The Dark Horse encounters an old friend, and agrees to do them a favor. They wind up with a lot more than what they bargained for, and Maddy decides to Do the Right Thing.

It's Friday! So why not have some lighthearted sci-fi for your weekend? No smut in this one, but the next episode will set things to right~ thanks to :iconSpudz: for calibrating the SoFurry field to emit a coherent storyon beam.

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

Tales of the Dark Horse by Rob Baird
S2E3, "Resistance"
Stardate 66557

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Diplomacy officer's log. July 16th, 2807

We have found a buyer for the 600 kilograms of platinum our serendipitous mining expedition two weeks ago produced. The station provides us with an opportunity to encounter even more of this sector's unusual diversity. I intend to collect as much information as I can on these new cultures and societies. I can only hope the rest of the crew is just as fascinated by the learning experience, and takes it with appropriate gravity.

“Don't you find this exciting, though, dude?"

Felicia Beltran turned, regarding Spaceman Wallace peculiarly. Nearly everything about what the otter had said was ridiculous. The appropriate term for the leopardess was not 'dude.' 'Dr. Beltran' would have been far more appropriate. In a pinch, lieutenant worked.

Felicia did think starbases were exciting, although not for the same reasons as Travis Wallace, whom most people called 'TJ' and Felicia mostly referred to as 'spaceman.' TJ hailed from Clearwater, a resort planet where the temperature never dropped below thirty degrees, the surf was always gorgeous, and the drugs flowed freely.

TJ liked starbases because it was easy to stumble across parties there. Felicia liked them because there was no better place to find out about new cultures. Really, the two points of view were simply different perspectives on the same topic, but neither of them would've felt that way. “It is interesting," Dr. Beltran allowed.

The two were in a crowded marketplace, waiting at a counter for the owner of the stall to return. TJ picked up a small bit of jewelry, a pendant hanging from a rack of similar pendants. It looked like silver, forming a frame around a disc of clear crystal. In the warmth of the otter's paw, the silver glowed, and the crystal showed the image of some far-off planet with beautiful azure seas. “Neat," he said. “Looks like home. Where's home for you, anyway?"

“I was born on Esmeralda, but—"

The shop's owner returned, and she straightened up to meet him, or her, or it—these things could be hard to tell, when negotiating with an amorphous cephalopod. The sector's trading pidgin didn't encode gender. Two of the cephalopod's beaks chattered swiftly: “the trade deal is acceptable."

Felicia bowed her head. “Thank you. I shall indicate to my captain that it is time to begin the preparations."

The merchant intertwined several of its tentacles in a complex knot. “If there is nothing else."

“Kinda, dude," Travis spoke up. “What is this, anyway?"

“A Vralin heart-compass. They say it shows you where you truly belong and wish to be. Mere trinkets. Take it, if you want; a sign of our good faith."

“Well, I don't—"

Felicia, unlike TJ, noticed the knotted tentacles starting to uncurl. “We will. Thank you again." The tentacles retightened; the leopardess waited until they were back out in the station's main plaza to explain that the merchant's culture felt gift-giving to be sacred.

TJ tilted his head. “Yeah? How'd you know that?"

“It is not an uncommon reaction, particularly in trading societies. I noticed the reaction when May gave it a Star Patrol badge and it immediately offered something back, and locked its tentacles together the moment she accepted."

“You notice all these things?"

“It is my job." Dr. Beltran was used to having that forgotten, or ignored.

TJ didn't mean to be dismissive, but on his homeworld everyone was too easygoing for diplomatic protocols to matter. He toyed with the pendant, watching it light up again. “Do you think it really works? Like, it reads my mind or something? You think this might really be Clearwater it's showing? What does it show you?"

Felicia answered none of his questions, using the excuse of focusing on business to order him back to the Dark Horse so they could get started with the trade. In all likelihood, it was—as the merchant said—simply a trinket. On the other hand, what was the point of taking the risk? The leopardess had a deserved reputation for risk-averseness. She took the pendant when he offered it to her, and agreed that they could discuss it more later.

Their captain, who most certainly did not have such a reputation for safe options and well-trod paths, had relocated from their starship's bridge to one of the trading station's abundant restaurants. May liked sampling the 'local flavor,' as the akita put it; Dr. Beltran consented to letting her do so, but only if she brought along a chaperone.

She'd actually brought along two: first officer David Bradley and the ship's doctor. The doctor, Ayenni, was an alien native to the general area, and as much of a mystery to Felicia as she was to the rest of the crew. Friendly enough; as aliens went, Felicia counted Ayenni a successful first contact.

The three crew were sitting at a table across from a huge, blunt-muzzled beast that massed as much as the rest of them put together. A large plate of slime-covered biscuits sat in the middle of the table, and the crumbs were disproportionately on the side of their shaggy-furred companion.

Madison May hadn't quite picked up on what the biscuits were called, only that they were a delicacy. Spotting Felicia, she waved the leopardess over eagerly. “Dr. Beltran! Have some… some toast stuff. It's a delicacy."

“I have already eaten," Felicia said at once. “I am… watching my figure."

The big, hyena-shaped animal with them looked Felicia over, then laughed uproariously. “You think if you don't put any meat on your bones, nobody will wish to hunt you? Maybe we'd want your pelt, instead." With a huge, unsettling grin, the alien put a paw at Felicia's back and shoved her into a seat at the table.

David Bradley waited until the leopardess had adjusted herself and showed no signs of displeasure or injury before attempting any further conversation. As a golden retriever from a respectable Canadian family, David was more even-keeled than his captain and more regularly sympathetic to Felicia's plight. “This is Kanab, Overenforcer of the Neviin Pride," he said.

They'd met the Uxzu Dominion, a tribal society of hunters and warriors, before. Specifically, the Dark Horse came to the rescue of one of their own exploration vessels. The Dominion had once been far larger. Centuries of depredation by outside forces restricted their range; after that one encounter they'd seen no other Uxzu and no sign of their home territory. 

Kanab, Overenforcer of the Neviin Pride, showed no signs of such unfamiliarity and thumped Felicia's shoulder heartily. “You do not need to eat if you do not want. But it is good food." Felicia, with her diplomatic training, saw David shake his head subtly. “You do not need to eat, but you do need to say your name, tiny one."

“Dr. Felicia Beltran, Commander May's representative from the Diplomatic Corps."

“A talkperson! Yes, well. Then, you must eat. So that you do not talk." Kanab picked up a biscuit, and shoved it in Felicia's direction.

Dr. Beltran's experience taught her to expect even odds that the food was made up of something vile, just as it taught her not to dwell on her revulsion. She took a bite. The biscuit happened to be entirely flavorless; the dark slime covering it was bitter, and tasted like some kind of mole sauce. “Thank you," she told Kanab. Rather than waiting, increasing the odds that she'd be told it was ground-up rocks or squeezed from the digestive tract of some hapless bottom-feeder, she turned away from Kanab and changed the conversation at once. “Commander May, our trade deal has been accepted. I told Spaceman Wallace to begin preparing for transfer."

“Oh, wonderful."

“Bartering?" Kanab chuckled, although the others were perceptive enough to know that it was for effect. Even the Dominion traded—it wasn't as though replacement fuel supplies could be simply blustered into existence. May thought of his laughter as a sort of posturing.

“Indeed! With a merchant identified by the station owners," the akita explained. “It gave us a chance to pick up some much-needed supplies. Dr. Beltran was responsible. We do owe her a great deal, you know, Kanab. For a 'talkperson.'"

“Bartering," the big captain repeated with a snort.

May wasn't the sort to ask Dr. Beltran for details on that kind of thing, even though it was the diplomat's job. Felicia could've explained the greater purpose certain conversations held. For the Uxzu, boasting about conquest was a bonding ritual; discussing the minutiae of trade agreements wasn't.

He was already uninterested. “Where will you go from here, tiny hunter?"

“Wherever curiosity takes us," May answered.

“There is good hunting in and near the Antuja System. You might find things to catch your eye." Kanab deftly tossed another biscuit into his muzzle, not that it stopped him from talking. “Antuja belonged to the Dominion until a few decades ago. It is no longer tactically important to us."

Madison guessed that this was something of a fig leaf. “But it has, ah, 'good hunting'?"

“Very good. The new owners do not always guard their transports well… and since it used to belong to us, we know all the best places to hide."

“Ah… Ah, yes. I see. We don't really do quite so much of that. Exploration, remember?"

The Uxzu hunter shook his big head, plainly both remembering and judging. “If you were interested in learning, though… there is an archive, hidden on Antuja VI. It contains many old records, some of which we left behind. It also contains some important artifacts for our families who used to live in this sector, the Neviin, the Kolash and the Xumar."

“You left them behind, though?"

“It happened quickly," Kanab explained. “If you managed to recover them, those prides would be quite indebted to you. I could tell you how to find them: the archive's location is a secret, but as an ally of the Dominion, I'd be willing to share its location."

