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The Dark Horse responds to a distress call, and finds an old ally with a puzzling secret

This one is definitely more of a conventional Star Trek story, I think, although it does make a game attempt at advancing the cliffhanger that ended the last episode. There's no smut here, sorry. But don't worry. Oh, don't worry. We will change that next time. Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff. Thanks to Spudz for his help with this. I hope you enjoy!

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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Tales of the Dark Horse, by Rob Baird

S7E3, "Behavior Unbecoming"

Stardate 67939

"Maybe I'm not entirely understanding your assumptions," Torres finally said, because very little of the schematics floating in holographic relief in the science lab made sense to her

"The team's assumptions," Petty Officer Kimura reminded her--a clarification the red panda had made a half-dozen times in the previous four hours. "I was only responsible for designing the collimating unit for the pulse emitter. That was a_bitch_ all on its own."

"Right. The team, then. The team assumed that you could generate a pulse of antichaikalis particles, confine it within a suspension field, and then collapse the field within hyperspace, leading the particles to annihilate one another and causing massive hyperspace disruption."

"Yes."

Torres was mostly parroting what the red panda had_told_ her, and since most of the words were intrinsically nonsensical, having this answered with 'yes' was unhelpful. "But the suspension field diameter has to be the precise wavelength of the pulse, otherwise they... escape?"

"I guess so, yes. Something about quantum effects leading them to interact with matter outside the field. I was only able to produce...theoretical numbers of antichaikalis particles, though. Dozens or hundreds in a pulse--just barely detectable."

To Torres, a key problem was that the explanation involved a_lot_ of 'something' and 'theoretical' and concepts that she did not really understand. Unlike Kimura, she had never been formally trained in propulsion theory. She had never been asked to independently derive the Borovka tensor, or to assume a perfectly spherical antichaikalion in a vacuum.

In the Link, the resistance cell she'd been part of in her home universe, most of what she'd worked on had been extremely practical: did something explode when you put energy into it? Was it supposed to? If it_wasn't_ supposed to, what was the best way to keep it in one piece? Being adept at answering those questions had carried the salvager far in life.

So she tried to bring the conversation back to something tangible. "You thought you might be able to make more?"

Kiko shrugged. At times, asking detailed questions about what her superiors at Research Center Leonardo wanted could prove career-limiting. "None of it seems plausible to you? I'm not a hyperspace person," she said, although her version of 'not a hyperspace person' was significantly different than the feline's.

"Me either. I was raised in a junkyard, remember?"

FTL travel in her own universe tended to be slow--the conventional explanation said this was the result of similar weapons to what Kimura was talking about, used to force ships out of hyperspace, hundreds and hundreds of years earlier. Over time, pockets of disruption emerged: tiny enough to avoid detection until they were suddenly compromising the drive of an unintended target.

The only alternative was to massively overbuild hyperdrives, and operate them at speeds barely a fraction of what the Star Patrol considered safe. These weapons were long banned; their effects continued to linger. And they, so far as Torres knew, had_definitely_ been small. What Kimura was talking about required orders of magnitude more effort.

"I wonder if there's anything we could do with the_Tempest_," Kimura mused aloud. "Fast as that thing travels, it might cause some turbulence in hyperspace itself..."

"Oh?"

"It has an older hyperdrive, like ours. Not a Kirilov design--uh, Kirilov drives are much more efficient, but they have a pretty hard speed cap at the Shimasaki barrier. They're not using a suspension field."

That, she knew; it was by far the most common design in her universe, too. "So? The Tempest does."

"Theoretically, an Upton drive could travel infinitely fast, if you pump enough power into the suspension field--that's why the Tempest has a corvette-sized reactor. But they must've made it small enough to avoid Atias effects in the field... I think..." She called up a diagram of the spy ship. "Right? It has a highly elliptical profile. You've flown in it, too, haven't you? How much do you know about its systems?"

"Well... I helped make some modifications to the cloaking device, but I wouldn't call myself an expert on how it works."

"Same. I mean, how does it stabilize the frequency? They must be operating in the tens of kilohertz range--there should be all kinds of propagation issues. But I don't remember Ciara saying anything about any instabilities."

"I wish I could talk to Ms. Munro about this," Torres said. "She'd definitely be able to explain that ship better than either of us."

"Yeah. But she also understands when things are need-to-know."

"That's one of us," the feline admitted. She shook her head to clear it. "Oh, well. We'll do the best we can. Where do you want to start with the_Tempest_?"

