More coyote antics. Clean coyote antics! (?!) And some odd old characters.

Progress! It's slow, but it's progress. The novel is now halfway through towards its end. Having landed on Yturvolini, Xoc and her friend Anatolyi Sirko meet with Tolya's archivist friends. The plot thickens, or weirdens, or… something. Many, many thanks to :iconspudz:, who is the reason this took so long because he had a lot of very good pointers about how to fix it. Patreon subscribers, this will be live with notes and everything soon, I just gotta take care of some work today.

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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The Trouble With Coyotes, Vol. 2, by Rob Baird
Part 3: “The Archivist"

Nobody knew who the first civilization to arise on Yturvolini had been. The last civilization, on the other hand, dated back to 8430 BCE. Voli lived significantly longer than Terrans did—the current prime minister had first been elected in 2430, and overseen Yturvolini's application to the Confederation. Nearly four centuries later, they were a well-respected member.

“They don't really mind us," Anatolyi promised.

That wasn't strictly accurate. Perhaps they didn't mind her friend, who worked in a generally honorable profession. Voli liked salvagers, who could bring them valuable information. Tomb raiders, however, were predators of history. As a citizen of the Terran Confed, Xoc was free to visit Yturvolini—but she had never even bothered trying to apply for access to the Archives.

When she reminded Tolya of this, the mixed-breed grinned. “Just let me do the talking, then."

This, it transpired, soft-pedaled his intentions: he got her into the Royal Archives by telling the Voli at the reception desk exactly who Xocoh was, and heavily implying that he had blackmailed her into coming—that he was, if she read between the lines, intending to keep her from irrevocably destroying whatever find she'd stumbled across.

The receptionist regarded her with a look of palpable disgust. Voli were beaked, armored bipeds, something like feathered tortoises: they all seemed ancient, and the scorn had the weight of centuries behind it. As soon as the coyote had received that baleful glare the receptionist pulled the hood of their cloak forward, as if unable to bear looking at her. 

“Thanks," she muttered, when they were alone and walking through the ageless corridors of the Archives.

“They didn't ask questions, did they?"

“Well… no. But I've got a reputation to consider."

He grinned again. “I'd say your reputation was extremely well considered, Zochka."

“I'm glad I can be your bad influence," she grumbled. “What about your contact?"

“I told them you'd be coming. They weren't very enthusiastic, but I'm pretty sure that's nothing personal. Just very secretive, like a lot of researchers at the Archives are."

“You told them my name, though, right? So what's theirs? I don't like going into this blind."

He gave her an appropriately skeptical look. “Who do you think you're fooling? You love thinking on your feet, coyote. Their name is Dr. Keraestini. They've worked at the archives for years—as far as I know, they've never left. So I doubt either of you actually know one another."

“The good doctor is just paranoid," she suggested. When Anatolyi nodded, she twisted the knife. “Or knows the kind of company you keep."

“Isn't that kind of like me vouching for you with the Voli, though?"

She could tell at once that the figure, who had pulled the hood of their cloak forward, wasn't Voli. They were built more slightly, for one, and a bit taller. One ear poked through a slit cut in the hood; it was black, and softly furred. Its partner was hidden by the peak of the hood, and how swiftly it had evidently been drawn up. Terran, maybe? Xoc wondered. A wolf? A fox?

“Captain Sirko," the figure rasped. Xocoh's own ears immediately perked. “I reminded you that you were to come alone."

“I know, I know. But I wanted to explain more about what happened. Also, to know who I was working with. To know I was serious. If you met face-to-face—we always have before, I'm not sure why you're—well, anyway—I figured…"

“We meet alone," the archivist insisted.

Anatolyi protested, and Xocoh listened distractedly. Her mind was racing. The archivist's hoarse voice was not natural—an implant, probably, designed to help them replicate the complex vocal cords of the Voli they worked with every day.

There was no particular tradition on Yturvolini of keeping one's face hidden—the receptionist had done it as deliberate insult—and even if the archivist wasn't Terran they worked with enough of them to know the degree to which body language was important. The one ear she could see was back, as the two continued their discussion.

They know who I am, Xocoh concluded. But it had to have been more than that. She knew who they were… or, at least, the archivist feared Xocoh knew their identity. But why would they care? Xocoh wasn't a bounty hunter. The coyote's reputation was for recklessness, and a degree of iconoclasm—but not betrayal.

A second person emerged. She hadn't bothered with the hood at all, and so Xocoh knew she was definitely Terran: a lean, red-furred feline with a long tail and sharp eyes. “Oh, it's Anatolyi," she said. “I wondered if—"

“Go back," the archivist snapped, whirling towards their companion. Briefly, their muzzle emerged from the shadows. It was sharp, and unmistakably vulpine if age-whitened. Xocoh did not know that many foxes—definitely not any who should be concerned by her presence. “Get back to the office. I'll tell you when we're ready for the meeting with him."

Impulsively, the coyote took two steps forward while the archivist was distracted, reached over, and tugged the hood back to reveal the other figure's face. The fox, whom Xocoh concluded was properly a vixen, twisted around, eyes wide and startled in sudden panic.

“You," she hissed.

The coyote's head tilted. The other woman was not elderly, exactly, but older than the coyote by perhaps a few decades; her feline companion was probably similar, although she wore her age less openly. Most of Xocoh's regular contacts were some degree of criminal or another, and those tended to be young—retirement-age tomb-raiders tended to be dead, hiding, or imprisoned. “I don't know who you are," the coyote said.

“A senior researcher," Anatolyi explained, evidently as puzzled as Xocoh was. “She's been at the Royal Archives for decades. I had tried to explain that you weren't a threat, but Dr. Keraestini wouldn't have any of it. Like I said, I thought if you perhaps were meeting face-to-face…"

“Go," the vixen—Dr. Keraestini—repeated to the other archivist, who also seemed perplexed. “I'll settle this. Captain Sirko, I was extremely clear that you were not to bring anyone else when you came here."

“Extenuating circumstances. Particularly after our ship was disabled. I owed her for getting us here safely in one piece. And she knows plenty about history, including the Ramans."

“You may owe her. I don't."

Xocoh had run out of logical dots to connect, and the coyote's brain was now working on the illogical ones. “You know who I am," she said aloud, in the hopes that it might cause further dots to appear.

“Lots of people do," the doctor answered, which was not what Tolya had suggested. Xoc had begun to second-guess her decision to come to the Archives sober. “All of them know that you shouldn't be here."

“Not all of them. I don't." Her companion had yet to retreat, as ordered. “Another Terran. A friend of Anatolyi Sirko's, I suppose?"

Xocoh's head tilted. And then, slowly, canted the other way. “I do know who you are, doctor, don't I? And you," she pointed towards the feline woman. “Why? Why would I know you? You're not New Families. You're not Syndicate—the Archives don't really cross paths with them. But you're not law enforcement, either, or Star Patrol. Right?"