David sensed that his captain was already considering the offer. “Is there a reason you haven't recovered them on your own? I imagine the system's guarded by its new owners?"

Kanab's paw flexed, showing off the huge daggers of the Uxzu's claws. “You don't question our honor, do you? The truth is that yes, the system is guarded—against us. An unfamiliar vessel would have a far easier time. And a warrior of your prowess, Madison May…"

And since, as she'd already said, they had no particular destination in mind, Madison allowed herself to take the bait. She smiled. “We'll see. Could be interesting—right, commander?"

May and David stayed behind to finish eating. Dr. Beltran took her leave, before any more biscuits could be shoved in her direction. To the leopardess's surprise, the alien Ayenni volunteered to return to the ship with her. “It's just going to be more war stories," she said.

“In all likelihood."

“And we have a new adventure to get ready for."

Beltran wasn't up for sharing the alien's immediate enthusiasm. “So it would seem. Do you know anything of the system?"

Ayenni shook her head. It wasn't a common gesture among her own species, the Yara, who communicated their emotions chiefly by varying the color of their thick fur. Since Yara were also telepathic, though, Ayenni had made a point of adapting to her new home. Head-shaking came with the territory.

“What about the Dominion?"

“We know them; we trade with them. They were not close enough to be a common presence in Yara space, though I gather they were once. We also aren't close enough that any Yara serve on their ships."

Felicia made a calculated decision to expose, if briefly, her sense of vulnerability. “Do you think he was being honest with us? Do you have any… insights?"

And Ayenni, who knew what Felicia was trying to ask even without having to read the leopardess's mind, laughed. “No. Your captain asked me this, too. Telepathy isn't that simple, Dr. Beltran. I think Commander May believes I can just look at an alien and say: captain, I feel he's hiding something. I'm detecting a strong sense of emotion."

“You cannot?"

“At least, it's more complex. I need to spend long enough with a species to figure out how to interpret their brainwaves." Ayenni didn't read the minds of the crew, not without consent, but her sense of intuition lent a slightly guilty emerald blush to her fur. “Can I speak openly, doctor?"

“Of course."

“I can't replace you. My knowledge of the region is helpful, and my talent for empathy is helpful, too—but I don't have your training. Your captain can't rely on me the way she can rely on you."

The leopardess briefly considered denying that obsolescence had been her reason for asking, but figured that if lying was futile with anyone, it would be futile with a telepath. “As you intuit, Ayenni, Commander May can be a somewhat difficult partner on these affairs. She believes in simple answers, even when they are not, in truth, nearly so simple."

Ayenni smiled kindly. “Yes. All the same, she has a good heart, and she's more thoughtful than we realize. We'll just need to work together, Dr. Beltran—that's all."

An early opportunity to do so presented itself less than a day after they left the starbase. Madison May had the Dark Horse on its new course, though she kept them below their maximum speed to give her time to figure out a plan. She called the staff together to that end, cleared the previous meeting's notes from the wall, and began:

“We're headed for the Antuja System. It's this one here, according to the Uxzu starcharts we were given." She pulled the map up, and pointed to the star in question. “At this distance, we don't have any information from our own sensors. Dr. Ayenni, is it familiar to you?"

The alien shook her head. “No, ma'am. It's in the general direction of the old Dominion, that's all."

“I'm still looking through the encyclopedia we got from Qalamixi," Barry Schatz added, referring to an ancient, living starship they'd encountered. The encyclopedia was so large there was no way to load it into their own computer; it had to be searched manually. “I've found a reference. It was taken over by the Dominion about three hundred years ago. With a bit of educated guessing, I'd say it represents some of the furthest extent of their territory."

“And then they lost it to interlopers?"

“Yes, that's right. The records don't say who, exactly. In this area, it seems quite logical to believe that the Uxzu have been fighting the same raiders as before. It's hard to determine that with any certainty, but what Qalamixi and the Uxzu call Uwanej have been a thorn in their side for a long time."

“And we don't know anything about them. Uwanej—the Wanesh, right?"

Ayenni froze at once. “Say that again?" Everyone turned to look at the alien, who had become suddenly, acutely aware that she was native to the region and they were not. Her fur darkened. “The Yanokal?"

“Perhaps?"

She explained what she could, ignoring the looks of increasing dismay. Her people, the Yara, called the strange beings Yanokal, from some ancient root that led the Uxzu to call them Wanesh and older beings still to call them the Uwanej. Nobody knew where their homeworld was, if indeed they had one. Nobody knew what they looked like, if indeed they had physical form beneath their bulky armor.

“In Yara mythology, the Yanokal gives us edesh-kiin-yanokai." Her fur flickered to the shade of azure that, in her language, gave the phrase its dark meaning. “It is how the universe will end: consumed. Our people and planet devoured, our star extinguished… they are not to be crossed."

Madison May folded her paws together, because that sounded like a challenge to her. “Have you crossed them?"

As a matter of politeness, Ayenni tried to avoid reading minds when not invited. She didn't have to, though, to see the look on the akita's face. The blue became more vibrant along with the alien's sense of dread. “Not directly. But everyone has heard stories."

Barry Schatz brought up another entry from the Dark Horse archives. “We rescued that Uxzu dreadnought from their raiders, too. Qalamixi's codex is even older. From what I can tell, the Wanesh appeared maybe twenty thousand years ago and they've been a constant presence ever since. Actually, now that I think about it…"

Commander May sensed that he was about to start rambling and held her paw up. “Hold on."

For once, the Border Collie thought he was on solid ground. “Ah. Commander. Permission to speak freely, though? I think it might be important."

Warily, May nodded. “Fine."

“Dr. Beltran and I have talked about this a few times. We both find it puzzling that there aren't any well-established polities in the sector. The Dominion is the closest, but they've been on the wane for centuries. It almost seems as though something has kept the civilizations here from flourishing. Almost like they're being… pruned. These Wanesh aren't even very well-organized."

When he paused for breath, Ayenni took advantage of the opportunity. “They're not. We never thought of them that way, either. They aren't like invaders, or a hostile army. More like an earthquake, or a storm, or a fire. They appear, take everything; disappear again. They can't be predicted or resisted or…"

“And they might be holding on to this planet?"

Uncomfortable looks greeted the akita. “Yes," Barry said, at last.

Madison tapped her claws together, thinking—contemplating more thoroughly than her crew might've assumed. “Thank you. You're dismissed all. Commander Bradley, please remain." She kept thinking while the others filed out.

Officially, the golden retriever was the ship's executive officer. Really, his assignment was keeping Maddy on a reasonably short leash. She was pulling at it now, he could tell. “They don't sound like good neighbors, do they?"

“No," the akita agreed, shaking her head. “That's why we need to go."

“There's a logical step I'm missing, isn't there?"

“We have a job to do here, don't we? Exploration, all that good stuff? Then we'd better know what we're getting into."

Dave had to admit it was clearer logic than he'd feared from the akita. “Yes, that's fair enough."

With his consent, Maddy ordered her ship taken to normal cruising speed, and they made good time. As they approached, she brought them to their duty stations, keeping everyone on alert. She didn't know what to expect. Nobody did. “Rig us for silent running," the akita decided aloud. If the planet's occupiers really were on the lookout for Dominion ships, they could sneak in unnoticed to gather more information.

Leon Bader opened his muzzle to protest. He didn't want to power down their weapons, and he definitely didn't want to de-energize the cruiser's shields. But for the moment, and in the hope that discretion might prove to be the better part of valor, he said nothing. “Aye, captain. Shields down, weapons safe, and countermeasures deployed."

Over at CCI, Spaceman Alexander checked her readouts and waited for the icon to appear indicating they were safe. “Radiation is within limits, captain. With any luck, they won't see us."

Madison counted the last few seconds of the journey down. “Helm, drop out of hyperspace."

The Dark Horse jumped into the system with suitably professional precision, a million kilometers from their target. May didn't have to order the planet projected on the viewscreen: Alexander did that automatically. Not that they could tell much about the planet at a glance. It was dark green.

“Tactical report."

Leon did what he could with only passive sensors. “The planet is surrounded by a satellite constellation, captain. I imagine it's a defensive grid: there are thousands of them, each slightly larger than our ship."

“Spectroscopy suggests they're probably of an Uxzu design, originally," Barry added. “They share hull alloys."

“What kind of weapons?" May was suitably and appropriately concerned about what sort of defenses the cruiser was hurtling towards. “Can you tell anything?"

“Not… immediately, no, ma'am."

May knew that the Uxzu Dominion used a diverse mix of weapons, but the dreadnought they'd first encountered had been designed to counter beam weapons—it had a massive thermal absorption capacity. It seemed like a safe assumption that anyone repurposing the grid would have found a different tactic. Missiles? Plasma bolts?

Ensign Bader immediately recognized his captain's deduction, when she voiced it, and did his best to keep up. “I'll be on the lookout for any kind of sublight weapons guidance systems."

