred it to my account immediately, in fact, which was a nice touch. Even when Kosh took his own damned cut out.

The plan was that we'd leave in eight days, which gave us time to install the new engine and a little buffer in case anything went wrong. I didn't think anything would go wrong: in spite of his occasional flaws, and his shedding, Kosh knows his stuff where machinery is concerned.

And he'd done some of his own buffering. He told me it would take a week; it actually took only five days. On the evening of the fifth day, after a successful test firing of the thruster, I was in a pretty good mood. I let Kosh have the night off and stayed behind, walking through the ship — half-inspecting, half-daydreaming.

“ Privyet, kapitan Katz. Kak dela?" Ela. I turned to find the dog at the side hatch, giving me a wave.

Cautiously, I waved back. “Things are fine. How are you?"

“Well. Captain, I heard rumors that your ship was ready to depart."

“Rumors?"

“ Inana Atakosh told me. You were not intending to leave, were you?"

“No. We covered that."

“Good. Good," Ela repeated, and pulled herself up and into my ship — without asking. “That is good for both of us. I need to leave tomorrow morning — the afternoon, at latest."

I frowned at her. “That wasn't the schedule we agreed on. I'd like to run a few more tests, and… well, anyway, your cargo isn't ready yet."

“I can get it ready. In fact, we… we cannot wait until then."

“Why not?"

She tapped her foot, and opened her muzzle a few times to answer without actually speaking. I would've thought she was struggling with a language barrier, were it not for her fluent Russian.

“Out with it."

“Captain. Please. I can pay you more. Thirty thousand."

That wasn't the point, and I thought she should've known that. “So what? Why is it so important that you leave now?"

“The parts are due on Jarvis… earlier than I thought."

Ela was lying, I knew it — canine body language isn't my strong suit, but her equivocation was obvious. I didn't know what she was being cagey about, though, and I didn't know why. “Request an extension. It's only a day — Jarvis docking fees aren't that much."

“I can't. I don't have access to a long-range communicator."

That puzzled me, because it also didn't present an insurmountable obstacle. “I do. It's fine, I'll just —"

“You can't. They… they monitor all the outbound communications. They'd find out."

“So?"

But as my mouth opened to ask the question, I realized that there had been another complication all along. So that's why we met here. That's why you talked to Kosh.

Hell, probably why she'd been in detention. “The company doesn't know you're here. This isn't for them."

“It's complicated. International business is —"

“Complicated, I know. You said. What's really going on?"

The black and white dog flattened her ears. “It's… well…"

“What are they? Stolen?"

“No…"

I crossed my arms. “If I told any of the authorities around here that you'd been talking to me, what would happen? How much trouble would I be in?"

“Not as much as me," Ela said.

“I didn't ask about you. Do you know how much shit we'd be in if they found out? This isn't some tiny company! They have money — pull with the authorities! They'll put a contract out on my fucking head!"

She raised both of her paws, trying to calm me down. “No. No, no. You're protected. It's all… you're protected. The filing papers are with a different ship, a different registry…"

“How many other independent freighters do you see landed here? They'll figure it out. I'm sure it seemed like a real brilliant idea to — to embark on a life of crime now, but you need to fucking think."

“I did. Please. You have to help me. Captain…"

I pointed to the hatch. “Off. Off my ship."

“You don't understand…"

My understanding does, indeed, have limits. “ Get the fuck out."

Chastened, with her tail between her legs, she left. I locked the hatches and went forward to get a little privacy. What's going on? You're missing something here, Kitty. Should've known earlier this was a fishy deal…

I thought so, anyway. But I didn't even have time to properly digest the conversation before I was joined in the cockpit by my engineer. “Was that Ela I just saw?"

“Yeah."

“Did you have a good conversation?"

“She's not representing the company."

He tilted his head. “Isn't she?"

“No. Something else. Some other kind of thing goin' on. Stolen goods would be my guess — that, or they've been doing some mining of their own. I don't know."

“Do you think it would be dangerous?"

I shrugged. “I don't know. Don't care. Told her to fuck off."

Kosh tilted his head the other way, and I was reminded of how canine he could be, at times. “You're not taking the job?"

“Fuck no. I don't need that kind of hassle in my life, dog. Steal from a mining corp — they put the word out on the net; next thing you know I have an 'unfortunate accident' when I'm trying to land somewhere."

“That presumes they'd find out."

Kosh didn't have a freighter captain's reflexes, or their flight training, but he did have the cockiness. I had to snort. “Sure."