“Right…" the younger woman said.

She, too, seemed perplexed. “So, if…" The coyote tried to take a step back, within the chaotic confines of her brain. The fox and her seem close. Tolya said they've been here for years. And Xocoh didn't really have years of underworld experience to have made an impression on the vixen. Someone I crossed on a previous job, I guess. Sjel-Kassar, maybe. But they're not New Families. What if… She froze. “Tolya?"

“Yes?"

The dots were beginning to try connections that were exciting, if implausible. “How about you wait outside for a moment?"

“Why?"

“Because you trust me. These two don't, and they don't trust either of us. So it's gonna have to be you, I'm afraid. If you don't mind…"

Her voice still had an odd, questioning tone to it that she didn't bother hiding, and which Anatolyi apparently took the appropriate meaning from. He looked at the door, shook his head, and left the room. The three remaining Terrans stared at each other.

The feline spoke first, after a full minute of uncomfortable silence. “Will somebody tell me what's going on? I guess the coyote's figured something out, but… beats me what it is. Dr. Keraestini? Vix?"

“Munro," Xocoh dragged the name from her memory with some degree of effort. “Cumaribo. LTSS Cumaribo, in the Utesh system. Your ship's systems were still half broken when I boarded. The… Zephyr? Typh—no. Tempest. It was called the Tempest."

“You… you two are acquainted with one another?" the feline asked.

A couple of Star Patrol's more enterprising sailors—the smartest the Internal Security Division had, Xocoh figured—had compelled the coyote and Miguel Ribeiro on an assignment to the Rewa-Tahi Sector, beyond Confed space. It was about Sjel-Kassar—about the Great Dark Shield, Paghuk-Hån, an ancient superweapon fielded by the Hano Empire.

There had been a not-dissimilar Abyssinian woman on the Star Patrol cruiser. Xocoh couldn't recall her name immediately—unlike underworld figures, she rarely needed to know bluecoats more than once. Munro made an impression because her experimental starship made an impression, and the secrecy of the whole affair had promised something exciting.

“You don't know me," the coyote mused—the vixen was still remaining silent—and tried to puzzle through the implications. “You haven't met me… yet?"

“I hadn't, no."

“But you served on the… the Rocinante? The Dark Horse. TCS Dark Horse, that's it. The Dark Horse and the Tempest. You were Star Patrol." The Abyssinian shifted uncomfortably. Xocoh was familiar with that kind of discomfort: she was telling the coyote, inadvertently, that she knew too much—and yet not enough, simultaneously. “You're not Star Patrol. Are you?"

“No," she confirmed.

Then what? “Because…" There was no coyote equivalent to the notion of looking before one leapt. In a tomb, sizing up a target for her grappling hook, she might deign to a degree of caution. Now, she jumped with both feet into the most ridiculous conclusion: “Because you're time travelers."

Again the uncomfortable expression. “Well…"

“Of course. You are, and you've changed the timeline somehow. But… wait. No. Then I wouldn't have met you, either. So whatever future you're from, you must've… no. Fuck, this is complicated. She time-traveled, but you… you…" Her eyes narrowed, searching the Abyssinian's face. “You're… what?"

“From a parallel universe. I—"

This spurred the vixen into action, finally. “What are you doing?"

“Cutting out a lot of tedious back-and-forth. Look, Ms. Coyote: I don't know when you two met, but I guess it must've been before 2809, when they rescued me. Right?"

“It's 2809 now," she felt compelled to point out—that had been an odd way of phrasing it on the cat's part. “But it would've been early in 2808, yeah. I'm Xocoh, then. Or just 'Coyote,' a lot of the time. No 'Ms.' needed." She held out her paw.

The Abyssinian shook it, ignoring the look her companion was giving her. “Dr. Nefali is the assumed name I use here. But if you know her as Ciara, then call me Torres."

“Right. How long have you been here?"

“A while. The timeline is, well…"

“Broken." The vixen sighed heavily. “We've been here for twenty-six years. There was an incident in 2811. Will be, if you'd prefer, but from our perspective it happened decades ago. We were the only two survivors. I… we… tried to undo it, but… nothing seemed to work. The drive core became more unstable the closer we got to the date of the first inversion. This probably isn't a stable loop. We're just… creating new branches of the timeline."

“It was a time-travel incident to start with?" Xocoh asked, raising an eyebrow. The physics were well beyond her—although honestly, at that point, the physics didn't matter. It was a philosophical question, and the philosophy was beyond her, too. “That's what you're saying?"

“It involved a temporal weapon. Our ship wound up… protected, I guess you could say. Sometimes it's more like a curse. 2783 was the earliest stable point we found. Torres has this idea… well, she has a hypothesis, anyway."

“I was born in 2783. I theorized that time travel was possible within our own lifetimes. Some weird constraint of the universe." Torres shrugged. “When we settled here, we got the idea that maybe we could find some way to prevent the incident that didn't involve time travel."

“Well. The normal kind," Xocoh pointed out. “Forward, second by second."

The Abyssinian laughed. She was growing more at ease, and doing so faster than her friend. “Okay. Fine. So are you a scientist? Some kind of physicist of weird temporal stuff like this? How did you two meet? It must've been something like that, I suppose, right?"

“No, I'm a treasure hunter. An uncommon thief. I found an ancient, planet-destroying artifact called 'Paghuk-Hån.' The Star Patrol asked for my help when they thought somebody else was trying to build a new one. Dr. Keraestini flew me out to the Rewa-Tahi in some kinda… secret spy ship, I guess it was. Then she flew me back. Anatolyi Sirko and I are working on something completely different. This is all a coincidence."

“There are no coincidences," the vixen intoned. “We've learned that over the years. There are only unanticipated variables. You've become one of those. I just don't know what it's going to mean for us, yet."

“If you're not going to kill me, though, I should probably go get my friend. Right?"

Resigned, the vixen nodded. “Right."

Xocoh opened the door, leaned out, and beckoned Anatolyi back over. The wolfdog perked his ears up, making his way back inside at once. He glanced around the three women, ears steadily wilting again at the stony silence that greeted him. “But… nobody has come to blows. So I take it that means you have all reconciled?"

“Yes. Xocoh was… we worked together on a job. Uh…"

She was about to invent a lie, Xocoh realized, and not going to be terribly good at it. Xocoh was good at it—it came with being a coyote—but she also knew when not to. “It's classified, Tolya. And it's kind of boring. The whole Sjel-Kassar thing."

“How can it be classified and boring?"

“If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Ask Satari if you want."

His ear twitched. “You mean 'classified' by the Syndicate, not the Confed? I'm fine with my current number of fingers, thanks."