Even thinking about the ship made her realize how much she'd rather be talking about it with Ciara instead of Petty Officer Kimura. And Kimura, who didn't want the assignment either, would not have been offended. "I guess we should try to understand the drive. We should have the schematics, they're just slow to come up for some reason..." The red panda sighed. "I see. They're classified. Maybe we can find a different angle."

"Maybe."

***

First officer's log, stardate 67940.6

With new reports of scattered Pictor attacks on Dominion shipping, Captain May has agreed to conduct a patrol beyond the frontier to see if there are any signs that warships have crossed undetected into Uxzu space. We've gone three days now without seeing anything beyond regular freighter traffic. The captain has begun to express a desire for something 'interesting to happen.'

Personally, considering the implications, I'm happy for continued quiet.

"Commander, I think we're picking up a distress signal."

Dave understood the lack of commitment implied something must've been confusing about the signal. "You think?"

Spaceman Ahmed tapped out a few commands on his console, sharing the display to the forward screen so that Commander Bradley could see what he was doing. "It's a fairly regular pattern, and one of the pulses matches a 'distress' prosign we've seen before. There's also a location encoded, which is identical to the one I'm triangulating as the source of the transmission."

"Alright. Action stations. Set state gold throughout the ship." Dave rubbed at the back of his neck. It did not seem likely to be a particularly easy shift, after all. "Let me know when you can tell anything else about that signal."

Beyond the prosign, the signal characteristics weren't like anything in the_Dark Horse_ recognition databanks. That was what Siraj Ahmed knew, but also something likely to be true for essentially everything in the Rewa-Tahi sector. "I'm not getting anything from the translation matrix after the distress call. I guess this gets to be first contact, too, sir?"

The retriever nodded slowly, and summoned Dr. Beltran to the bridge, too. "Maybe."

Maddy got there first. "Excitement?" the Akita asked. She had been sleeping. She did not_look_ like she had been sleeping; she looked like she had been bored, and didn't mind being woken up by alarms.

"A distress call. It's about a light-year away. Spacemen Ahmed says that he's having a hard time finding out anything more than that."

Captain May took this in stride. "Well. Alright. Our tactical systems should be in good shape, though, if it comes down to it." She didn't expect that it_would_--she was not that paranoid, or at least not caffeinated enough to be that paranoid. Just prepared. "They are, right?"

"Yes. If it comes down to it, we'll be ready." He handed control over to her, and watched Siraj try one algorithm after another on the transmission. When Dr. Beltran showed up, Dave briefed the leopardess quickly, and showed her the data. "Apparently it's not in any of--"

"Uxzu," she said, so surprised by her own ability to decipher it that she interrupted the first officer. "My apologies, sir. The transmission is Dominion in origin."

Bradley, in turn, was so surprised that he hadn't noticed the interruption. "What? Why can't we read it, then?"

"The universal translator is imperfect. This is written in some form of dialect. Not all of the syntax is familiar. But I believe it says, in so many words, that the speaker is Venga Demagh, and they wish to know if anyone desires to join them in glorious combat against a vile foe."

"So Demagh is under attack," May guessed. "And needs some help."

"This seems safe to assume, captain, yes."

"Any idea who's attacking them?"

"A vile foe, ma'am. I do not know that I would expect the Dominion to be more specific." Felicia paused, and weighed the merits of speculating aloud like any other of the member of the crew might. "However... we are still in Dominion territory, and reasonably distant from any recent Pictor activity. I would imagine piracy seems more likely."

May gritted her teeth. "The fucking Wanesh. It's always one more thing with them. Let's have the scouts ready to launch, Dave, what do you think?"

"Sure." He paged the commander of the auxiliary group. "Captain Ford, this is the bridge. What's the status of the alert craft?"

"Fueled and ready, commander," the coyote answered. "You know what we're up against?"

"Unfortunately, no, sir. Definitely a combat situation, though--we're being told here it could be the Wanesh. You'll get tactical updates as soon as we have them."

"I'm not worried about that. Do you want the_Tempest_ up, or the new bomber?"

Dave looked at Maddy; Maddy shrugged. It was, as far as she was concerned, something the coyote could decide for himself. "Your discretion, Captain Ford," Dave said, and closed the channel. "Should be interesting, huh, Maddy?"

"It might be," the Akita said. "Let's see, huh?" That was one of the lesser-known advantages of the captain's chair: how well it hid the wagging of her tail.

***

"You're sure you're okay with this?" Ciara asked.

Torres shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?" She grinned, at the look the vixen gave her. Ciara had yet, Torres felt, to really understand how fraught the Abyssinian's existence in her home universe had been. "I'm ready."