“She said she had contacts with… well. With a syndicate in Starlight. They're good with manifests — she said it would be clean."

As far as I was concerned, it was water under a bridge I was absolutely not going to cross. “Oh well. I got the reports back from local engineering. The new engine has a clean bill of health. Go ahead and file a flight plan."

“Where to? Not Jarvis? Captain, you're sure you want to turn this down? That's good money — no taxes, either."

“Decent money, but after expenses — c'mon, dog, do you really care that much about the finder's fee?" I grinned at my engineer. “If you don't like the way we split things, hey, you can jump ship at any time. You and your new friend can find a new freighter."

Kosh rested his paw on the flight computer, which was still dark — my orders to file a plan to the contrary. His ears wavered. “She's not a friend, captain. I just think…"

“You think what? I should reconsider? Damnit, Kosh, you really want to fuck me that bad? Pissing off corporations is a bad way to live a long and happy life."

“I know, I know. I know what you're saying. I… well. Maybe it's — I don't see that many of my kind, captain. I guess when I saw the opportunity…"

Opportunity? “Hold up. Did you know what was going on?"

“Not entirely."

“You didn't tell me?" I didn't like the silence I got in answer. “You knew, and you didn't tell me?"

His paw slid limply from the computer. “Yes. I didn't think you would understand, and I didn't think you'd care — and I… didn't think it mattered."

“Didn't matter what the fuck you put on my ship? Of course it fucking matters. You and your goddamned 'finder's fee' — you were just gonna… what? Let me take the heat?"

“No. It's not… it's not about the money, captain."

“Then what is it about?"

Kosh kept his ears back, and his eyes low. Finally he shook his head, and quietly turned on power to the computer. “You're right. We should go. I'll check the flight plan."

“We should," I agreed. “Answer me first. What's it about?"

“You wouldn't understand."

“Try me." And since he was still trying to pretend that his focus lay with the computer, I let myself lose my cool. “Fuck you, Kosh. You almost got me running contraband they could kill us for — try me."

“Ela doesn't work for Arnby. She has a fake badge. I'm sure it's expiring soon, and that's why she wants to leave. She's part of the… she's Spartoi. Kind of."

I tossed my hands up in shocked anger. “Those are terrorists, Kosh!"

Not all of the Starlight Faction is peaceful — strand a few million people out in the stars and they won't all go quietly. Most spacers say they just want representation in Congress. Some of them want more.

Some of them say that when Terra turned her children loose on the asteroids and abandoned them, she was sewing dragon's teeth — and now they'd sprung to life, hungry for revenge. A starship here, a factory there…

“Kind of," he stressed. “She belongs to a nonviolent splinter group that believes in direct action. They target corporations. Specific corporations."

“Criminals with standards. Oh, boy."

My engineer shut his muzzle, and closed his eyes. By his slow, careful breaths, he was gathering his wits — or his resolve. “They go after corporations that breed and stock moreaus. Like the one that bred me."

We didn't talk so often about his upbringing. In a more unguarded moment, once, he'd told me only that he didn't like to dwell on it. “I see," I said now. “Like Arnby."

“Yes."

“So she found some spare parts. Or are they… parts they're using right now, and she's hoping we can take off before something explodes?"

“Spare parts," Kosh said quietly. “She told me they'll sell them at Jarvis. They use the money to do… other things. Sabotage. Bribing factory owners. Hijacking transports carrying moreaus."

“None of those are legal."

“Do you care? Do you really care?"

It wasn't something that crossed my mind often. Kosh was a decent fellow. I liked his work; it took some getting used to, maybe, but sure — I liked his company, too. I might not have liked animals in general that much — we didn't have them on the kibbutz — but Kosh was different. He was okay.

“I don't think you do. Not that you're about to become a moreau freedom fighter, but I saw how you acted with the desk clerk at the hotel. You know it's wrong, captain. What they do to us — it's wrong. I had the opportunity to help out, and…"

“You still should've told me. Something like this, you should've respected me enough to tell me. All these years we've worked together — I never would've thought you'd hide something from me like this."

Kosh slumped. “It wasn't meant like that. I wanted to… I wanted to keep you out of it. I didn't think you'd understand. You don't understand."

“Of course I don't. I'm not stupid, Kosh; I don't know what you've gone through. I'm not saying I understand, but I can sympathize. Right? Can't I?"

“Can you?"

“What's that supposed to mean?"