In the same way that the grid was designed to fight the Uxzu, it was designed to detect them: the Dark Horse slipped by without incident, and May ordered the ship into a low orbit until they could precisely determine the location of the archives they were looking for.

This also let them see more of the planet. Most of it, where they could see it through the clouds, was thickly jungled; occasionally, though, deep scars had been gouged in the landscape, stretching kilometers down towards the core. In places, it was possible to see glowing, liquid rock. Barry said he didn't think they were natural features, though he admitted that it was 'only' intuition and he couldn't really back it up.

Maddy wanted a closer look. David protested, because he didn't like the sound of that, but a command structure was still a command structure, and once they'd identified the site of the Uxzu archives May was not to be dissuaded. She took one of their shuttles down, with Eli Parnell flying. Leon Bader and Sabel Thorsen, who served as an ersatz security officer, provided escort.

“Coming up on our landing site, captain. It's in this valley up here, just to our right…"

May leaned forward in her harness, looking through the open cockpit windows. “Rather atmospheric, isn't it?" She didn't mean literally, although this was also true: the clouds were low, heavy and grey. “Not much visibility."

“No," Lieutenant Parnell agreed. She flipped a switch on her panel, and the cockpit windows switched to a false-color projection: less atmospheric, but a hell of a lot easier to fly by. “One minute to landing."

The archive didn't really take much finding, per se; the bare, rocky landing pad was hard to miss. Parnell brought them down on it gently, and ran a quick final check on the air to make sure it was breathable. This was Ensign Bader's cue to ask for permission to run a tactical survey.

Madison, though, was impatient. “Later. Remember, the less time we spend here, the better." She let Sabel Thorsen, wearing his powered armor, take point in the hope it would salve Leon's paranoid nerves.

The hypothesis turned out to remain untested, becoming irrelevant a dozen steps later. “Freeze! Drop your weapons!"

Maddy and Eli Parnell were unarmed anyway. Leon was, and froze instinctively without taking the second step. Sabel Thorsen did neither. He was not inclined to obey orders from anyone outside his chain of command—besides which, he knew what they were up against.

Sensors in his suit identified the direction the voice had come from. They found an anomalous electromagnetic signal there and immediately matched it against five more similar signals, in a rim around the clearing. The suit talked to implants in his brain, the implants talk to protective instincts, and in a quarter of a second he had a firing solution on all six of their enemy.

“Who are you?" May called out.

“Drop your weapons," the voice repeated.

“I can disable them," Thorsen told his captain: simply, and without lowering his voice, so that the ambushers could hear also. They looked to be using plasma lances, and considering the size of the power assembly and cooling fins Sabel's suit told him they'd need at least a second to charge up fully. “Extremely high probability of complete destruction before they can open fire. I await your orders, captain."

“I'd like it not to come to that." All the same, the akita felt a little better that they had the option. With her wits recovered, she straightened up and padded to Thorsen's side. “Come out where we can talk?"

After a tense few seconds, one of them did. Dragon, was her first thought. The creature had scales over most of its body, and what she took at first to be vestigial wings. When it raised its arm, though, still warily holding a weapon, the wing unfolded into a feather-downed membrane that stretched from its hand to its waist. Perhaps it was not so vestigial after all.

The alien focused the larger pair of its slitted eyes on the akita; two smaller eyes, further to the side of its head, seemed more interested in the other Star Patrol crew. “What… are you?" it rasped, at last. “Agents of the Wanesh? You don't speak their language."

Had Dr. Beltran been around, the leopardess could've pointed out to Madison May the noteworthy convenience of their immediate, mutual intelligibility. But she wasn't there, and May was too used to conveniences to notice, or to ask what language they did seem to be speaking. “I'm Commander Madison May, of the Star Patrol—we're from a civilization many light years away."

“How did you find us?"

“We were asked to retrieve something from this planet. In the archives back… there." She pointed behind her, at the closed door.

One of the other aliens stepped forward, and hissed quietly into its leader's ear. The first alien opened its mouth, revealing two rows of dagger teeth. “'Retrieve'? So you are working for the Wanesh. Well, they don't need to know that their spies have been captured…"

“We're not spies. And you? You're—"

“Eight. I am the Eighth, of cell Hyarra."

“That's your name?"

Its secondary eyes shut, giving the impression of a weary answer to a foolish question. “Your benefactors don't permit us names."

“I told you, we're not working for the Wanesh. We're from the Terran Confederation."

“Yet you come armed to this site, clad in armor like Wanesh and wielding energy weapons like Wanesh. It is a bit strange, perhaps, that you are biological…"

“Trickery," the alien who seemed to be second-in-command proposed. “A new tactic."

“We're soldiers," Leon suggested, trying to be helpful. “That's why we're armed."

“Explorers, really." May appreciated the German shepherd's eagerness, but wanted to present a more peaceful front. “We were looking for an artifact. We don't want trouble. Just… things. The Blade of Kamen-Khol, the… uh…"

Eight and its second in command had frozen in place. They turned to one another, and had a brief, hissing argument in their own language. Eight opened all four eyes, and leaned close so that the akita could see her reflection in each of them. “What do you know of the blade?"

“Nothing, really. It's an important artifact for the Neviin Pride, who I gather used to control this planet. The, ah, the Uxzu. The Dominion."

Eight stepped away, and another argument ensued. Then it shifted into a quieter, slower conversation. Then Eight stared at Madison until she started to become uncomfortable. “Nobody should know of the blade except one of the Dominion. And you speak like them… but…"

That also explained why they'd been able to understand Eight from the beginning. “We're allies. Well… friends, of a sort. I don't know what it means to be friends with the Uxzu, but we saved a Kolash ship from the Wanesh and then someone of the Neviin Pride asked us to retrieve a few things from this planet. I don't know more than that, but…"

The alien said nothing, but turned and walked briskly to the door of the archives. Without a word, it waved its hand quickly; the door slid open. Inside were two more of the aliens—and beyond that…

“This doesn't look like an archive." Leon wasn't above saying the obvious when he thought it might be helpful for comprehension. “It looks like an armory."

Eight led them inside, down hallways adorned with yet more weaponry, and sturdy crates that the Star Patrol crew guessed—accurately—to be full of explosives and ammunition. The alien turned to a side room, dark, and full of shabbier boxes. Keeping one eye fixed on Madison, Eight reached into the closest box, and held up a dull silver knife. “It was Overenforcer Neviin Khamen's."

It had the blunt shape and rough size of something used to spread butter. “Not quite what I was expecting," she said. “A ceremonial weapon? I…"

“Cutlery," Eight told them. “It split the sacrificial loaf at the marriage of Neviin Khamen and Neviin Khol, unifying their pride. You didn't know this? You don't know anything of them. We do. It's absurd that anyone but a Neviin would care about this…"

“Yet they do." The other alien finally spoke in a language they could understand. “It seems you may be telling the truth. Perhaps we should as well."

“I'd like that."

Antuja was once a mining planet. Before that, Eight said, it was simply a planet; its people were native to the system. “We were vassals to the Uxzu for centuries. They took our minerals, and they gave us protection. Technology. Governance. We weren't independent, but…"

A few minutes of exposition later, Eight got to the crux of the problem. When the Wanesh appeared, defeating the Uxzu, they lost their benefactors. And where the Dominion had been content to establish an indefinite relationship, the Wanesh seemed more interested in stripping as much as they could, as fast as they could.

“Our science officer saw some of that, I guess. Deep mines, all the way down to molten rock…"

“Our planet is a natural source of what the Uxzu called iliadium, with unusually high fractions of its stable isotopes. The radiation interferes badly with Wanesh technology, so they only come down rarely."

“It interferes with us, too," the other alien added. “But we're expendable."

In only three decades, much of the planet had been laid to ruin. The atmosphere was filled with dust, enough to disrupt almost all agriculture; the remaining population survived on meager supply drops, in proportion to the minerals they exported. “We are losing," Eight said. “In only a few years, there won't be anything left of us."

“But if the Wanesh can't mine this without your help…"

The dragon-shaped creature—in her own mind, May decided to simply taxonomic affairs and just think of it as a dragon—stared with all of its eyes. “Our planet once had a population of three hundred million."

“Or more," its assistant said. “Extrapolating from the total land area, and our agricultural capabilities, the carrying capacity must be even larger. Three billion, maybe."

“My companion Six is an optimist and a dreamer. Six is also analytical. How many of us would it take to maintain the current output of the mines?"

“Two hundred thousand. Based on the rate of our attrition, and our breeding cycles, and the exhaustion of our iliadium mines. Two hundred thousand now, one hundred thousand five years from now. Ten thousand five years after that."

“At which point they will have no use for us," Eight finished. “The mines will no longer be viable, our genetic diversity will collapse, and we will have nothing left."

“So you fight," the akita said. “I would, too."

“We hoped the Dominion would return, but it seems they cannot fight the Wanesh… or don't want to. We can't take the planet back on our own, but we can make them pay for every gram they extract from us." Eight went on to describe the consequences: reprisals in the form of executions, and withheld food shipments. And orbital bombardments, responsible for much of the pollution in the atmosphere.