"Right. Okay." Ciara checked that the improvised datalinks were working; they seemed to be, at least as well as could be expected for code that the engineering department was still actively working on. "This is Charger 4, standing by."

"Copy that," Jack Ford radioed back. "Showtime in two minutes. Once we launch, take position off my starboard rear quarter. We'll try to get as much tactical information as we can before we have to commit."

"Understood. What's your acceleration?"

She could hear the coyote thinking that one over. "We'll burn at full power for maybe ten seconds to extend, and then back off to 2 gees until you're matched with us. Does that work?"

"That works. Yeah."

"Alright. Y'all know, we're holding fire until the captain says otherwise. If we get lit up, evade but keep your weapons on 'safe.' Not telling what we've got going on."

Ciara acknowledged the order, and tried not to think too hard about the Kahil's vulnerabilities. They would be relatively slow, relatively unmaneuverable, and completely unshielded. "As soon as you think you see something..."

"Of course," Torres promised. "You'll be the second person to know."

The_Dark Horse_ had dropped out of hyperspace, and her launch doors opened. Jack and Commander Kamyshev were away in an instant, at the full extent of their scout fighters' powerful engines. Ciara had to do her best to keep up.

"Charger 1. Tally, one ship, six thousand kilometers. There's no--stand by. Strike my last. Active tactical scanners."

"Charger 2, I've got 'em, but, ah... no match in the database? Trying a frequency analysis now, but..."

Ciara briefly tuned Kamyshev out to focus on flying, putting her ship twenty kilometers behind the other two. "How's the data look, Torres? We're getting their info?"

"Mm-hm. Microwave targeting scanners. Ambiguous EM, but probably from ranging lasers, too. We should expect kinetic point-defense weapons. I don't_quite_ understand. It doesn't entirely look like the systems are compatible."

"Dark Horse, Charger 1. We're probably about to take incoming. But this ship's weird. We've--"

***

"--got signals from at least three different frequency bands and scanner configurations. None of them seem to be using the same technology."

"Are you sure, Jack?" Maddy asked. "Tactical?"

"I can confirm that, too, ma'am," Leon Bader said. The shepherd tried running each in turn through the recognition database. The ship was cruiser-sized, not too much larger than the_Dark Horse_ herself, but no two of her weapons systems seemed to be similar. "They've got missile pods, light railguns... I think maybe a K-beam. But, if so, it's powered down."

The Akita looked warily at the icon for the other vessel, flashing its increasing proximity on the viewscreen. "What about the distress signal? Who were they fighting?"

"It came from aboard the ship." Mitch Alexander was certain of that: the signal was, indeed, still being broadcast--just at much shorter range, and no longer on any faster-than-light protocols. "I guess they got boarded?"

That didn't make sense to Maddy, not any more than the odd mix of technology did. "I don't think an Uxzu would ask for_help_ with an act of piracy. Maybe they were being held captive?"

Intuitively this_did_ make sense to Maddy, at least from the information available to them. To Dave, on the other hand, it sounded like a hobby that was not destined to end well for the captor. "Who would take one of them hostage in their own space?"

"The Naltabik, sir," Bader concluded. They'd only encountered the culture of erratic robots once, during which they'd promptly kidnapped the chief engineer. But he knew that they were a thorn in the Dominion's side, and it seemed the only way to explain the other inconsistencies. The Naltabik regularly stole technology from whoever they managed to ensnare.

"Oh, Christ." Captain May scowled, because she knew at once their tactical officer had to be correct. "Take us in closer, and tell Jack what's going on. Spaceman Alexander, can we get in touch with whoever sent the distress call?"

Dr. Beltran had been able to update the universal translator with, at least, the basics required for communication. Presuming 'whoever sent the distress call' was able to listen, Mitch felt fairly certain they could talk to one another. That required a substantial amount of 'presuming,' though. "I can try, captain. No guarantees, but I can try."

"Do it. Lieutenant Bader, we might need to put a team together. Are you and Mr. Thorsen up for another rescue?"

"Yes,ma'am," the shepherd promised. "I'll let Sabel know to get suited up."

Finding a workable protocol took less time than Mitch initially guessed. "I think we've got a signal. Audio-only. And... I don't know about the universal translator, after all, we're getting lots of errors..."

"Let's try. Open a channel. This is Captain Madison May, of the Star Patrol cruiser_Dark Horse_. We're responding to a..." She stopped herself before saying 'distress call.' "The promise of interesting hunting."