“I mean it's different for you, captain. Nobody ever asked you to sleep in a kennel. Nobody even... nobody even thought that it would be any kind of possibility that you would sleep in a kennel. I hear the comments people make, when we're in bars together — the ones you try to protect me from — and..."

“And," I pointed out — since he'd said it to begin with. “I do defend you, don't I?"

“Yeah. Because you can. If I stood up for myself, they'd throw me out — if I get lucky. It's easy for you to take the high ground and — and talk about — talk about 'terrorism,' like Starlight is so awful for what they do. Every day she wakes up Ela has to know that if somebody cut her throat, it wouldn't even be a property crime. That's terrorism."

“I know it's not a good for you. For dogs. But..."

“Dogs. I'm lucky. I know it! I'm one of the lucky ones! But... but it doesn't change things, captain. I may be lucky, but... when we joke about collars, there's a part of me that knows it's true."

“I told you, you can leave any time you want. The hatch is right there."

His ears quivered with pent-up tension. “That's my point. You could. I can't. You own me. You're the human, Sara. That's how it works."

“Seriously?"

“What?"

I leaned over him, reaching under the engineering console and pulling the flexible computer stashed there. Glaring, I tossed it into the dog's lap. “Get the fuck over yourself."

Kosh took the computer and tapped it into life. His eyes scanned quickly. “This is... my liberty deed..."

“Of course it is."

“You signed it over six years ago."

“Of course I did. It's in your contract. Which you told me you read."

He swallowed, and licked his nose nervously. “I skimmed it. I... figured it was like the one I was on before. Most moreau contracts are the same. And they're kind of... formalities, for us."

“I never owned you, Kosh."

The dog looked over the computer again. “No."

“Does that mean for six years you only stayed because you thought you didn't have a choice?"

The big, wolfish dog shrank a size or two, drawing himself back into the copilot's seat. The way he kept glancing at the computer gave me a pretty good clue what his answer was going to be. “No."

Wait. “No?"

“I forgot it. It was in the background, most of the time. Until now. I don't know what I would've done if I wanted to leave, but I didn't. I respect you, captain. I... I like you. You're good to me. And..."

“And what?"

“I didn't know you'd signed over my deed to me. I'm just... I'm a little surprised how... how unsurprised I am. If that makes sense."

“You mean if I can understand?" I asked the dog gently. “I can. I guess. I like you, too, Kosh. Friends aren't easy for us spacers, but I think of you as a friend. It's hard to keep going into space with someone you can't count on."

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you. About Ela."

“You should be."

He lifted the computer, holding it out to me questioningly.

“Fuck off," I chided him, my voice soft. I was still a bit wounded, after all. “It doesn't work like that, either."

“Thank you."

“You really think we should help her?"

“Yes."

I leaned heavily in my chair, drumming my fingers over the control panel under my left hand. “When do you think she's going to tell us the rest of it?"

“What do you mean?"

“You're the engineer, Kosh. She asked about the hold power, remember?"

“Yeah..."

“Then she asked about the reactor. Condors have the old Twin-Nova. Hold power's twenty amps, isn't it? Not like on the Albatross. Those Pulsar-IIs... like the one you installed?"

“Yeah. Yeah..."

“What kind of diagnostic equipment takes more than eight kilowatts?"

None. Not reasonably. Nothing I'd ever been asked for. Kosh was realizing it, too. “Cryogenics. You could run them off their internal power packs for a bit... long enough to get into space before any of them started to go into their defrost cycle and wake up."

“Dragon's teeth?" I asked.

“No. We're pacifists. It's in our programming. Escapees, I guess."

“Runaway slaves," I corrected. “Do you know where they'd go?"

“From Jarvis? They'd disappear. The Dawa Free Colony is too risky. Any of the official, Congress-sanctioned ones would be risky — they don't take runaways without papers. They're worried that if they started to, Congress would intervene."

“Life as a fugitive," I said. “Oy, vey."

“Better than the alternative. I've heard about this happening, before. I swear I didn't know. Not about this. But you're right... it must be more than machine parts."

“More risk, too. If they found out, it would be my head, Kosh. Maybe literally — and yours too, mutt."

“I know. I understand if we can't."

I wanted to help him. Not because I felt personally wounded by the way his kind was treated, but it was a shitty life. Even I knew that. But this was a whole new level of trouble that I'd be signing up for, and I wasn't ready. I told him I had to think about it, and left. The hotel bar was my objective. Underwhelming though it was, it was the best place I could think of to find a place where I could get my head clear.

The only other patrons were a pair of crewmen wearing Arnby Mining badges. I ordered a gin and tonic and eavesdropped. Standard pilot stuff, the kind of bullshit I knew practically by rote.