May felt sick to her stomach. “You aren't the only ones this has happened to. It… somebody has to stop them."

“Who? Not us. Not without allies."

“The Dark Horse is only one ship. But… what could we do?"

“We're heavily armed." Leon Bader was proud of that fact, and hoped to allay any skepticism about the cruiser's capabilities. “Particle beams, deflector shields—"

“But only one ship, as your captain said. We can't fight, but we might escape. We have contacts in other resistance cells, responsible for over five hundred thousand civilians. We would not need to face down a Wanesh fleet for that, just to find enough civilian vessels for an evacuation."

Maddy ran some quick numbers in her head. “A few hundred, I guess. But the planetary defenses…"

“We have a plan for that. Our salvaged Dominion technology has allowed us to gain some important insights into the orbiting batteries, and the main communications array. We intend to reactivate the array to send a distress signal. Simultaneously, if we could get aboard one of the platforms, we could—"

“This is privileged information," Six interjected. “You could compromise the whole operation."

“What does it matter?" Eight asked the question rhetorically—bitterness obvious to the Terrans even through the universal translator. “You think we'll have another chance? If we could get aboard, we'd be able to upload new command software. It would turn the grid on itself. Yes, eventually the Wanesh would bring reinforcements, but we'd have days, at least, to evacuate as many civilians as we could."

“And you'd be hoping that somebody would hear your request for help. And that they'd be willing to help you. And that they'd get here in time."

Eight twitched, not out of any obvious disagreement but in acknowledgment of the fraught situation. “Yes."

“It's not a part of the galaxy where you can really count on others to help," Six added.

Madison May shook her head. “I disagree."

She saw echoes of her own relationships in the protest Six raised when she asked for one of them to accompany her back to the Dark Horse, and Eight agreed. Everyone else saw echoes in the way Eight ignored the protest altogether. May also ignored it and sent a message back, ordering her senior staff to be ready.

Aboard the Star Patrol cruiser, Eight turned its head slowly, taking in the hangar bay. “This is a starship… I knew they existed, but I never thought I'd be able to see one. They're not all like this, I'm sure."

“Nope. Most of them aren't as nice." May grinned, and led the way from the hangar towards her ready room, where the others waited. “Lieutenant Commander Dave Bradley, my XO. Dr. Felicia Beltran, our diplomat. Ayenni, our local expert on… local… things."

“Yara," Eight said. “Is it not so? That's what they call you?"

“Yes." Ayenni looked the alien over, and felt for its mind briefly enough to acquaint herself. “And you are Gauk. A very long way from Ur-Gauk, sir, if I may say." She was the first to have determined Eight's gender, though the others wouldn't pick up on that for a few minutes.

Eight clicked his long tongue against the innermost row of teeth. “I don't know that planet. We're native to this one—but we've always thought we had relatives in the stars. Otherwise it is a mystery how we emerged on Antuja. We're not like anything else there."

“But it's their home now." Madison wanted to direct the conversation to more immediately practical ends. “They're fighting a campaign against their occupiers. It's not going well, and they've asked for help from us."

As soon as she said 'it's not going well,' Beltran and Bradley both knew what was coming. Beltran did her best not to show any emotion, but it didn't take an empath to see the way the leopardess tightened her jaw. David decided to let her recover. “What kind of help do they need?"

Eight explained their limited heavy weaponry, and their complete lack of any means of transport or escape. He figured that finding transports was going to be easier than finding battleships. May hinted subtly that they had made contacts in the sector, and could conceivably use some of them to assemble an evacuation fleet.

“Anything," Eight said at last. “Anything you could do. Otherwise, we are a dying people."

He didn't look very healthy, for sure. Ayenni volunteered to examine him, and Madison wanted to talk to her staff alone. Shannon shook her head. “Got a soft heart, Mads." The raccoon didn't mean it insultingly, and perhaps not even chidingly. “Getting us involved in a thing like this."

“What they've suffered is inexcusable," the akita responded at once. “If we can help, we should see what would be possible. What do we know about Waneshan weapons technology?"

Leon hadn't been asked to prepare a report; he was ready anyway. “In our first encounter with the Uxzu, the raiding ships made extensive use of torpedoes and other sublight weapons. Their tactics involve oversaturating the ability of their target to respond."

“Presumably they'd be oversaturating our ability, too?"

Ensign Bader nodded to Lieutenant Commander Bradley, who'd asked the question with the intent of giving Leon a chance to explain further. “Yes, sir. Under best conditions, our point-defense batteries can protect us against twenty missiles a minute. Best conditions."

“Any way we can improve that?"

“Fortune-telling," May said. “Class-two MEI for any battery is only forty-five a minute, Dave; what do you want to do?" She'd been reading up on things like that, and trusted Bradley would read between the lines. Mean Estimated Intercept was a best-guess sort of thing. Every point-defense battery can take on 45 torpedoes per minute, and every angle is covered by at least two batteries.

The kind of word problem that looked nice in recruitment literature, as long as nobody asked what 'class two' munitions were, and nobody answered that they were munitions with limited to no guidance systems, approaching at a closure rate of under five kilometers per second. David worried the fur at the back of his neck. “Fair enough. Then we don't take fire, huh?"

“That's what taking down their orbital platforms is for. Shannon, what about the code they've got. Will it work? Can it work?"

“I guess," the raccoon allowed. Anything was possible, given sufficient time and generous interpretations of quantum mechanics. She had no reason to doubt Eight's research on the configuration of the orbital defenses. They operated autonomously, communicating through a mesh network that guaranteed some measure of reliability.

May kept going until she, at least, was satisfied. If they could find the ships to stage an evacuation, it would be possible to take the Wanesh by surprise, disable any protective measures, and be out again with minimal losses. She pointedly left 'minimal' undefined. “You have two hours, guys. Tell me what I'm overlooking. You're dismissed—Dave, Felicia, stay behind a moment."

The akita folded her paws together and waited until, with no further objections, the others left. 

When she finally spoke, it was to address the silence in the room as much as the two remaining crew. “I know you think I'm reckless and dangerous, and I jump to conclusions without thinking of the consequences. You don't have to say it, because I know it, too. It's why I trust you for your advice."

“Captain…" David started talking without knowing where he wished to end up. Introspection from May came too uncommonly for him to have experience with it. “Where advice is concerned…"

“This time, I'm not soliciting it. I could appeal to your sense of justice, or basic decency, but I won't patronize any of us like that. If we don't do something, this planet and everyone on it will die in the service of something so alien, so opposed to what we should stand for that… it won't happen. Not on my watch."

“Yes, ma'am," David said.

“Dr. Beltran? Do you have something to say about 'non-interference'?"

Despite the tone, identifying it clearly as a rhetorical question, the leopardess nodded. “I do. And you should listen, captain."

“Should I? Because from where I sit, looking at that planet, the non-interference principle—"

“Does not apply," Felicia interrupted, her voice level and soft. “The directive contains obvious exceptions where direct requests for help are concerned. I wrote a paper on the topic of establishing a framework for intervention on humanitarian grounds. I agree with you, Commander May, that it is important to defend our ideals. But we must understand why, how and where we do so."

“You're not going to tell me I'm going against every protocol in the codex?" May didn't mean to sound accusatory, only surprised, but the difference was slight where bureaucracy reared its head.

“I am asking you to consider, as you just said, the consequences. If we aid them in this task, there is nothing stopping the Wanesh from returning. I do not think they will take kindly to insurrection."

“'Give a man a fish,'" David muttered. He saw what their diplomatic liaison was getting at—a problem that was obviously larger than the ability of one star cruiser to solve. “The Wanesh have no incentive to abandon this planet. We might wind up making things worse for the ones who remain."

“Worse?"

“In the worst-case scenario, captain, you succeed in disabling the defensive grid. The Wanesh realize the planet cannot be held. They elect to deny it to anyone else, as a result."

May had been given a litany of the atrocities visited upon the Antujans. It didn't take long to realize how right the leopardess was. “True. It won't be great for the survivors."

“But if it's that or their extinction…"

The akita appreciated David trying to find the middle ground. It gave her time to figure out her own point of view. “Or we teach them to fish. We arm them to fight back. There are still Uxzu prides in this sector. They could form an alliance. Eight said they wanted it, but the Dominion hasn't been willing to take a stand to support a resistance movement on a surrendered planet."

“They'd say it's futile. Ayenni said it's futile."

Madison twisted her chair around, and projected a map of the system on the wall. Six thousand, nine hundred orbital platforms. The planet itself was a fortress, which explained the absence of patrol ships. In the short term, knocking out the grid would be enough. In the long run, the Wanesh didn't need it as a force multiplier; they were strong enough on their own. They'd been strong enough to take it in the first place.

David coughed. “You're not really making it sound easier, Madison."