This wasn't a lie, not even by omission. Satari Kai had been involved, although not with the Star Patrol part. He wouldn't know who Ciara Munro was, and he definitely wouldn't know anything about any time travel or parallel universes—but he'd have the good sense to tell Tolya to shut up if the mixed-breed asked. Which he wouldn't, not anymore. “The point is that I've convinced the good doctor I'm not here because I want to break into the excavation and steal something priceless. She's convinced me I'm not going to be reported to the authorities. So we've made up, yes."

“And we can work together?"

“I think so."

“We can work together." The doctor didn't seem entirely happy about it, but obviously recognized that she didn't have much of a choice, either. “How much did Captain Sirko tell you about what he's after?"

“He said it was a Raman generation ship, that you had more information about where it might be, and that you wanted a substantial deposit in order to provide that information."

“And you know who the Ramans were?"

Xocoh shrugged. “I know enough. Rumors, here and there. But Tolya here didn't really want me for my educational background, if you follow."

“He wanted you because you think on your feet. Because you're adaptable," Torres offered.

“No." Xocoh said it at the same time as Ciara Munro, who gave a faint scowl instead of grinning the way the coyote had.

“No. He had other reasons, I'm sure. In any case. Rumors have crossed our path since the late 28th century: glimpses of a transient gravitational anomaly, or errant signals picked up during hyperspace travel in the gaps between known worlds. Mardan Sokol funded a proper search in 2794, which was enough to confirm that the rumors were consistent, and unrelated to the supposed discovery of the She'evalna Nish in 2766."

“Which I think was a hoax. I never heard about a 2794 search, though. Sokol's normally pretty public. He wants to be seen as legitimate."

Even if they had made up, the vixen obviously had ongoing doubts about Xocoh. She snorted. “Those three are related. Experts believe the 2766 salvage was a hoax, but evidence is scanty because the wreck was completely stripped. If the New Families found this ship, they'd no doubt do the same. Sokol wanted it intact, which meant not telling anyone. We uncovered the search through deduction, two years later. When we went to Mardan Sokol with our evidence, he confirmed our suspicions."

“Would this be the actual She'evalna Nish?" Anatolyi asked.

“Probably not. We think it's the Manin, the fourth ship launched and the second-oldest to have never reached its destination. When we approached Sokol, he hadn't found anything yet. It wouldn't be until 2807 that someone would. Someone working for Sokol, named Jan Gordon."

Anatolyi, unlike Xocoh, clearly knew who that was. “He disappeared in 2807."

“Yes."

The mixed-breed leaned forward, furrowing his brow. “What does 'yes' mean when you say it like that, doctor?"

She answered by unrolling a thin sheet on the table between them; a tap of her claw brought up the image of a massive, constructed object: a cylindrical starship, illuminated only by a flare that had been fired from somewhere near the camera's location. “This is all they were able to recover from the wreckage. Mardan Sokol believes it was taken a few milliseconds before the ship's destruction."

Dr. Keraestini used her fingers to pan the image, revealing a three-dimensional reconstruction of the ship—at least, the side facing the observer. She cycled between spectra, too; the ship appeared dead in nearly all of them. Anatolyi was distracted by what she'd said, instead: “what happened to his ship?"

“We don't know." Torres, the Abyssinian, answered in place of the older archivist. “Some kind of catastrophic structural failure, probably involving the main reactor."

“I knew Jan. He was a good, smart pilot. It wouldn't have been a mechanical problem. Something destroyed him."

Torres exchanged looks with her companion, and again provided the reply. “Probably. Mardan Sokol thinks so. He's still willing to pay for the ship, but he stopped sponsoring any attempts at salvage."

“Twenty-four million credits," the vixen interjected. “That's his offer. He wants it intact, with minimal damage. We can handle delivery, and any other negotiations, if you can get us the ship."

“If we survive, you mean." Sirko had looked unsettled since first hearing Jan Gordon's name. “I need to think about this. Can I talk it over with Xocoh?"

He paused, outside in the hallway, and seemed to decide they were still too close for comfort. His head was down and his eyes stayed narrowed for the walk out to a deserted courtyard. By then, she already knew what he'd decided.

But she asked anyway: “Well?"

“If they got Jan…" Anatolyi trailed off, and then shook his head. “I don't like my odds. This isn't a good idea, Zochka."

“You're not going to take them up on it?"

Anatolyi, who was not smart like a coyote but definitely smart about coyotes, saw where the conversation was inevitably heading the same way she had, before it even began. “You want to?"

“I mean, the payout would be pretty good. Even if those two want a chunk of it, and even if we needed to spec up a bit. We like money, don't we?"

“Yes, but… I don't know. They're hiding something."

“Hiding what?"

She had begun to develop her own suspicions to that end—beyond what she'd already been told—and wondered if Sirko might have come to some novel conclusion. But no, if he had the thoughts were still inchoate: “I'm not sure. How they learned about the ship? Why they want to find it? I don't think I trust them."

“I do."

He knew her well enough to know, too, that her mind was already made up. “You're going it alone with them?" He might not have guessed the reason, which was that Xocoh was increasingly curious to see where the couple's story was going. She suspected the Manin was involved, although she didn't know how. She suspected Tolya was not the first person they'd contacted, although she didn't know why.

Mostly, she suspected that it was going to be interesting, even despite the payout. And if following the thread required taking some initiative on that front… “That's up to you. If you're not comfortable, old friend, I understand."

Anatolyi thought for a good, long spell. His ears twitched, and then flattened. “You better come back from this, Zochka." Tellingly, he wasn't reassured by her expression. “I mean it."

“Coyotes are—"

“Don't tell me coyotes are simple to replace. Or easily salvaged, or whatever you were going to say." He took her paws, squeezed them, and held her fixed, eyes boring into the coyote's own. “Just tell me you're coming back."

“I'm coming back. I mean that, Tolya. Don't worry about me."

“I will."

“Well… fine," she said, and slid free of his hold. “As long as you know I'm still gonna be all… me… about it. If we're on the same page with that…"

The wolfdog a long, familiar sigh. “If you run into trouble—if you need anything from me. You call, yes? You know how to find me."

“If you're the right person for the job, count on it." She stretched up and gave Anatolyi a kiss—he was inclined to appreciate gestures like that, occasionally, although they were mostly alien to the coyote herself. “If I get, I dunno… if I get some ancient plague I'm not gonna try and infect you, too. Or if I need a lawyer. Or…"

“And stay in touch," he ordered, ignoring her caveats. “Until the job is over, at least."

That, she assented to. Most people who knew Xocoh for an extended period of time were used to her vanishing, and used to her getting into trouble. But she also knew when to keep them apprised of her situation, and there was no point in giving her old friend a complex.

This was also why she didn't intend to tell Miguel Ribeiro any of the details—it was not until after Anatolyi had left that she realized he would probably track the jaguar down on his own. Can't be helped, she figured. He'd do it even if I asked him to keep it to himself, so…

And she had other things to do. Dr. Keraestini—Ciara Munro, now that there was no reason to hide it—looked up from what she was working on, and closed the running software. “You two have come to an agreement?"