"Yes!" an exuberant voice called back. "I_Demaghakan Venga gid xa_ fucking bastards khabar--"

"Dr. Beltran..."

The leopardess was watching the translator do its best, piecing together the speaker's intonations and trying different assumptions about how the most common Uxzu dialect might have differed from others. "This is proving to be a challenge."

"Aha!" the speaker agreed. "A challenge, yes! You're speaking_hosh-Kaghi_--very odd, but I'm sure even the highborn would enjoy getting their--" The signal cut out in the sound of snarling, and the percussive reports of some large weapon. "Getting their claws into these fucking bastards."

"The Naltabik," May suggested.

"If you like profanity." There was more gunfire. "As it stands I--there are...quite a few... prey... here. Not that it is insurmountable, but--there is--"

This time the channel dropped altogether. Maddy rubbed her temple; the prospect of trying to_board_ a Naltabik vessel was more fraught than engaging one at a distance. "Dave, take tactical. Lieutenant Bader, get suited and in a shuttle, ASAP. You, Sabel... Petty Officer Smith..."

"Me," Lieutenant Vasquez raised his paw. "I'm ISD, right? You don't need a historian on the bridge, and I can shoot."

"Done. Bader, you're still in charge in charge. Get moving."

"Yes, ma'am." He'd already sent a message to Smith and Sabel Thorsen, telling them to begin preparing.

Mitch reported that they were being hailed again. "As I was saying," Venga Demagh continued, once she was able. "There is a transmitter nexus, the destruction of which would be greatly... tactically advantageous. It's near the midpoint of the ship, I believe--"

Spaceman Alexander muted the outgoing transmission. "Got it. It's a big EM radiator."

"Can we hit it?"

Commander Bradley was not as adept with the ship's weapons as Leon Bader, but the solution would've been a challenge even for the shepherd. "Not at this range, and not the way that ship's maneuvering."

"Helm, take us closer. Does that help, Dave?"

Bradley frowned, staring intently at the numbers. "I don't know. Given the precision involved..." Targeting the ship_itself_ was a job for their torpedoes, but they were indiscriminate. If they got close enough for the particle beam dispersion to be suitably precise, they'd also be well past the limits of the ship's thrusters to keep them properly angled. "What about the auxiliaries?"

***

"Charger 4. We can do it."

"This is Charger Lead. Yeah? You sure?"

Ciara spared a glance to Torres, who gave her a thumbs-up. "Affirmative, lead. I've got a firing solution."

"Go for it. We'll cover you. Watch for the point-defense grid, though, Cash. Any red blocks are bad news."

"Charger 4, copy that. We're committing." Her display did not show any such blocks--sectors where the Riverjacks' sensors thought hostile fire would be particularly severe. "Uh, wait. We don't have that part of the shared sensor data working right now, apparently."

"Great. Well, it's most of the ship. So... watch yourself, or stay lucky. Or both. You might want both."

Torres could already tell that. The Naltabik vessel was moving somewhat erratically, which meant that_some_ of their defensive armament was always pointed at the Kahil. Fortunately, they seemed to be having difficulty aiming--most of the shots were wide by tens of kilometers. "They might get more lucky as we close in, too. I'll see if there's something we can do to jam them..."

"I don't suppose there's any chance we could fire from further away?"

"Forty kilometers is about the best we can do if we want to be sure. Sorry, vix."

Munro watched the range drop below a hundred kilometers, and steeled herself. "Well, we'll just... we'll be careful. Are they slowing their rotation?"

"Yeah. They want to aim better, too, I guess. Ten seconds. They've got two turrets on us. Get ready to evade..."

"I see it, I see it. Charger 4. Engaged, offensive." She double-checked that the railguns were ready, steadying her finger on the trigger. "Five, four--wait. Where's the solution?"

"Firing computer threw an error. Hey! One o'clock!" Munro saw the incoming fire, too, and jerked the Kahil out of danger before Torres had to specify further. "Switching to backups. Thirty kilometers. Do you have a solution now?"

"You better believe it." The vixen pushed their nose down, felt the stick twitch as the firing computer took brief control, and squeezed the trigger. There was no immediate reaction; the rounds hit a second and a half later, and the Kahil itself was not far behind.

"Cool," Torres breathed. "Uh, you can actually see the holes in the targeting scanner. Bulls-eyed it, vix. I think their defense grid's shut down, too."

She swung the bomber around, using their main engines to brake and align them for a second attack, if necessary. "This is Charger 4. Two good hits on the target."