“Never believe anyone who says something's futile, even resistance against an overpowering foe," the akita growled. “If they mean it, they've gotten cocky. If they don't mean it, they're bluffing." This was something she deeply and sincerely believed. Anyone in the mood to point out a cynical corollary might easily have turned it back on her.

May was not a cynic, though, and this tendency discouraged it in her crew. “You have an idea," David prompted. “How crazy is it? On a logarithmic scale from one to… you."

She pointed at the display on the wall. “The central communications hub. Eight said it's disused, so it must've been an Uxzu invention—a single point of failure. A weak point."

“We're counting on it, right? We're counting on them not being able to stop the propagation of the new command software."

May saw what David, for the moment, did not: even if the Wanesh weren't using the hub, they knew how it worked. “Clearly, they haven't fought the orbiting batteries." When David cocked his head, and echoed 'clearly?', Madison grinned. “They're still there. They don't show battle damage. The Wanesh must've taken them over when they attacked. Shut them down, just like we plan to do."

“Right?"

“So they could stop it. They will, as soon as they notice. Unless they were distracted. Say, unless they were distracted by a massive invasion fleet. Everything the Uxzu can commit, and us, and… all of our decoy drones."

Dave thought it through, and tried to put himself in the mind of a chess player. “Or they'd ignore us. As soon as we act on the defense grid, they'll notice. At that point, we wouldn't be a threat. We'd…"

He'd figured it out. “We'd be an opportunity. They could eliminate the Dominion presence in this sector once and for all—end the attacks on their cargo ships, attack any other colony with impunity… they'd be foolish not to ambush us. Right?"

“It's only an ambush if they know we're coming."

Maddy grinned wider, and called Spaceman Alexander in. The Abyssinian looked at their scans of the communications hub for less than a minute before deciding it would be easy to access. The encryption, she warned, wouldn't protect them for very long—implementing something like that on alien technology was a crapshoot.

“That's fine, as long as it works at all."

“Got it, then," Alexander said, and gave the akita a thumbs-up. “You should be good. But… keep it short, just in case."

Madison nodded her thanks, and indicated the door. When the Abyssinian had gone, she put the open channel up as a projection on the ready room wall. “Overenforcer Kanab, it's Commander May. We're at Antuja."

Kanab had his head tilted in mild surprise. “I know. We were surprised to see a signal on this old network. How does the chase fare, tiny hunter?"

“I have your blade. But we've also been contacted by the resistance. The natives—your former colony. They've been fighting the Wanesh ever since you left."

“Brave," Kanab said. “Foolish, but brave. If you're in communication, tell them the Neviin Pride will sing of their sacrifice for many long years."

“It isn't quite that simple. They asked us for help. I'm giving it to them. They've been able to reverse engineer the software used by your orbital defense grid, and they want to shut it down. We'd have a narrow window of opportunity, but we could help them. You could help them."

“To die?" Kanab didn't ask it dismissively; from all any of them could tell, it was a reasonable request on its own.

“Technically, to escape. They don't have ships—you do. We could manage, with your help, but I'd like to suggest we try something else. I think it's time we fight back. You've been ceding ground to the Wanesh for decades. Where does it stop?"

The Uxzu leaned back, away from the screen; his broad, thick-muscled arms crossed. “A good question, tiny hunter. Not one I can answer. You don't fight the Wanesh."

“So I hear. But—"

“There is nothing to be fought. They're made up of hundreds of packs—strike down one and two more learn their lesson and come after you. Their control of machines is unequalled, and they refuse to fight fairly."

Felicia, seeing May's unhappy expression, went for more conventional diplomacy. “Even if they refuse to fight fairly, you could. There would be honor in assisting your former vassals, Overenforcer Kanab. As there is honor in any good battle."

“Yes," he agreed. “But if I wish to die, it will be amongst new stars, tiny hunter—there is no honor in adding futile blood to an old battlefield. That's just foolhardiness."

“But your deeds—"

May appreciated Dr. Beltran's help—genuinely; enough that she'd try to remember to apologize, later, for cutting the leopardess off. “Kanab. They're not magic, Kanab. They're not like a supernova. Kanab. How do you deal with a bully?"

You stand up to them, was the answer Felicia and David expected. You go to the authorities, was the proper Star Patrol answer. Kanab cocked his head, puzzled. “A bully? As in school? Between children?"

“Yes. Yes, as in school. How do you deal with the self-proclaimed invincible tough guy. The one who intimidates, threatens, coerces—how do you deal with them? You—"

“Fashion an improvised weapon, ambush them on the playing field, and drive your blade into their throat."

“Well. I…"

“Sentence them, by your right of vengeance, to die choking on their blood, and as they draw their last breath tear the insignia of their pride from their chest and assume their role as leader of their team."

“Yes?"

“Pull a tooth from their still muzzle, and carve with it an oath against their line in the lintel of their tomb. But these are child's games, tiny hunter, and the Wanesh are no ball team."

May coughed. “I feel as though… I think this went more autobiographical than I intended. But the point is the same, overenforcer. If nobody ever pushes back, nothing ever changes. It could—here. And with your help, I have a plan."

“You have a plan without my help," he countered. His head canted; May had forwarded him her proposal. “More than an evacuation, indeed," Kanab said at last. “More than the Neviin Pride can contribute."

“You weren't the only ones at Antuja. The Kolash, the Xumar…"

“And others. I don't deny that it seems… not futile, Commander May, this plan you have."

“It would also be your best chance to recover those artifacts," Dr. Beltran reminded him. “Which was your first request."

“True. True, talkperson, and it would serve nicely for that. There would be honor there. Yet it still poses a question—not to you, talkperson; I appreciate your pragmatism, even more than your enforcer does. But you, Madison May: why?"

The akita saw no reason to mince words—appreciative of diplomacy though she might, theoretically, have been, May appreciated Uxzu bluntness more. “Because I don't like bullies. And we're new here, and I'll be damned if I let the first impression of my people be that we back down from a fight."

“You come dangerously close to implying that we are cowards, tiny hunter."

“I don't. I'd imply that if I thought for a moment that you wouldn't join us. But that's not in question, is it? Just the plan." As she said it, a message flashed in the corner of the image. Warning: possible commlink intrusion.

Oblivious, Kanab stared. First at May through the video link, then at something on his own ship—presumably the material she'd transmitted. His lip curled, first one side, then the other, drawing over sharp, very non-ceremonial fangs. “Very well," he said. “You have our backing."

“We need to be quick. They might be listening. We'll begin in twenty-four hours. It's not much, but with the element of surprise…"

When the link closed, a minute of minor practicalities later, Madison gave her first officer a pointed stare and dismissed the two. He knew what his orders were without being told; outside he took a deep breath, and tried cracking his knuckles to see if that made him feel any more determined. Dr. Beltran looked over at the sound, tilting her head. “Commander?"

“Trying to figure out what to do, doctor. I mean… practically, what to do."

“Likewise. There is not as much precedent as I would like. But I suppose that we are committed."

The retriever shook his head. “No. The resistance is committed. We're only dedicated, Dr. Beltran. Twenty-four hours," he reminded her—truthfully, he reminded both of them. On the walk down to main engineering, he went through a checklist in his head.

The Dark Horse was a warship, or had been designed as one once. Her systems were resilient, and tidy, and despite his reservations about Lieutenant Hazelton he did have to admit that the raccoon kept things in good working order. She promised him a twenty percent increase in reactor output, and a ten-minute power reserve in case the reactor failed. Check.

Lieutenant Eli Parnell, their lupine helmsman, had yielded the ship to autopilot and was in the astrogation lab, looking at a huge holographic projection of the planet and the defensive grid orbiting around it. She confirmed that they'd be able to maneuver as close as they liked: with the inertial compensators unlocked, the ship had more than enough thrust to turn at speed in and out of the grid's line of fire. Check.

Ayenni was in her quarters, floating. Ever since she'd discovered the artificial gravity controls, she'd switched it off completely in her cabin. Potted flowers drifted lazily around her. She watched him in the doorframe and smiled. Her fur shifted color, her eyes closed, and the alien settled back to the ground along with the plants.

“Miss Hazelton designed a link between the room's environmental computer and my thoughts," she explained. “I am still practicing. But getting better."

“Captain May says…" The door slid shut behind him, and Ayenni nodded for him to continue. “We're going to help the resistance. She intends to attack."

She nodded again. “I know. The change in mood has been… palpable."

“I imagine that you don't agree. I know how strong your pacifist inclinations are."

Ayenni, posed on her knees in the center of the room, stayed quiet, and motionless. Her tufted tail curled, at last, into a small loop. “Come here?" she asked.

He approached. She held out her paw. The empath tended to eschew physical contact, at least with those she didn't trust—her people weren't very tactile, and the sensations overwhelmed her easily. But when he placed his paw atop hers, she grasped it firmly. David's vision darkened, and the feeling of unacknowledged apprehension receded like a broken wave.

“Your… I misspeak. Our captain has a good heart, David. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy. Sometimes we can't please all the masters who exert a claim on us. But I know you trust her. You don't have to justify that to me."