“Yeah. He's out. Too dangerous."

Munro's partner, leaning on the wall, knocked her head against it a few times. “Damn. What do you think it would take to get him to agree?"

“Nothing. He wouldn't understand if I tried to explain it to him."

Ciara crossed her arms over her chest, pushing back in her chair. “Tried to explain what?"

“That you can be trusted. You did want him to know the risks, after all. Right? If you told him your theory, he might just think you were trying to, mm… tell him whatever it would take to get him to agree." She winked at the Abyssinian when she said that—the feline seemed something of a creature after the coyote's own heart.

And, unlike Munro, she snorted a quiet laugh. The vixen was still staring at Xocoh skeptically. “Our theory?"

“You have some reason to think Jan wasn't blown up by the ship or another salvager. Now, if I was a guessing woman, I'd guess that you don't have proof. Just a hunch or two. You told Captain Sirko that this was a valuable ship, that it was being kept from the New Families, and that when Jan Gordon found it, he never came back—enough for Sirko to conclude the worst no matter how much doubt you cast."

“You said she had a reputation, vix?" Torres asked, the question a telling drawl. Xocoh imagined Ciara had spent some of their time alone trying to warn her partner about the coyote. And, apparently, failing. “Why don't we tell her?"

Munro shook her head slowly, and brought the computer she'd been using back to life. Again they were looking at the hulk of the generation ship. “We've gone over this in every spectrum. The Raman vessel is minimally reflective. If we interpolate all the frames, look for any hints of those reflections, it's possible to reconstruct an image of Gordon's ship."

She demonstrated, for emphasis. The 'image' was extremely poor quality, barely even qualifying as ship-shaped at all. “You don't see anything else, is that it?"

“Correct," Munro said. “And there's no sign of anything on the Raman vessel. Maybe they have particle weapons that don't produce any characteristic radiation. But maybe there just wasn't any radiation."

“On the last frame of data, too," Torres continued. “There's, ah, a few distortions. Bits of noise in the image, probably from a sensor module about to be destroyed by something. It's pretty evenly distributed, though. It doesn't look like he was fired on."

“See, now. What I mean is that Anatolyi wouldn't find that persuasive. I do, though. You both believe it was unrelated. And y'all are Star Patrol. If you didn't really believe it, you wouldn't be trying to get Tolya involved. He doesn't really respect you bluecoats."

“You do?"

Her grin showed playful fangs to Ciara. “To be competent? Fuck, no. But to be sincere, sure. Anyway, if Jan was ambushed by someone else after that ship, either they were also destroyed or they were able to salvage it. And since I haven't heard even a whisper of a big new find like that, I don't think the ship's been found again."

“We've been thinking the same thing. Which is good, because the first step is gonna be going back." Ciara opened her muzzle, as if to interrupt her partner's explanation, then gave up, waving her paw to indicate that the Abyssinian should continue. “Right now, the search space is… very large. But we should be able to pick up residual signatures from the generation ship's main engines, if we knew where it was at one point."

“Where Jan Gordon's ship was destroyed."

“Exactly. We were hoping to have a salvage ship free to collect some samples. But I guess we're going with plan B, now. Vix, what do you say?"

“We don't even know if the Tempest will still fly."

Torres smiled in a fashion Xocoh understood very, very well. “It'll fly. Come on. You too, right?"

“You're not going to ask me to pay up? You wanted some big deposit from my friend, I thought."

Ciara gritted her teeth. “If I say 'we'll take it from your cut,' Torres will tell you the truth, so what's the point? We don't know if the Tempest will fly, either. So we're going to have to start there. Yes, you're coming along. For now."

The Tempest was designed as a stealthy, high-speed spy ship—then promptly mothballed, classified, and struck from any official records. Ciara led the three of them to a locked warehouse, on the outskirts of the campus controlled by the Archives—far enough away that Xocoh felt the weight of the duffel bag Tolya had left behind for her.

Maybe I didn't need to lug my crap all this way…

Behind the locked door, the ship appeared dead. The warehouse was otherwise empty, and the Tempest's graceful curves were out of place in the darkness. It looked like someone had hammered a bell flat, and then hired artisans to sculpt the result into something lithe and sinuous, with a flawlessly smooth hull.

The lights came up dutifully, if dimly. Torres went to work at once. “We're still connected to the grid. System integrity checks look good. On the other hand… going to have to charge the auxiliary banks first and then use those to bring up the reactor. At least a day."

Ciara flinched. “A day?"

“I told you that, dear." The Abyssinian kept checking the computer she was working on, not bothering to look up. “I told you that when we parked the ship here. Voli power standards aren't compatible with the old girl. We're bridging it with a couple of pentavane inductors. Remember? I said 'we're gonna run down the reserves that way. Have to put the systems in standby.' And you said—"

“It made sense at the time."

“You said: 'it's fine. We won't need to take her out of storage on short notice.' So now we wait a day. You can show our guest the sights, right? Have you ever been to Yturvolini, Xocoh?"

“What's the problem with the power?" the coyote asked, instead of answering the question. “I'm not that technical, but… probably more technical than tourist-y."

“Penductors are reliable, not efficient. Particularly not at high frequency. Hit 'em with reactor-level current, and they're going to melt before we can get enough into the system. A proper solution would've taken time, which we had a bunch of. And money, which we didn't. So…"

Xocoh slung her bag onto the deck, opened it, and took the power converter out. “Would this help?"

The Abyssinian glanced over, and did a double-take. “Wait. That's a—where did you get a USR Model F? I haven't seen a Model F since… uh. Since before I came to this universe." She'd already left the computer console, and was kneeling next to the device. “How…"

“We call it a TD-920. They exist here, too. Relics of a much cooler time."

“It…" Her head tilted, and she closed one of her eyes. The other, Xocoh finally noticed, was artificial: electronics glinted and sparkled as the feline examined her prize. “You're right. The power signature is ever-so-slightly different. This is yours?"

“Is now, yeah. I guess great minds think alike?"

“In my universe, the inventors were bastards. To hell with all of them. But yeah. This'll help." She looked up towards Xocoh, and grinned warmly, starting to lift the converter up. “Do you mind?"

“Be my guest."

She made her way down the gangplank. A few seconds later, the interior brightened, and more computers began to chime and whir to life. Xocoh spun slowly, taking it all in. Not all the technology was familiar to her—some, indeed, was obviously alien, covered in mysterious glyphs. “You've made some changes from how I remember this…"

“It's been almost thirty years. Sourcing original parts was difficult. The ship was classified, and the parts are Star Patrol. Which we aren't, despite what you said. At least, not in this timeline. We've done the best we can."

“From the Rewa-Tahi?"