Management was cutting hours and shuffling senior captains around to keep them from getting long-haul routes where they'd make more because of their rank.

Silver City Cosmodrome was switching to new security chips, and Arnby hadn't gotten around to integrating that technology so all the pilots had to go through normal clearance lines, like commoners.

6530NG was sick, again with a bad coolant pump on number four, wasn't that the one Mary had to deadstick in four months ago, no that was '30NE, well anyway they were all old and shitty so what was the difference?

I could just sidle on over there, I thought. Say… what would I say? 'Man, you think you _have it bad, let me tell you about the chat I had with the shop lead' — how long could we talk about contracts before they realized I was bullshitting them? _

Would I be? It was all the same, really.

“— this place is going downhill, though," one of them said to the other.

“Well the hotel is shit. Except the bar — no offense, Chuck."

“Not what I meant. Saw a new ship in — freelance captain."

“Scab?"

“Yep. And that isn't the worst. Crewed with dogs."

“ Dogs?"

The person telling the story nodded in disgust. “Guess they're cheap. Ugh, I had one check me in at security last week. You know your company's in the shitter when they can't even hire humans."

“They do have a lot. Where do you suppose they go when we're done with 'em?"

“Sell 'em to the Chinatown in Silver City."

The other man laughed at that. “God, you're sick."

“Make-ee good eat, white man. Hey, don't even ask about the carpets here…"

I left my drink behind and went up to my room, instead. I didn't want to think about how much I shared in common with the pilots. Genetic code, mostly. Right? I started a shower and slipped inside. Water is one of the best parts of being planetside.

Some hotels have cottoned to that, and they charge you for it, but Arnby Suites wasn't one of those. I ran it long and didn't care, letting the warm water soak into my skin and wash away as much of the negativity as I could.

It took a long time. Well over half an hour, maybe closer to a full hour — I was distracted. So distracted, in fact, that when I stepped out of the stall I didn't notice I wasn't alone until my engineer spoke up. “Uh — hey."

“Kosh! For the love of — what are you doing here?"

“Came to talk to you."

“I'm not decent," I glowered at him.

“It's an indecent world." He wasn't looking at me to catch my glare, anyway. “I was thinking about what you said. About the risk."

“Strange. I was thinking the same thing. You first," I said. It gave me time to exchange the towel for a bathrobe, which was good enough.

“You were right to be skeptical. It isn't your fight. It isn't even really my fight... I don't know why I'd think it was. But it certainly isn't yours." He took a seat at the edge of the bed, facing the window — away from me. And he sighed heavily. “It's a mess, you know?"

“Indecent world," I suggested; the charge seemed to fit. Indecent universe, even — outside the window was the kind of inky black sky that made a freighter captain feel very small, and very humble. I sat down next to Kosh. “You'd still do it, though."

“I would."

“So would I, in your shoes."

“What about in yours, captain?"

“Sara. You called me that earlier, Kosh. I didn't mind." I wasn't wearing shoes; I dragged my bare toes through the worn carpet of the hotel room. “Tell me if you think it's the right thing to do. Not a good idea... or profitable... tell me if you really, honestly, think it's the right thing to do."

“I do. It is."

“Then let's." I gave a half-shrug, just one shoulder. “Let's do it."

The dog turned his big head away from the window to look at me. “Why?"

He had soft eyes, for a 'purebred husky'; they were even softer, now, and when I saw them I had to smile. “Because. Can I tell you a long story, Kosh?"

“Yes?"

“I took a long shower."

“I know. I've been waiting for half an hour."

I chuckled. “I did twenty-two years in the Fleet Air Arm. They rationed water, of course. 'Navy showers' — two decades of 'navy showers.' I didn't mind. My parents are old kibbutzniks, from before we had a lot of spare water. I didn't bathe until we went on vacation to Jefferson, and stayed at a resort, and they had a real bath. And a pool."

“You want me to upgrade the purifier on the Gamayun?"

Always helpful. Chuckling again, I poked the dog's side. “No. I took this long, long fucking shower here and I realized that when I was in the service I never thought about it. It might've been an inconvenience, but I didn't think about it. It's just something you do."

“I don't get where you're going, I admit."

“I know. Because you don't take showers, and you keep interrupting."

“Sorry."

I patted him gently. “It's fine. I ever tell you what I did in the Fleet?"

“Many times," he said, nodding. “But we were generally in bars, so it was loud and you were drunk."