“And you?" he asked quietly. “Do you trust her?"

Out of everyone on the Dark Horse, Ayenni was fondest of the retriever. Even more than his captain, he was fundamentally good-natured. He believed in the cosmic arc of justice, and he saw his place in it, and she enjoyed the time she spent with the dog. They were close—but not close enough that she would slip into his thoughts without asking, and so she spoke aloud instead. “I'm here, aren't I? Of course I do."

Check.

Sabel Thorsen, as a genetically engineered and thoroughly programmed soldier, was good at many things. He was good at calculating ballistics trajectories, good at determining the proper amount of force to physically disable an opponent, good at running, good at advanced mathematics, and good at understanding machines.

He was not particularly good at moral problems or philosophy. The Ulver Boarding Contingency Unit—he'd been engineered from scratch, and only looked like a spitz because his designer had been dating one at the time—was intended to remain in cold storage on a warship, and to be deployed in an emergency in the event of close-quarters combat. His programming, therefore, divided the world into threats and non-threats.

“The Wanesh are a threat," he said. “The ship's captain has identified them as such."

“That isn't exactly what I asked, though." Ensign Bader checked his harness straps for the last time. “I asked if you were ready for this."

“It is not a question of readiness, my friend. It must be done." He started the shuttlepod's engines. “Bridge, this is Shuttle 4. We are ready to depart. Please open the bay doors."

They slid open at once. “Cleared for takeoff. Good luck."

There were three of them on the shuttle: Sabel, Leon and Shannon Hazelton. The raccoon was the only important one—she knew this because, when they boarded, Sabel told her so bluntly. The captain has identified you as the sole mission-critical component. I have tuned my survival directives accordingly. We will sacrifice ourselves if necessary to accomplish your task.

Uh, Leon had said.

“Are you friends?" Shannon now asked. Sabel was more of an enigma to her than anything else. “You have friends?"

“Ensign Bader is my closest boyfriend," the spitz told her with a nod. In the copilot seat of the shuttle, Leon twitched, reminding Sabel of the subtleties of language. “My friend who is male. We are not a romantic couple."

“Ah, yes." Shannon, who viewed Leon Bader as his own kind of enigma, nodded as though she understood.

“We haven't copulated." Sabel badly misread the silence from his passengers. “It is not Ensign Bader's fault. I believe that he rightly understands that my programming was incomplete in non-tactical affairs. Perhaps during the next refit, I will see if there is a firmware update for my model—though I think it unlikely, given our obsolescence. There are no references to later versions of the operating system in your computer databanks."

Shannon glanced between Sabel, busy piloting the shuttle, and Leon, busy studying the control panel with his brow furrowed in pointless concentration. “You could just ask him to show you. It probably wouldn't take that long."

“An expedient solution, but it is not within his official responsibilities. Perhaps during a recreational period. Ensign Bader, our next off-duty cycle will coincide on stardate 66564.5. There will be a four-hour overlap, during which I had intended to study late-23rd century starship tactics. However…"

“It's a long way off," Leon managed. “We have a job to do before then."

“True. You see the difficulty," Sabel did his best to explain to the bemused raccoon. “However, if we are not obliterated, I shall attempt to find sufficient time on our schedule."

“Maybe we'll finish up early here." Shannon deadpanned the suggestion to cover up her nerves. The raccoon didn't know how long it would take. All they needed to do was gain access to the platform's computer, install the update code, and wait for the virus to carry it to the rest of the network. If everything went well, it was a five-minute job. If it didn't… 

Despite traveling slowly, avoiding any attention, they arrived at their destination before the engineer managed to talk herself out of any lingering concerns. Sabel, not a creature given to concern by his nature, guided their shuttle to a matching orbit, drifting around the platform so they could investigate it from the outside.

“There is a boarding hatch on the lower level of the orbital platform. And one slight problem." She leaned forward in the cockpit, pointing to the airlock's location for Sabel's benefit.

It was too large; he saw that clearly. Even short Uxzu were still two meters tall, and well-built; they couldn't easily fit through small hatchways. This was too large to make a good seal.

The others suited up, in preparation for a brief spacewalk. Sabel's armor handled this for him, and he continued his job piloting. He brought them up alongside, fired a magnetic grappling hook to secure them to the platform, and waited for the raccoon to test the control codes she'd been given.

The hatch opened: a good first step.

Even better, the inside of the platform was an exact match for Shannon's blueprints. Whatever modifications the Wanesh made were to the weaponry, which was entirely controlled from the topmost level. The computer console responded to her credentials, too. “Progress," she said. It would take a minute or so to start up. “Tacit, this is Copper Branch. Step one confirmed."

“Understood. Tacit out."

Shannon watched the computer screen for a few seconds, then tuned her communicator to the proximity mode. “What's 'Copper Branch,' anyway? That's a dumb name. Why don't we have cool callsigns?"

“Don't want them to be meaningful," Leon explained. “It might give something away to the enemy."

“Yeah, but. Why not… like… Fireshark? Don't I look like a 'Fireshark' to you? Sabel, back me up here."

Their faces were all obscured by helmets, depriving Sabel of any way to read body language. “I do not know what that creature is. If it pleases you, yes. However, I would advise that we not attempt to change our communication protocols during the mission."

The raccoon shook her head sadly. Copper Branch? Really? The system was up. She plugged her suit's computer into it and started work. Alien technology could be fiddly, even with full documentation—and while the Uxzu had given her such documentation, they weren't the kind of species to prioritize good technical writing.

Leon and Sabel watched her work in silence. Sabel glanced around at the other pieces of machinery inside the platform, only some of which were recognizable. Leon kept an eye on the raccoon. “How's it coming, ma'am?"

Shannon glanced at him, and glared, though the gesture was lost in her space-suit. “Coming. You want me to, what, give you a blow-by-blow? Do you need this exposited?"

“Might be helpful."

The radio carried her snort clearly. “Fine. I've established a commlink between us and the mesh network. We're plugged in to the system. I'm confirming that the update compiles properly on this hardware—it's about seventy percent complete. Ninety. Done."

“We're ready, then?"

'Ready' was a relative term. The code they'd planted would remain dormant until the platform restarted and went through its update cycle. This gave them one big advantage: with luck, nobody would know they'd done anything until it was too late. On the other hand, it required the Wanesh to play along. That was out of Shannon's court. She reopened their channel to the Dark Horse. “Tacit, this is Copper Branch. Standing by to execute plan Clarinet."

“Tacit. Confirmed. Go."

Shannon tapped the key to transmit the last command. Their system update was starting to spread, node by node. Each platform received the update, queued it to be deployed on the next power cycle, and transmitted it to its nearest neighbors. Only one thing slowed the geometric propagation, and that was the sheer number of platforms. Couldn't be helped.

Back on the cruiser's bridge, Madison May gave the order to take the Dark Horse closer to the network's communication hub. They stayed at silent running, with their shields and weapons switched off. David Bradley, having taken Leon's place at the tactical console, found that something about the position made him just as paranoid as the shepherd had been.

“Two minutes to intercept," Eli Parnell called out. According to the plan, they'd wait until only fifteen seconds remained in order to bring up their shields and weapons, hoping for the element of surprise.

With seventy seconds on the clock, Spaceman Alexander was the first to discover they'd already lost it. “Captain, we're being hailed—from the comms center."

Madison straightened up. “Put it through." Simultaneously she sent a command to activate one of their decoys, designed to send out the same signals and radiation as the Dark Horse herself.

“An intriguing vessel," the voice that filled the bridge said. It was low, uninflected to the point that they couldn't tell if it was synthetic or merely a natural monotone. “You must be the famous Dark Horse."

“Yes. I'm Commander Madison May, of the Star Patrol."

“Sneaking," the voice replied. “Trying to hide. We have not properly encountered your technology before, Commander May—but how stupid did you think we were?"

“That remains to be seen. My country, the Terran Confederation, believes strongly in the sovereign affairs of others—but only to a point. What you're doing here, and what you've done here… it stops now. I'm offering you a chance to peacefully withdraw from the planet and to grant the Antuja their independence."

“You think we are very, very stupid indeed, then. Your 'Confederation' is not here, Commander May. You are here. Alone. You think that I am alone… have you heard that about the Wanesh? Do you know us? I'll tell you the story so your Uxzu friends don't have to. There is no Wanesh. There are tens of thousands—each pack in vicious combat with its fellows. The fittest survive. I survive. Evolution, Commander May."

“Evolution," she echoed. “It's brought you to this point?"

The voice broke into grating, static-white-noise laughter. “Sacrifice. It has forged us into the sharpest blade. Because when we are threatened, all those packs fade away. We know when there are greater stakes. Again: how foolish do you think we are? This foolish?"

Spaceman Alexander muted the radio channel. “The decoy. They've destroyed it."