“The Rewa-Tahi, Atana, Nizar, Deruji-Bora, some places closer to the Core. Our travels required plenty of adaptability."

“That's where I come in," her feline companion added, having rejoined them inside the Tempest. “We're connected to the main power grid, now, if you want to try bringing the reactor online. Should all hold together! Bit of alien tech here, some improvising there… mostly improvements, though she's showing her age in a few places. Like the two of us."

“Like the two of us," Munro said with a sigh. The ship's reactor started smoothly, though. “These readings seem normal. Can you confirm the cloaking device is active?"

“It's active, yep." Xocoh saw Torres rub at the back of her neck, biting her lower lip at whatever she learned from the readouts. “We are about eight percent under rated power from the reactor, though."

“Too long since we've flown this. It'll do for now, though. Harness," Munro ordered; Xocoh took a seat and strapped in. “Once we're out of Yturvolini's gravity well, let's purge the filters."

“Sure. I'll see if the reactor control grid might've depolarized, too."

“Good idea. I'm going to open the roof now."

The Tempest's nose tilted back, towards empty sky—and then Xocoh caught the sense of acceleration as they leapt up and towards it. “Are you not asking for permission to leave?"

“They don't know we're here. It's best if nobody does."

“In a one-of-a-kind ship like this? How coyote of you."

Munro shot her a look over her shoulder. “Don't. We're not friends, Ms. Zonnie."

“Yet. We're not friends yet."

Xoc didn't have a good way to tell what the missing 8% of the reactor's power output amounted to: the ship was as fast as she remembered from her first trip aboard it two years prior. Within minutes, sky had yielded to deep space, and the two crew had unfastened their restraints.

She did, too—if it was safe enough for them, it was definitely safe enough for a coyote. “Is there anything I can do to help?"

“Stay out of the way," was Ciara Munro's suggestion.

Torres held up a toolbox. “I'm gonna scrub the plasma filters. That's pretty easy. I got a second modulator, too, if you want."

So she followed the Abyssinian back into the engine bay, watching as the other woman unfastened one cover plate after another to reveal the glowing machinery beneath. Xocoh thought she could see where the problems were; some of the glowing bits were mottled and dark. Torres showed her how to use the plasma modulator: guiding it over the discolored areas until they had the same intensity as everything else.

They worked quietly for fifteen minutes. She wanted Torres to be the one to break the silence; the woman was plainly curious, if still trying to decide how far Xocoh could be trusted. At last, giving in, she cleared her throat. “So, Xocoh, can I… can I ask if you knew the version of me from this universe? Or was it just Ciara?"

“I'm not sure," the coyote admitted. Her trip to the Rewa-Tahi Sector had been a little bit of a blur; there were drugs involved, as usual, and the fate of the universe had been on the line. “But I think you're right: I mostly remember your friend. Coworker? Friend?"

“I think we're married."

Xoc paused, letting her finger off the modulator's power switch for a moment. “You think?"

“Legally we don't exist here. The Archives think I'm her wife, anyway. But they also think we're doctors. I dunno. We've been together for almost thirty years, so… that ought to count, right?"

“Counts by me," the coyote said, shrugging. She returned to work, attempting to be diligent—though she was, she perceived, obviously not as skilled at the job as the other woman. “Have you been after the Manin this whole time?"

“No. For the first couple of years, we tried lots of things to undo the accident. One of those 'things' did a real number on this ship—that's why she's got so many random bits everywhere. So while I repaired it, we also took a break to focus on finding out whatever we could about what had happened. It's mostly theory. There was a… a scientist, a collie on the Dark Horse, Dr. Schatz… he'd probably be able to solve it in a few minutes."

“Probably." Him, she remembered. He'd proven adept at unconventional problem-solving strategies, and at the time Xoc had been in a bit of a dry spell, where knots were concerned. “Have you tried asking him?"

“Not in this timeline. Ciara thinks we might compromise it, you know?"

“I guess that makes sense." Something else was gnawing at the coyote's brain, though. “So why are you interested in the Manin?"

“We've learned to be interested in a lot of things, not just that ship."

“But there is something about it. I just can't figure out what. Something on it? Cargo? It's special to the two of you, but I don't think you visited it even in your timeline. So something else is going on. Sirko thought you were hiding something. He's right."

Torres smiled. “We tipped that much of our hand, huh?"

“Well… you've known Anatolyi for a while. I guess you've funneled him information about other ships you might've found. But I didn't get the sense you always do the sort of legwork you're doing now."

“It's pretty boring, being an archivist."

That wasn't a denial, though. “You wanted him specifically. I figured maybe you had other contacts, but… Tolya is pretty unaffiliated. The Kai Syndicate doesn't care about Mardan Sokol. They don't care about salvage at all. You didn't want it to get out, because…"

“We didn't want anyone else to find it. That's simple enough."

“Mm," Xoc grunted. “No. Tolya would treat it like any other job. But you didn't ask for a deposit from me. Maybe that's 'cause you figured I wouldn't be able to pay it. Maybe," she continued, staring straight at the other woman. “It's because there's no way I'll treat this like normal business. You could've Captain Sirko none-the-wiser about… something. Something on that ship."

“I probably shouldn't tell you," the Abyssinian allowed, as her long tail began to slowly lash. “It's mostly just a theory I have. We haven't really been able to determine the precise variance between this timeline and the one we came from. If we could get that, I… have an idea about how we could fix things. That's a big 'if.'"

“The Raman ship is…" She tried to think analytically, pulling the bits of information she had that stood out in some way. That seemed discordant, when she thought about them, and prompted her eyes to narrow. That came together in—“it has no hyperdrive. Sirko said that the nebulite in their computers would be pristine."

“Mm-hm, yes. It's never been exposed to Atias effects of any kind. But it has traveled at… appreciably relativistic speeds. I designed a sort of… a temporal isolation chamber. With a calibrated sample from the Manin, and its equivalent aboard a ship whose properties we know, I'm cautiously hopeful we could finally close the loop we opened."

“I don't understand anything about time travel."

Torres grinned. “Who says I do?"

I like her, the coyote concluded. “I suppose. I think I can get you a crew. They won't ask too many questions if I have to smuggle something off the ship, and they're not connected to any of the other salvaging rings. They'll take it for the challenge. And the payout from Sokol, I suppose."

“All I'd need is a few grams of hull material or anything else you can find. That's all that will fit in the machine, anyway. How are you coming with the modulator, by the way, Ms. Zonnie?"

“What? Oh." Modulator hadn't been confusing; she rarely heard her surname with any kind of title or honorific before it. “Just 'coyote,' or whatever. I think it's going okay. It looks cleaner. Right?" Torres leaned over and made a face. “That bad?"

“Well, you're new at this. It's not bad enough that I'll have to redo it."