Fair enough. That sounds like you, Kitty. “I flew White Caracals. Denel makes 'em. They're a little smaller than the Gamayun. They have a reputation for being the biggest ship that regularly deorbits and recovers on a sortie. We did ECM. Multispectral jamming and mission support. CODA sends a strike package down, and if it's a high-threat environment, they'd send us in. We could shut down comms, overpower guidance radars, scramble orbital beacons... collect signals intel so Fleet could design countermeasures... whole bunch of cool stuff."

“It sounds like it."

“Very unpopular, since if you take down a Caracal, all your electronics works again. And we couldn't hide. And we couldn't stop working, because if we let up on the jamming, the baddies could go after the starfighters. We were just big, fat targets. Glowing targets. Thought about risk and... hell, Kosh, every time I strapped in, that was a risk. A real risk. At the time, I didn't think like that. I wasn't waiting for the cat shot, trying to figure out the ROI. It was just something you do.

“If somebody got into trouble, said they needed a bit of heat taken off... I wouldn't even think twice. We came back once missing half our left tail. But the guys we were protecting? They came back, period. So what the hell, you know?"

“I guess?"

I patted him again. Kosh had awfully soft fur. “My point, mutt, is that I wouldn't do this..." This, I indicated by gesturing vaguely to the window, and decided that wasn't clear enough. “This job. I don't think about trading risk for money. I don't think about trading it for a cause... I'm not much for causes. But for a friend? If you ask, and say it needs to be done..."

He finally understood, and nodded. “Then you would."

“Like being in Fleet again. You know, Kosh? We're gonna come in for a landing with an engine fire, or the reactor's gonna go haywire, or... well, I don't know. The way I see it, we have to know we'd be there for each other. If we don't, maybe that's the real risk."

Kosh tilted his head one way, then the other. Then he hugged me tightly, in those strong arms of his. “I'm glad you also think of me as a friend."

“Of course."

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I really am." He hadn't let go.

I wasn't certain I wanted him to. “I know, Kosh. And you do owe me." I looked at him as severely as I could manage. “But, ah. I feel a bit guilty you didn't know you owned your contract."

“My fault for not reading."

“Could've told you anything," it dawned on me. “You know, your contract also says you're responsible for all the cleaning, right?"

“Just on the ship? Or the hotel, too?"

After a week, they'd only changed the sheets once — there was dog hair all over them, and given their generally disheveled state I had the image of a maid entering, becoming immediately scandalized, and swearing off the room completely. “You know, thinking about it..."

“About what?"

“You could've just said... 'Sara, I know a way to get back at those mining company assholes' and that would've been it. Good enough for me."

By now the tension had lifted completely. Kosh laughed in that curious, hoarse way he had. “They are a convenient target, aren't they? And you did seem to enjoy needling them."

“I realized just now. The cleaners came in, saw the fur everywhere, and just couldn't deal with it. I bet they complained. What I wouldn't give to have seen the look on that prick's face — the guy at the front desk? Oy."

“He was very uncomfortable when you bought those condoms."

Now it was my turn to laugh. “Good point. I should buy some more. Or you should — put that finder's fee to use! Although that really is my style of humor, more than yours..."

“Who says it's a joke?"

I snickered at the deadpan. “ That's more your style."

“Maybe."

I tilted my head up, and found his eyes were locked on mine. His expression was inscrutably canine. “I actually can't tell if you're serious. Are you?"

Kosh swept the soft, delicate triangles of his ears back. “I... don't know."

“You are." Although it seemed to have startled him, from the way he blinked in surprise.

“Not when I started to say it. But... now. Yes. Maybe."

The slow way this realization dawned gave me time to think through it myself. He was still hugging me, and although the hold had loosened a bit I could clearly feel the heat of his body, and the tickling brush of his fur.

Objectively I was in the arms of my chief engineer, who might've been a husky or might've been a wolf but either way was definitely not a human being. And he was confessing that he might have wanted to take things further. And for me...

Objectively you also just agreed to smuggle some unknown number of fugitive dogs in defiance of a major mining company and even though you never really cared about dogs, now didn't you, Kitty? You aren't setting records for propriety here.

Kosh was very warm. And very soft. And, with his wavering expression and wobbling ears, very cute. This was not to say that it was a good idea. But there was only one way to find out, and that was taking a first, noncommittal step.

“Kosh," I said, just loud enough to get his attention. “You were serious."

“Yeah," the dog admitted. “Sorry."