“We see where you are, too," the voice said. “We intercepted and decoded your transmission. The Uxzu battlefleet will arrive in precisely one hundred and seven seconds. Ours? Oh. Oh, yes, Commander May…"

The channel had stayed muted. Alexander sucked in her breath sharply. “Commander. We have… multiple contacts."

“On screen."

One by one, more of them appeared—first half a dozen, then twenty, then seventy ships. David Bradley, desperately trying to remember every bit of his tactical training from the Academy, sorted them quickly. “Ninety Waneshan warships have just emerged from hyperspace, commander. Most of them are small—corvette-sized raiders of the same configuration we've found before."

Most. The largest, on which May's attention focused immediately, was a crystal-faceted obelisk nearly twenty kilometers in length. The akita reopened the communications channel manually, from the controls on her chair. “Impressive. Quite a diverse array of ships you've got there…"

“Unfortunately, you will not see them in action. You're a troubling variable, Commander May. Trust, at least, that the technology we salvage will live on in the Wanesh."

A new message appeared at the akita's console. Done. “Red alert. Shields and weapons to full—tactical, lock in the enhanced shields. And target that comms hub—see how they like not being able to talk, with those big damn mouths of theirs…" She hadn't bothered to close the channel; it didn't really matter if the Wanesh heard.

David had everything properly queued up, and Shannon's preplanning had been thorough and precise. “Shields up. Weapons standing by. Modified deflectors are ready, captain."

“Evasive maneuvers!"

Something in the flat tone of the alien voice gave the impression of even greater contempt than an outright sneer might've done. “I told you, commander. We know where you are. Open fire."

This was clearly an order to someone else; a second later a flash on David's console announced the impact of a beam weapon against their deflectors. They lived up to their name—bouncing the energy right back to its source, while the cruiser sailed on unharmed.

“Sir, we just lost Platform A2717. They… destroyed it somehow." “How?" “A… An energy reflector of some kind." The Wanesh hadn't bothered to close their channel either. “Remodulate the beam frequency and fire again." “One at a time? We—" “You fool. Don't you see? They have to precisely tune it to every station. Even a tiny variation would be enough. Send a signal to have the grid randomize its frequencies." “We'll have to restart the grid! It'll take—"

“FTL signatures, captain," Alexander called out. “Twenty-nine Uxzu warships on an intercept course."

“Do it anyway," the Waneshan voice snarled. “Order the fleet to attack!"

“You sound busy," Maddy said. “I'll let you take care of that."

They were being hailed again, anyway. “Tiny hunter!" the speaker boomed. “We meet again."

Madison swiped her paw over the arm of her chair, switching the forward viewscreen to a tactical display. “Overenforcer Xabok!" She tried to greet them just as warmly, despite the distraction. “We meet again, yes. The Wanesh are resetting their defensive grid. We have about ninety seconds."

In the meantime, the number of Waneshan contacts multiplied precipitously. “They're launching drones. Dozens of them." David was, indeed, speaking prematurely. Every ship seemed to have its own complement of attacking craft. “I wasn't expecting them to take the bait quite so hard…"

May scanned the viewscreen. One tiny cruiser and two dozen antiquated Uxzu dreadnoughts on the one hand; ninety Wanesh ships and nine hundred drones on the other. She curled her lip. “Well," she growled. “At least we won't have to share targets, will we?"

“Eight corvettes and fifty drones have turned on an intercept course. Seventy thousand kilometers and closing."

“Flank speed ahead. Rig for anti-fighter ops and fire at will—helm, attack pattern Pollux, and unlock maneuvering restrictions on my authority."

Eli Parnell's last job, before she was transferred to barge duty, had been steering the patrol ship Cordillerran. Technically, steering it straight into a communications relay, thanks to a minor flaw in the control design. Prior to coming aboard the Dark Horse, the wolfess would've flatly refused the order. Even after a month under May's command, she would've raised a very precise, highly logical protest.

Pollux was an attack pattern designed for strike craft. It was proscribed for larger vessels, on the grounds of safety. Line warships just couldn't maneuver like that. Everyone knew that! Everyone except Commander May. Eli grabbed her controls tightly, and twisted the throttles to their limits. “Aye, captain!"

A few of the drones opened fire, and discovered the same thing as the defense platform when the reflected energy annihilated them. The rest opened fire, and the Dark Horse raced past at breakneck speed. Parnell took them by one of the platforms at six kilometers a second and a hundred meters' clearance, then wrenched the cruiser in a hard turn to swing them just as close by another.

They were biding time.

Leon had an open datalink back to the ship, but could only watch the battle unfold. There wasn't anything else to do; the lights were off in the platform while it restarted. She's good, he thought, of Parnell. Twitchy, but good. The Waneshan pursuers had non-energy weapons, the shepherd knew; they were holding their fire to avoid risking collateral damage.

“Well?" Shannon prompted the distracted shepherd. 

“You want me to exposit?"

“Might be helpful."

The opening exchange of long-range fire between the main Uxzu and Wanesh fleets cost two Uxzu cruisers and a half-dozen Waneshan frigates. The drones weren't yet in range. “That will be tough to counter. Uxzu ships have plenty of point-defense capacity, but there's so many of them…" Leon thought the same thing that their first officer had. He hadn't expected the Wanesh to take the bait so hard.

“Are they evenly matched?"

“No." A second salvo seemed to have disabled the Tamar, Overenforcer Kanab's flagship. Command of the Dominion fleet had evidently passed elsewhere while the Tamar drifted out of control, with none of its abundant weapons returning fire.

“What about us? How's the Dark Horse?"

“I count thirty Waneshan ships with a firing solution, but the window's so small she's evading their lasers. For now." He couldn't tell about the future. The Uxzu were outnumbered and outgunned. Every loss they took increased the pressure on their captain. 

The lights came back on. Shannon's ears perked inside her suit. “Go time," she said. “Tacit, it's Copper Branch. Any time, boss."

The platform lights brightened, and its reactor sang out in a deep, ominous hum. Targeting scanners switched on. Capacitors charged. High-precision beam-steering controllers listened, waiting for a command. Like every other part of the defense grid, it was looking for prey.

“The grid's back online," David reported. “Imminent weapons fire."

“Cross your fingers." May said it for his benefit; the akita didn't bother trusting in luck of that sort.

The nearest stations all opened up at once, and half of the drones chasing them disappeared into a hail of angry plasma and machinery daydreaming of a future career as a meteor shower. Where the two main fleets clashed, ten seconds before the Waneshan drones were close enough to contribute they met a similar fate.

“Take us about." Twenty-two remaining Dominion warships now faced down seventy of the Wanesh. Then sixty-eight. Then sixty-five. With the Wanesh caught between their erstwhile friendly orbital defenses and the decidedly unfriendly Uxzu, the situation was starting to become a lot more evenly matched.

“Tacit, Copper Branch. We're picking up a new signal from the comms hub. They're trying to send a shutdown command to the grid. For now, they're locked out, but…" Something in the raccoon's tone, even without being able to see her face, put a time limit on that reassurance.

Madison took a second to examine the main viewscreen, and its messy virtual summary of the pitched and increasingly chaotic battle. “Helm: right ten, down seven. There's a hole opening in the Wanesh line." At least, intuition told her there would be by the time the cruiser got there.

Eli didn't see it, but sometimes a leap of faith did a wolf good, and she plotted the course obediently. Sure enough, in the forty-five seconds it took to close the distance one of the Waneshan squadrons had maneuvered to give them a clear line of approach.

“Target the communications hub, attack pattern alpha."

Dave would never have described himself as 'getting the hang of' the ship's weapons systems, but the huge structure made for an easy problem. “Firing solution ready. Particle cannons and torpedoes standing by."

“Got it," Lieutenant Parnell told him; the firing solution had been added to her course projections. “Framing maneuver in twenty, ten on primary." In fact the comms relay was so massive that they could've had many more than ten seconds to hit it—were they not traveling at quite such a clip.

It didn't really matter; David knew it wouldn't take more than a single second, let alone ten. He waited for the countdown. “Helm, switch interlock."

“Tactical interlock set."

The golden retriever used his brief control over the ship's helm to align them the fraction of a degree it took. “Firing…" Outwardly there was no drama, not from the particle beams nor from the fusion torpedoes. Mass counted for a lot in space. But it was enough to disable the hub's main transmitter: Hazelton reported that the orbital network was no longer being sabotaged by anyone but the good guys.

At this point, the Wanesh began to understood that survival of the fittest could be a rather loaded phrase. The next report from Spaceman Alexander was not of weapons fire, but the distinctive signature of hyperdrives as less dedicated Wanesh vessels made good their escape. Seeing their allies fleeing, the largest dreadnought was charging its FTL drive as well.

“Firing solutions on their flagship," Madison May barked a sharp order. “Attack pattern Alfa. Helm, intercept at flank speed."

Here orbital maneuvering presented a problem. The fastest way to the enemy flagship wasn't directly in their line of sight—they were carrying excess momentum along a perpendicular vector, and the maneuvering thrusters on the Dark Horse weren't enough to cancel it out. Eli Parnell slewed them over and pushed the throttles forward. “Intercept course plotted. Engines answering flank speed."