“Good. Not to, uh, abruptly change the subject back, but… you're asking for a sample of the ship. That would let you contest someone else's claim, if you wanted."

“I don't. Neither of us do. We don't need the money."

“And you'd put that in a formal contract, right?"

Torres frowned, and stared at her own section of filter, studiously working the cleaning tool over it. “That would be difficult."

“Which is convenient…"

“Do you really think—"

When Torres briefly switched the modulator off, Xocoh gave her shoulder a light, playful shove. “Nah. Don't worry about it. I trust you. You are Star Patrol, even if you don't have the uniforms anymore. It's close enough. You're Star Patrol, and you dorks don't have a seedy bone in your body. It does raise a question to me…"

“Which is?"

“This is a maneuverable ship. Why involve anyone else at all? Just use the Tempest."

“We can't."

“This is about y'all not legally existing? Nobody knowing about this ship? I know people who can clean up vessel history records, no problem. That way you wouldn't have to involve anybody else. And, y'know." She lowered her voice. “Nobody trusts a coyote, anyway. You'd be fine."

“No. It's not about paperwork. Uh."

“It's about the ship itself." They both turned to see Ciara in the open hatchway to the engine room. “Apparently I don't have a choice in deciding what you need to know."

It was difficult for her to judge how upset the vixen actually was. She decided to assume the best, and ignored any of the implied sentiment to respond directly to the first thing Munro had said. “What is it about the ship?"

“This incident wasn't the first. The ship's time-traveled before. I have, too. I don't know if that makes a difference, but…"

“You've time-traveled before?"

“To Terra. In the 1960s. It was… confusing. I still don't know whether we did any damage to the timeline."

Xocoh closed one eye, then the other, thinking over what she'd been told and looking towards Torres. “I thought you said you could only travel back in time a few decades. As far back as you were alive, right?"

“I said I theorized that," she corrected. “And I don't know. The mechanism was very different. We don't have access to all the records that the Dark Horse would have, so I can only go by what Ciara remembers, but it seems to have involved modulating the ship's low-powered repulsor unit. There's only one other active ship with an LRU. I spent four years trying to track something down at a scrapyard with no luck."

“So just… everything about this is one huge gamble, is that it?"

“More than some of us are comfortable with. That's why I'm the one who keeps telling you things."

Ciara sighed, but didn't argue. “How is the work here coming?"

Torres pushed herself to her feet and over to the nearest engineering station. “We've cleaned up the filters. The control grid is partially depolarized, but I can start that cycle now. Based on the numbers, though… I'd say we're almost as good as new. Output is stable at 99.4% of its rated power. I think we've earned a break."

According to Munro, their destination was only twelve hours away. The ship's rations had expired a decade earlier; Xocoh had a few energy bars in her pack, and passed those around, although they all seemed equally happy to know their time spent living aboard the spy ship was limited.

Xocoh attempted sleep in one of the two berths, pulling the hatchway closed and reflecting, in the darkness, about what the others might still have been keeping from her. Nothing? I think it might be nothing. She walked through what she'd said to Torres aloud a second time, feeling out the cracks in her theory: they'd asked Sirko for a deposit to secure the information because they wanted to gauge his interest, and confirm his dedication to the salvage job.

How would they have convinced him to get the sample they want? Maybe he wouldn't have taken convincing. They'd ask for proof that he'd found the ship, explain that the temporal isolation chamber was just tamper-resistant or something. Sirko could confirm there was nothing destructive about it… probably he'd just figure it was a quirk of the Voli Royal Archives…

He'd get paid, make his investment back, and that would be it. They wouldn't have to tell him anything about where they came from, or what they really needed. No, she rather thought the couple were not lying to her about anything that mattered. She slept easily, for a coyote, and woke to find the hatch open and Torres telling her they were about to exit hyperspace.

There was no ship, of course. Not the Manin, and not Jan Gordon's salvage vessel. It looked like nothing so much as empty space. “Are you certain about those coordinates?" Xocoh asked.

“Yes. What were you expecting? This is the right place, but all the debris has a two-year head start. Do you think you'll still be able to scan for a trail from the ship?"

That question was meant for Torres, who gave a thumbs-up. “Already on it. It might take a little while to reconstruct, ion density being what it is. You think we can spare a probe?"

“Do any of them still have…" Ciara had become more and more business-like with each passing hour, more of a natural in the cockpit. Her work was quick, and precise. “Yes. We have two with sufficient fuel reserves. Where do you want coverage?"

The Abyssinian made her way past Xocoh to stand behind the vixen. She slipped her arms around Ciara, leaning forward to review the map. “One basically dead ahead, and the other…"

“The other?"

She was thinking, her head tilted a few degrees. Finally, when Ciara patted one of the paws on her chest, she seemed to come to a decision. “Off the port beam. That'll be a good start. Just… trying to remember how all this works."

“That's two of us. Probes are away… now."

With a final, quick kiss visited on the side of the vixen's muzzle, Torres pulled herself away and went back to her own computer. “We have a good downlink. I'm getting telemetry now. And there's… definitely some kind of trail. So that's a good sign."

“Where's the wreckage of Jan Gordon's ship?" Xocoh asked.

“Everywhere," Torres said, somewhat distractedly. “Some of them would've been blasted out at system escape velocity. There are bits of metal vapor around us, for that matter, just not very much. The largest piece of the hull is probably, uh… hmm. I guess it could be an anomaly about… six million kilometers ahead of us?"

“I think so. Atias drag from the reactor would've slowed it significantly. Why do you ask, Xocoh?"

“Shouldn't we try to figure out what happened? Just in case? While we're here, and all."

“While we're here, sure. Will that mess anything up with the scans?" Ciara was already adjusting their course to take them closer, but she held her paw steady on the throttle until Torres gave her the go-ahead. “Alright. It'll take a bit. That big chunk of hull is what's left of the engine room, you're right. Still fairly intact."

“Does that mean anything?"

“Maybe not. They tend to overbuild reactors, for obvious reasons. It might've been able to partially shut down before containment failed completely. Or maybe the core was never breached at all, and it was secondary systems that overloaded and blew the ship apart."

“Captain Sirko seemed to think that Jan would've kept his ship pretty well maintained."

The vixen wasn't impressed, or convinced. “Everyone thinks that. Hundreds of well-maintained, flawless, perfectly reliable ships are lost every year. It's easy to become complacent. Or it could've been random, a collision with a bit of space debris or a radiation pulse or something. Or an ordinary failure he couldn't take care of in time—so many of these salvagers insist on flying by themselves. It's reckless. You need help, just in case."

“Makes sense."

“You work alone? When you're exploring those lost cities?"

“Sometimes, yeah. I don't like it, necessarily, but… sometimes it can be hard to find someone willing to come along for the ride. Has to be the right kind of personality. Even Sirko has his limits." Which was unfortunate, because she liked Tolya. A glint caught the corner of her eye. “Hey, is that supposed to be flashing?"