“Come here," I told him, and leaned back against his arm until it yielded, and I could settle gently on the bed. He turned fluidly, watching me. And then, obediently, he followed.

The first step ended with the big dog over me, supporting his weight so that I could only catch a hint of his solid, muscular frame. I wondered, looking up at him, what dogs thought of as handsome. Was he a handsome dog?

My fingers threaded into the thick, coarse fur of his neck, leaving furrows in the black fur so I could see that it wasn't black, really — deep brown, ticked with hints of a downier tan beneath. He took a slow, deep breath at the attention. “You like that, Kosh?"

He nodded. I kept petting him, moving lower until my fingers hit the collar of his jacket. I figured that could count as step two. When I tapped at the zipper, Kosh pricked his ears. He sat up slightly and I watched him open it up. The jacket was a light windbreaker, and the only thing he wore. He was a dog, after all; he didn't need clothes, just pockets.

And right now he didn't need those, either. At his neck, the black-brown fur shifted into a softer cream. I found black again, at his shoulder blades. And his sides. And his back. As I kneaded my fingers in, Kosh shuddered, and settled comfortably atop me.

A little like having a big stuffed animal, was my first thought. But really, it was nothing like that at all. He was heavy, and his pelt was thick; the soft panting and shivers that disturbed his frame had the unmistakable energy of a living thing — responding to my touch like any other man.

Except. If I thought about him like a stuffed animal it could all still be innocent. If I thought about him like a person... which, after all, he was... I felt his breath next to my ear and thought for a moment that he was going to speak. Maybe he was going to ask if I was certain about what we were doing. At least it would buy me time to answer —

But instead of words I felt the soft, wet heat of his tongue and the shock it sent through me ended the argument before it began. Gently, gingerly, he lapped his way down the side of my neck. I gasped. I quivered, and palmed the coarse fur of the rugged dog's back. I whispered his name, and heard the way it sounded.

His paws undid the loose knot of the bathrobe so that he didn't have to slow down as his muzzle wandered lower. At times, briefly, his whiskers tickled — but whenever it happened I squirmed, and he noticed, and his tongue followed to settle me with its velvet warmth.

Now he was at my chest. His muzzle pushed the robe to one side. We both knew some Rubicon was about to be crossed, and he had the decency not to let anything keep us from it. Kosh nuzzled me, and I felt the long, wet, dragging track of that canine tongue build in electric heat until he reached the nipple and I finally moaned.

It felt good to do that. A nice, surrendering admission. He spent a few seconds there: tasting me, teasing me while I gave in to some panting of my own. Now that it was happening, that I knew what it was like, I wished I'd asked him the day we met.

Maybe the second day. Wouldn't want to be too eager!

But even as I thought that, I heard myself moaning again. Kosh had started to shift and wriggle further down the bed: my hands were now only at his shoulders. And then they were at the side of his head. And then he was between my thighs, and as I stroked his silky-furred ears I allowed myself to revel in what was about to happen.

Who gets to decide what naughtiness is, anyway?

He licked me slowly and deliberately. His soft tongue was broad enough to bathe me completely; every second of contact caressed me in warmth that seemed to melt slowly — lingering, spreading out in smooth ripples that had me gasping at first, then whimpering.

And then groaning: he pressed his muzzle tightly to my slit and worked that gorgeous, satin tongue in between my lips. There was so much of it, a slick ribbon of heat and pleasure drawing fluid, sinuous patterns that kept me from being able to recover or maintain my wits about me. I needed him: that was all that mattered.

I could see his perked ears, and the hint of his tail wagging. A little jarring, driving home how alien Kosh was — but when I shut my eyes the sensations just drew ever more pronounced. I felt the hot plush of his fur between my thighs as I tightened them around his lovely head. His heavy panting. His oh-so-canine tongue...

As if on cue he shifted his pace. He was more insistent, faster: lapping at me over, and over, and nosing firmly up against my crotch to meet me as my hips began to buck and tremble. He was slurping over me like the dog he was, licking my drenched pussy as though he was trying to clean it, as though every second I wasn't growing wetter —

My legs clamped tighter on him, hugging Kosh to me by reflex. He growled, and in his new confinement the eager lashing of his tongue went sloppy and deep, but it was the growl that seemed to do it. It hit that spark kindling deep in my belly — then a sudden wave of warmth flooded into me.

All I could do was hold on. I cried out for him, and my frantic fingers tugged at his sensitive ears. I needed to keep him close, to keep him against me as I rode out the surge of energy, and the one that came after; the weakening ripples that tensed my muscles until the pleasure ebbed and what was left were shocks of overstimulated heat.