“Firing solutions ready." Lieutenant Commander Bradley trusted that Parnell and May understood the complication—Alfa was a straight-in attack pattern, making the best use of the forward-facing particle beams. They were not flying straight in.

“Framing maneuver in sixty-five, eight on primary," the wolfess at the helm told him.

“They'll jump by then," May realized. “Engineering, this is the bridge. I need more power."

TJ Wallace was laid-back, and a born gambler, but to gamble you needed chips. “Yeah, uh. You have what I've got, cap. We're way past redline anyway—gonna start losin' systems here. Sorry," he added over the commlink, through a last-minute realization that he was supposed to say something other than denying her request.

May tapped her control interface to bring up an overlay showing the effective range of the ship's cannons. The akita was about to gamble herself when Spaceman Alexander interrupted. “Captain. The dreadnought Tamar is hailing us."

“On screen."

The Tamar's bridge seemed substantially worse for wear than their own. Overenforcer Kanab stood proudly, nonetheless. “Tiny hunter. I wish to offer you my thanks. On behalf of the Neviin Pride."

“You're… welcome?"

“Captain." Alexander saw what May could not. “The Tamar is on an intercept course with the Wanesh flagship."

May's ears lowered. “Overenforcer, you—"

“You were right," Kanab said, interrupting. “The Dominion could be great again. But we must take our destiny into our own hands." He raised his, the right paw curling into a fist that showed off his huge claws.

“It isn't quite what I meant."

The Uxzu captain merely grinned. “They will sing of this. They will sing of you. Subenforcer Panak, maximum thrust!"

He'd shouted it off-screen; an off-screen voice answered. “But the engines won't—"

“Ramming speed, Panak!"

And the channel closed. At the last minute, someone on the Waneshan flagship ran the numbers and realized they wouldn't be able to jump in time. A barrage of lasers and cluster missiles and railguns and bad language showered the Tamar. Most of them missed. Some of them didn't. Some of them punched clean through the dreadnought. A particularly good laser strike, unreflected, ablating more than a ton of hull.

This left 1,599,999 tons of dreadnought, traveling at Antuja orbital speeds and without a care in the world. Like a surly, snarling meteor it slammed into the enemy flagship. The shields buckled immediately, followed by the rest of the hull, followed by a sudden and dramatic inversion of the building FTL field. Ten percent of the flagship's mass took advantage of the opportunity to become hard radiation, making them the only things to escape before the rest of both ships blew apart a quarter of a second later.

“Survivors?" David asked, cautiously and futilely. Even as far away as the Dark Horse had been, their deflector shields had felt the electromagnetic components of the blast. So had more than a few of the defense platforms, either inoperative or completely destroyed.

Madison kept staring at the destruction on the viewscreen. “Probably not, Dave. Unless you believe in an afterlife, and I bet they're happier there. It looks the rest of the Wanesh are happier somewhere else, too. The Dominion can mop up what's left. Let's order our team back and meet up with whoever's still in charge of the Uxzu."

“Um." The simple, empty statement came as if in response to May's suggestion, although Shannon Hazelton hadn't heard May, and May couldn't have heard her. On their orbital platform, the three members of the away team were at a loss for good answers.

“Copper Branch, this is Tacit." That was Alexander, coordinating their mission over the remote commlink. “Come on home. Things are done over here."

“Yeah," the raccoon said. “Things are done over here, too. Our shuttle didn't like the big finale of your fireworks display." There was, despite the inconvenience, a hint of jealousy in her tone.

“How much did it 'not like it'?"

It was gone. To be completely accurate, after absorbing the energy of two large ships annihilating each other, the shuttle's heatsinks had overloaded. Their explosion set off a chain reaction in the sublight thrusters, which sent the craft in a mad spiral of a decaying orbit. It was already six thousand kilometers away.

When the comms channel closed again, Shannon sighed heavily. “Well, fuck. It starts."

Leon Bader cocked his head. “Problem, ma'am?"

“That shuttle. First one we lost. Damaged others, sure. Never lost one."

“According to the ship's complement, we have another Mark 4 shuttle embarked, plus the older Vostok-class vessel." Sabel Thorsen was as confused as his friend Leon. “The loss is unfortunate, but not crippling to mission functionality, from a tactical perspective. According to—"

“Don't you understand? Mads is a big-picture thinker. She doesn't care about continuity. Two weeks from now, she's gonna want two shuttles for a mission and I'm gonna have to remind her that we lost one, and she'll think I just… built a replacement while she wasn't looking."

“Can you even do that?"

“Yes, ensign." 'Perhaps,' at least. The Dark Horse came equipped with a functioning machine shop, allowing them to fabricate spare parts and new munitions. Building a new shuttle wasn't impossible. “But I'm telling you. I'm telling you, this is where it starts. First we start losing shuttles, then the more expendable crewmen…"

Sabel at last understood what she meant. “You're worried on my behalf?"

The raccoon shot him a look. “No? That part was a joke."

“I am expendable, though."

At some point, later, she would try to explain her style of humor to the spitz. Perhaps, lacking a strong faculty for tension, he didn't understand the giddiness of having it suddenly relieved. Shannon was happy to have survived—the longer the battle went, the more she'd started developing doubts about the wisdom of sheltering in an unshielded platform hostile to the warships in its midst.

But they'd made it. They always seemed to.

Back on the Dark Horse, Madison May was coming to the same conclusion. The Star Patrol cruiser had been secured from action stations; besides a few overstressed engine parts there was no lasting damage from the battle. The Dominion was sending a shuttle over to pick up Eight and begin the process of negotiating a new agreement between the Uxzu and the Antuja natives.

Once that was done, they'd be back on their way.

The akita pulled Dr. Beltran aside. “Worked out fairly well, I'd say. Wouldn't you?"

Felicia believed that it could've gone slightly better, but most of the reasons amounted to nitpicking. She wanted to stay for the negotiations—see how the Dominion operated from a diplomatic point of view. And she felt they hadn't gathered enough intelligence on the Wanesh, of whom they had most assuredly not heard the last. It was all so much quibbling. “It did, captain. I hope they can find a suitable agreement."

“So do I. The Dominion's reasonable enough, though, and it beats the alternatives." She lowered her voice—not a common practice from the akita, but she managed to be mostly successful at it. “I wanted to say, Dr. Beltran, that I appreciated your help."

“It is my job, Commander May."

“I know. But that's not what I meant. You might not have thought it was the best idea. But you helped, and I… I like to think it's because you trusted me. Right, doc?"

The leopardess lifted an eyebrow, keeping her pose and tone impassive. This, unlike May's inside voice, had been practiced thoroughly. “Your apparent reliance on intuition belies a remarkable analytical facility, captain. I do not always understand the methods by which you arrive at your conclusions. But I do believe they are more grounded than they look."

Maddy grinned. “A secret of mine. It also helps to know when you should listen. You were right, about not just helping the Antujans escape—it took more than that. This ship is a good team, Dr. Beltran. I'm happy you're here."

“I…" She caught herself, and a bit of the diplomatic poise slipped. “I'm happy I am too, captain. It's been an enviable posting, so far."

“So far. We're just getting started." She laughed, and her voice came back to its ordinary exuberance. “Heck of a finish for a random fetch quest we picked up at a trading station, huh? TJ hasn't even had the chance to finish unloading all that cargo. He had good things to say about you. You are fitting in."

“As well as I can. Spaceman Wallace is an interesting figure." She recalled the pendant he'd given her, and pulled it curiously from around her neck. “Perhaps we all are."

“Pretty much. What's that?"

“We acquired it as a gift from the merchant. It is a 'Vralin heart-compass.' If you hold it, the merchant said, it tells you where you truly belong." The leopardess let it rest in her palm to demonstrate. The pendant started to glow, and the crystal at its center reflected the fuzzy image of a green and blue globe.

“Home? Esmeralda, right? Don't I remember that from your file?"

“Indeed. But it could be anywhere; I am not an engineer, but I suspect that it is probably more gimmick than genuine artifact, captain." Felicia held it out, and the akita lifted the warm pendant from her paw.

The image of the planet—if that had indeed been what it was—faded. Nothing replaced it. May stared; her brow furrowed. “I have to say, doc, I'm a little disappointed. This is where I truly belong?"

“Trinkets, captain. I would not put much faith in its diagnostic abilities." More than likely whatever battery powered its inner workings had run out. It was, after all, a free gift from the merchant.

Still, May kept staring, hoping something would happen. Nothing did. Felicia started to take the jewelry back—then paused, a rare look of amusement flitting over her features. She put her paw under the akita's, lifting it up.

Then May saw it too. Her eyes went from the blank crystal to the main viewscreen, where deep space stretched from one wall to the other. The same darkness filled the pendant; the longer Madison looked, the more it seemed less featureless than infinite; less empty than unexplored.

“Well," she said. “What do you know?"