Ciara turned to look at the indicator. Her head tilted first in one direction, and then the other. “No. See, this is exactly what I mean about trying to manage routine problems by yourself. Torres, it looks like we're seeing some kind of instability in the reactor."

“Yeah? You need me to take a look?"

“Please."

The Abyssinian closed the distance between the sensor operator's console that she'd been occupying and the pilot's seat in a single bound. “If I didn't know better, I'd say that's a feedback loop in the plasma constrictors. Maybe she was sitting around for too long."

“Can you compensate for it?"

“Yeah. No problem." She tapped at the computer quickly, paused, and then tapped even faster. “This isn't good. I tried cycling it and the feedback loop is still there… how are we on narrow-band EM?"

“You'd know more than I would, but—" Ciara cut herself off. “There's a transmission coming from that wreckage. Damnit—it must've been booby-trapped."

Torres kept working, glancing briefly out the cockpit window. Her cybernetic eye narrowed. “Yes," she said, drawing the word out contemplatively. “But we might be okay. Just need to minimize our exposure to it until we can break free. Uh, can you… we'll need about another 3-50 meters on this on this vector, and then get ready for a starboard translation."

“How much?"

“I'll tell you when I know for sure. No more than forty."

“Okay, yeah. I see what you're doing. Executing now."

Xocoh, for her part, had absolutely no idea what Torres or Ciara were doing. The two were quiet for half a minute, touching nothing on the controls. Finally the coyote cleared her throat. “Is there anything I can do to help?"

“Stay out of the way," Ciara said. This time, though, she said it at the same time as her partner did.

Torres, at least, had the good manners to follow it with a soft nod—an I-mean-it-this-time nod. “It'll be twenty-three meters. And hold us in orbit if you can."

“I'll try," the vixen promised. “But how do we 'break free'? Because if this is one of those amplification traps—what do you call them?"

“Assimilators," Xocoh spoke up before she could help herself. “They're called assimilators."

“Right, okay. If it's an assimilator, though, it's going to increase power whenever the reactor output spikes."

“I know, I know. I've set these kind of things before. We're going to have to… well. Hmm. If we can zero out the existing component in the constrictors, we should have a couple seconds to break the lock and get some distance."

“Breaking the lock isn't a problem. With the way the hull is rotating, we're out of contact every so often as it is. This is just a little… delicate. I have to keep applying thrust to hold our relative angle, but every time I do that…"

“The feedback loop gets worse," her partner muttered. “It looks like we've only got maybe fifteen minutes until we start to have real problems. Your relative variance is averaging, like, 2 radians per minute. Can you bring that down?"

Ciara gave the cat a witheringly arched eyebrow that could only have come from years of practice. “Not without a new body and the ability to slow down time. My muscles only react so fast, dear. You're lucky you're getting it that low."

“Can you promise me two?"

The arch disappeared, at least, although Ciara seemed uncertain. Why, Xocoh had no idea. Pilots were inscrutable—even fairly normal ones, like Anatolyi Sirko. “Maybe. Why?"

“I'm thinking we could try connecting the auxiliary systems to the plasma manifold. I should be able to adjust the frequency there, so that the amplitude cancels out if we can hold a precise trajectory—some thermal shock to the power buffer, but I should be able to isolate it… if we do that, we should be able to keep it locked out for long enough to escape, then disperse it through the regular grid. Should be able to reinforce it enough."

“Do you know how many times you said 'should'?"

Instead of answering, Torres leaned over and kissed the pilot; Xocoh caught a reassuring wink. “Can you give me the two radians?"

“I'll do my best. How long will it take you to make the modifications?"

“I'll work fast." That wasn't much of an answer. Her ears were back, though, and she was concentrating on the job at hand already. Xocoh watched with a mix of interest and growing concern as the readouts on the ship's displays became increasingly dire. Torres had given them 15 minutes before 'real problems' started to occur; eight minutes in, an alarm went off that Ciara promptly quieted.

But the numbers, even Xocoh could tell, were still going in the wrong direction. Two minutes later, a low, descending hum preceded two of the computer stations going dark. “We are beginning to tax the inertial compensators," the pilot said, with remarkable calm. “Secondary systems are shutting down. You almost ready?"

“Yeah, yeah—almost!"

“Cutting it close…"

“I know! Okay! There. Count ourselves lucky, vix; at least we caught it early. Or Xocoh did, right? What do you know about fusion reactors, miss coyote?"

“Not much. It might surprise you to learn they try to keep us away from things like that."

“Well… if you know how to use that power converter you brought on board, that'll be good enough. When I give you the signal, I need you to disconnect one of the conduits and keep it safe. You won't have much time, so, like… be ready. Same deal when I tell you to reconnect it."

“Which conduit?"

Torres pointed. It was conspicuously marked, at least, with a softly glowing blue stripe around it. Xocoh stood ready, watching her hard at work. The Abyssinian looked forward, to the cockpit. “On my signal, I need you to execute this course. Plus two-twenty meters, then a port turn, then be ready for an immediate retro fire."

“I'm not sure we can get that delta-v out of the reversers. Can we use the main drive?"

“No. Because—"

“Fuck," Ciara said. It was one of the few times—perhaps the only time—Xocoh had seen the vixen curse. It was also one of the few times she'd truly seen her in her element. “Because you need access to the integrator? Right. What about an off-angle burn like… this, here. New trajectory, and we'll add the other components from the lateral thrusters?"

“Yes…" She dragged the word out again, considering it, then repeated it with more conviction. “Yes. That'll work. Almost time. Hey, Xocoh! You ready, too?"

“Uh. Yes."

“Great! Five seconds. Good, good course… okay, now. Do it now. We're in shade."

“Firing." The ship lurched. “Our control computers have locked out. Can you get them back?"

“I'm busy," Torres said. “But you're doing fine. Four radians per second. Nope, six. Seven, vix, I—"

“We're on manual reversion, then." Ciara's paw shot out, adjusting one of the controls off to her side. “Bringing the nose left—watch my angles. Trying to compensate…"

“Your angles are fine," her partner promised. “I just need less noise. We're losing our window. Let's—okay, no, whatever you did worked. Xocoh—pull it!"

The blue stripe was now flashing amber. She grabbed the conduit and pulled it free, sending the nearby computers into a frenzy of alarms. “Done!" the coyote shouted, although she imagined that was probably obvious.

“Five. Nine. Eleven… Ciara, hon, we're off velocity drift and angle, can you—"

“Trust me."

“Nineteen radians and minus four. Vix—wait. How did you—never mind. Ms. Xocoh, reconnect the power!"

She had no idea what was going on in the cockpit, but followed orders anyway. The conduit brightened—then settled back into dim, calming blue in the seconds before a burst of acceleration sent the coyote skidding further back into the engine room. She switched her boots on reflexively, locking herself in place.