I was still blind. I stayed that way for a long time, until at last he shuffled up to me on the bed. I heard his breathing, quieter and calmer than mine. I felt his warm, shaggy fur against my bare skin. I caught his scent and for the first time stopped to inhale it, a musky warm doggy smell that was strangely... nice. Comforting.

I opened my eyes, finally, and found him smiling at me. “Kosh," I murmured, and threw my arms around him to pull him into a tight, snuggling hug. There's nothing, I learned, like a good fur coat to complement a nice afterglow. “That was wonderful..."

“You made enough noise, at least," he teased. And licked my nose sweetly.

“You're good at that," I answered. “Natural skill?"

“I can't drink. If I want to have fun in bars, I have to find some other way of doing it."

Made sense, I suppose. Now that I thought about it, I was certain that I'd heard plenty of rumors and jokes about things like that. And I'd always dismissed it. Their loss, right? “I presume you got the favor repaid, right?"

Kosh licked my nose again. “You'd be surprised how few people are willing to say they want to fool around with a dog. This is generally about as far as it goes."

“Cuddling? You are cuddly, Kosh. All up close and personal like this…" I thought about it a little more — mostly, how dirty it would feel if we did anything else. Or, really… why it doesn't feel that way at all. I walked my fingers down his sides. He still had his pants on. “I mean. Would you want to keep going?"

“Would you?"

I toyed with his jeans idly. “Yeah."

“I would, too. Uh, but… complications, you know? The condoms got thrown out… and I'm not sure they would fit anyway."

I stopped playing with his pants, and raised my eyebrows. “Wouldn't fit?"

“You know how dogs, uh… you know how when dogs mate, they get sort of stuck together? They didn't take that part out of our genetic code. I think they figured we wouldn't be doing this very often."

In honesty, I had no idea what he was talking about. “I don't make a point of learning about canine reproduction, Kosh."

“Okay."

“I'm sure it's not a problem? It's not a problem, right?"

“It can take people by surprise," he said.

“I've had worse surprises," I pointed out. We'd had a lot of them together. Kosh laughed, and sat up, undoing his pants and removing them.

It wasn't what I'd expected, to be sure. He was decently sized — Kosh is a pretty big guy, after all — but the shape was weird. No foreskin that I could see; no head to speak of: just smooth, veiny red flesh coming to an oddly pointed tip.

Alien. It reminded me again of what I was doing. But not as a warning, not as any hint that I might want to stop. I pulled the dog back down, and closer to me. “Wasn't that surprising, anyhow."

“Not yet," he allowed. My engineer coughed, back in his throat, and flattened his ears. “Can I ask you something? As a friend, and all?"

“What is it?" I asked, and petted down the fur behind his ear where it was nice and soft.

“I… really want this. I hope you do, too."

“I do."

His ears stayed back. “Most times, it's because people are… well. Because they're kinky, you know? Not because they like me. Lot of…" He rolled his eyes at his own hesitation, took a deep breath, and let it out. “Can you not call me a 'good dog' or anything like that, please?"

Immediately I saw what he was getting at. I hugged him tightly, letting that serve as my promise, and tried to defuse his nerves with a hint of levity. “I've never called you a good dog, Kosh."

That was enough for him. His tongue slurped over my nose once more. Whether I called him one or not, I had a nice, big dog between my legs — I got to think on that for a few heartbeats while he used his fingers to press himself to me.

And then — achingly slowly — inside.

I had no idea what to expect, and it was better than anything I could've expected anyway. There wasn't that moment of resistance, when the blunt head of a guy's head starts to push into you. His slippery-wet, tapered erection just… entered, sliding in and stretching me out around his smooth girth.

It seemed to get wider and wider — not uncomfortable, just different. And he was hot, gloriously hot, and I was totally aware of every inch being gently fed into me. Until at last I felt fur, instead, pushed up into my crotch and tight against my inner thighs. Good dog was not the first thing that came to mind.

“Holy fuck, Kosh," I gasped up to him, and tugged him roughly down for a kiss to his wet nose.

He tried to answer, and could only manage a growl. That wasn't the kind of thing that made you think good dog either. I didn't have the chance to say anything that dumb before he pulled his hips back gently and rocked forward to take me in a second thrust that was just as fucking blissful as the first.

What I knew about dogs, anyhow, was that they went at it quick and hard. Hard, Kosh had a good handle on. But he took his time, swiveling his hips in a fluid rhythm that just kept stroking that hot, slick length into me, easy as if he'd been on rails. So tenderly I had all the time I needed to just drink it all the novelty of the experience.

I hadn't examined him closely, but I could tell by the way he pumped himself into me that my canine lover was agreeably, pleasantly different. His tip was shaped perfectly to press me open, letting my soft folds caress a hot, veiny bulk that widened about the middle to leave me all kinds of nicely full. All kinds. The wetness I'd felt when he first took me kept growing.

Now, even as worked up as I was, I figured out it was his doing. Every time the dog plunged into me I heard a lewd, loud squish — like I might've thought he'd already come except he wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. His fur was soaked, my thighs were soaked, the bed was a lost cause and all I could think of was begging him not to stop, ever.

He just picked up his tempo, pushing into me over and over. It felt like things were getting… tighter. My legs were locked behind his flexing hips, pulling him forward on his eager thrusts. But that was only part of it. I could've sworn Kosh was swelling, too. Like you know how when dogs mate, as he'd warned me.

Later, afterwards, I'd think on that more coherently. Now it was just ohfuckrightlikehowdogsare, if it was even anything that clear. He was definitely bigger — the base of his cock, at least. When he pulled out of me there was a tense pressure to it, and when he hilted it took some real effort.

I heard words, growling, next to my ear. “Need — to — pull out."

“ Don't even think about it," I hissed.

The growling came back, but wordless. Kosh thrust again — slammed in, more like it — and when he managed to get himself all the way inside he didn't try to withdraw. Not really. His hips tugged jerkily back, but nothing like the way he lunged forward, sharp and heavy and tense with obvious need.

Not like a dog. Just like any other guy, the way they get when they're right at the edge and you can feel them losing control. I wrapped my arms around him and let him ride it out, bucking atop me… except there was his panting, and the feeling of fur, and the gritting of his sharp teeth…

And his cock, wide enough now he couldn't have gotten free even if I'd let him. Just this pulsing, thick heat stretching me wide, pushing up into me from every angle, his constricted movements tugging at me, jolting me in ways I hadn't even thought possible — so that wasn't just like any other guy.

Just Kosh, and his name screamed into my thoughts and burst from my lips as the taut, thrumming pressure in my body yielded into throbbing, giddy surges of blissful release. My body clenched — it was like the waves of pleasure were striking him, breaking against that lovely dog filling me and rebounding to crash back against my helpless nervous system.

Somewhere in it all he stopped moving. He drove in hard and locked our bodies as close as they could get and a guttural snarl tore from him, filling the room, deafening me for that split-second so with my eyes shut tight and my hearing gone there was nothing to distract me from the raw tactile delight of his peak joining mine.

Strong, hot gushes of it — fuck, he was warm, not uncomfortable but enough that I caught every pulse of it. Kosh filled me — and filled me, and filled me. He started moving again, humping his hips into mine, and every throb of his shaft, every tense growl, was joined by a splash of doggy cum that his cock kept well and truly trapped. You know, like how dogs are…

His collapse pinned me under the shaggy, thick-furred pressure of his body. All his strength was gone. So was mine. We just lay together, panting. Half a minute later I managed to hug him weakly. Another few seconds and he returned the gesture. More went by, and he got the idea to get up.

I stopped him with another hug. Later, I'd want to be able to breathe again. Now I just wanted to drink it all in. Kosh's weight, and his heat, and the way he was still hard — still, if I concentrated on it, pulsing inside me. And I wanted to concentrate on it.

“Kosh," I told him at last. “I'm glad I know you."

“I'm glad I know you, too, captain. Sara."

“That's better." I kissed the side of his muzzle, and his whiskers poked at me softly. “So this was the surprise bit, huh? I could get used to it." I could get used to a lot of things about the arrangement. That was what I really meant. That was the real surprise.

“Me, too. Just a little... messy."

Objectively, yes. He'd pumped an awful lot into me, a few times more than a man his size. But so what? “Their own fault. They could've given you your own room. Spared everyone."

“Mistakes were made," he agreed, and nuzzled my neck. “We'll figure out something next time."

“Mm." I was already looking forward to that. “You know, I guess we should go track down Ela, huh?"

“Later," he said.

“Later?"

“You should shower again." He tapped his nose, and gave me a little wink. “So should I."

Right, those noses. “Oh. Yeah."

“Plus I'm stuck. For a bit."

“Really. Always told you, Kosh, you could get out any time you want..."

Kosh laughed. “Any time I want," the dog reminded me.

He stayed a good, long while.