The alarms stopped. Forward, in the cockpit, the two former Star Patrol crew were engaged in rapid conversation, none of which made any real sense to the coyote after the headline: “That's it. We're free."

“I'm bypassing the main regulators and switching to backups. Stand by to vent overcurrent limiters one and two…"

“Standing by… no, that won't be necessary. I've got a handle on it, vix."

“Nice. System lock-out engaged, main weapons online, forward deflector synchronization stable. Tally one. Good solution for attack pattern echo three. Check the scanner alignment for tactical interlock." Her words were a short staccato—like she was Star Patrol, after all, except good at her job.

She could almost hear the wry smile in her wife's acknowledgement. “Yes, ma'am. We're aligned."

“Interlock set. Firing." Xocoh had cautiously made her way back to the cockpit, in time to see the remains of Jan Gordon's ship, projected in magnification with a targeting cue around it, disappear in a burst of light.

“Good hit, vix. Did you even have to use the interlock? The way you bulls-eyed our last maneuver…"

“Weapons safe," Ciara said, then turned around as the Abyssinian leaned forward, meeting her in a warm kiss. She finally pulled free, settling into her seat. “The interlock helped."

“What, uh… what exactly happened?" Xocoh asked. “Ideally in coyote-sized words."

“We started to drift on the last maneuver I needed to put us in the right position to zero out the interference from the booby trap. Turns out that was just Ciara here finding a better way to get us into the right orientation. Just nailed that angle, though…"

“The system raised a CISL error partway through, so…"

“So you set it to mode 4 and used TMAC? Such a test pilot," Torres said, stretching out to kiss the vixen's cheek. “Well, we're safe, is what's important."

Despite what she thought of as a rather plain-language request Xocoh had not been provided any sort of explanation, just a lot of meaningless acronyms. “And while you were… uh, bypassing all the… bypasses and whatever, and Lieutenant Munro was… orienting her angles, ah, you had me unplug a power cord and plug it back in?"

Torres giggled. “Yes. But that was important, too. And, I should note: we know what happened to Jan Gordon, now. It wasn't the Manin."

“We know that?" Munro asked.

“Pretty sure."

“You can be positive. It was the Vikati." Xocoh was back in her own territory, at least: the world of the hidden, the obscure, and the illicit. “I'm sure they had no idea about the Manin at all."

The core sectors of the Terran Confederation were supposed to be free of large-scale criminal operations, but of course this was impossible. Some things were still only available on the black market. Some things still needed to be smuggled. Some fringe enterprises still required the muscle that only extralegal gangs were willing to provide.

And where the New Families exerted power openly in border regions like the Deshal, shadowy groups with their roots in far older families held sway on Terra itself, and the closer systems. Xocoh did not deal with those groups: they would never deign to have contracts, least of all with someone like her.

She knew of them only as The Brass; she'd heard, once, that it was in full the Jade and Brass, referring to the two means by which they wielded authority—subtle wealth and intimate violence. If so, the latter was more familiar to a coyote. The Vikati were a guild of assassins, and they stayed hidden enough that the Confed could pretend they didn't exist.

“And they use devices like those. Assimilators that can absorb the power of a ship's reactor and destroy it. It should've self-destructed, but maybe Jan found that he'd been sabotaged and was trying to fix it, or… maybe they just got unlucky. So did we."

“Did Gordon cross the wrong people?"

“No." Torres answered before Xocoh could. “They were probably sending a message to the New Families. Who even knows about what—payback for a missed bribe? Or they thought the New Families were muscling in on something they figured was theirs. Or Jan just got in the way. Mobs are never that logical. Just brutal. And stupid."

She spoke, the coyote knew, from experience. Not Star Patrol experience, which had left her appreciably sober. “Yep. That's about how it goes. I suppose I should let Sirko know he can stop worrying."

“What about the generation ship?" Ciara asked. “Are we any closer to knowing where it is?"

“Well… the probes have been collecting data, yeah. So let's see where we're at." Torres didn't bother sitting down, leaning forward over the chair and making her way through the computer output. “I think so. We definitely have a course to within… a fraction of a fraction of a degree. That much is solid."

“What about speed?"

She puffed out her cheeks. “I dunno. Not as great. But the exhaust half-life is long enough that we should be able to pick it up just by following the ship's trajectory. You'd need another fix—maybe two—to know its exact position."

“Half-life?" That was new to Xoc. “They're radioactive?"

“Yep. It's a nuclear drive, with some exotic fuel and some interesting decay products. 'Radioactive' is overselling it… it's definitely safe if you're not immediately behind the thrust plates. But it does leave a trail to follow. So… where to?"

“We were counting on Anatolyi." Ciara shook her head, mulling over her options. “I'm not sure where to go now."

“Xocoh said that she had an alternative. Right, coyote?"

“I can get you a ship with a skilled pilot, yeah. Not that I know landing on the Manin is going to take much skill—maybe it won't—but just in case, right? And, uh, 'just in case'"—she quoted that with her fingers—“they're discreet. I can explain what you need without being asked too many questions."

“Are you sure you can rely on them?"

Xocoh could only grin. Ciara Munro, despite spending decades away from the Star Patrol, was still very much a bluecoat. “As much as I can rely on anyone. They're also independent. Carr is jackal non grata with the Families, and her partner got himself scrubbed from META before he could make too big a name for himself."

“Partner? 'Them' was plural?"

Torres, having perked an ear, had picked up on something else. “You know a jackal named Carr?"

“Do you?" was Munro's immediate followup, her first question immediately forgotten.

“Not over here, I don't. But… growing up, yeah. They don't go by Candace, do they? That would be one hell of a coincidence."

“It would. But no, no dice. Her name's Casey. They were the ones I worked with on the Sjel-Kassar job. I can talk them into this, I'm sure of it. Give me a few days to work my contact network and we can meet up with them somewhere out here, probably."

“You want us to come with you?" Ciara balked. “We've been trying to stay quiet."

What she meant, Xocoh figured, was that they'd been trying to stay clean. Getting Anatolyi Sirko to handle the job had been one way around that. Settling for a coyote took a bit more work. “Well, what are your options? You want me to do this for you? You didn't even want to see me back in the Archives."

“Our last encounter wasn't entirely above-board. I remember Commander Bradley said you'd somehow stolen some classified information, and…"

“And I was right—it helped. Wasn't that also a long time ago, Ciara? People change."

“It wasn't very long ago at all for you," Munro pointed out. And then her eyes darkened, as she realized that, in fact, had been the coyote's point. She sighed, and held out her paw towards Torres, who reached for it with her own. “Do I even bother asking you if we should trust her?"

Her wife squeezed the vixen's paw lightly. “I wouldn't bother, no. You know the answer."

With another sigh, Ciara let go. “Alright. Name your price, coyote. Let's do this."