"Charger Lead. Nice work. Now let's--stand by, incoming transmission. It's the_Hoss_."

And Captain Ford was not their intended recipient. "Dark Horse here. Charger 4, do you have room to give our friend a ride?"

The Kahil had been designed for at least two crew, and the mirror universe's Uxzu had not been any more inclined than the ones Ciara knew to make their flightsuits_svelte_. The bomber had plenty of space. "Yes, why?"

"Ah. Apparently the ship has triggered a self-destruct sequence. If you can make the aft shuttle bay, you can pick up Venga Demagh there. She says the Naltabik are all shut down. But, uh, you have five minutes." Mitch was the one speaking over the radio; she knew how absurd the request sounded. "Starting... now."

"To get there?" She'd already pushed the throttle forward, though. "Or to get there, pick up a passenger, and escape to safe range?"

"Is either doable?" That was Captain May's voice.

"Fifty-five seconds to intercept," Torres said quietly.

Ciara took a deep breath. "It's doable, ma'am. But you should make sure our guest knows they need to move fast."

The Naltabik ship had stopped maneuvering, at least, which made plotting the angles easy. A straightforward collision course would've taken the fifty-five seconds Torres said; with another twenty seconds of braking along the way, they'd touched down with a reasonable degree of gentleness. There did not seem to be anyone stirring in the landing bay. Torres pushed the hatch open. "If you're out there, you really need to hurry..."

They both heard heavy footfalls, and then a ragged panting. "Ah! A Kahil! I knew I could count on someone with good--"

"Get_in_," Munro shouted, her voice an urgent snarl. "Talk later."

"Yes, yes, of course!" The Uxzu, Venga Demagh, pulled herself through the hatch and into an untidy mess of fur. Torres had already secured the hatch, and the engines were coming up to full power, before she had the time to look around her. "Who_are_ you?"

"Friends. We're allies of the Dominion. I'm Mitchell Torres. The pilot is Ciara Munro." Torres's assistance was not required for their escape, which gave the Abyssinian a chance to look the newcomer over. Her general state--naked, fur matted with blood that was beginning to drip onto the floor of the bomber--also explained the smell, which allowed Munro to share in being distracted by the Uxzu's presence_without_ any need to see her.

Venga Demagh did not seem to notice, although she dabbed at a deep gash on her arm, which had been made even stickier with the grease of sundered robots. "Allies," she said. "Hmm. Well, you have a Kahil. I suppose it must be so."

"There you go--we're appreciative of your... wait." Torres cocked her head. "You know what it's called?"

***

Captain's log, stardate 67941.8

We have recovered an Uxzu prisoner of the Naltabik, Venga Demagh. She claims to be in good health, but says she has no memory of how she wound up aboard the vessel. According to Ciara Munro, she also knows what a Kahil-type bomber is. I've asked our doctor to see if she can determine where Venga might have come from, and if she's hiding her origins in the mirror universe. If so, what does that mean?

"Well... you seem to be... fine," Ayenni pronounced; since this didn't surprise the Uxzu, she directed the rest of her assessment to Madison May. "There are chemical compounds that I don't recognize. But they say that they were being drugged, so it could be that."

"Otherwise, they're healthy?"

"As far as I know. I don't really have a good idea what an_unhealthy_ Uxzu looks like, of course. They seem to find other solutions for that problem before they wind up in the medical literature."

The Akita nodded. "I guess. Can we, uh--outside?" In the corridor outside the_Dark Horse_'s sickbay, she came to the root of her concern. "Who are they?"

"From what I_know_ of the Dominion, captain--which is not as much as I'd like--they are a middle-aged Uxzu woman. There are, perhaps, some signs of malnutrition, and... and as I said, I think that they've had some chemicals introduced to their system. Their injuries are not severe, and I was able to adapt some synthetic blood to replace what was lost. Everything about her vital signs appears within what I believe to be normal parameters."

"Well. Okay. But... she's from our universe?"

"I don't have any reason to doubt that."

Maddy did not think she could afford to be quite so cavalier. "She did recognize the ship we brought over, though. That's what Munro and Torrs said. Can you_guarantee_ she's not from there?"

Some of the words Dave had taught Ayenni since the alien joined the crew would have been more than applicable, but not in polite company. "No. I cannot... I cannot guarantee that she is not from a parallel dimension whose very existence is at odds with our entire current understanding of philosophy and physics, captain."

"She could be like Torres."

"Yes. But she does not have Torres's cellular markers, which were also in the microorganisms the bio-filters picked up from you when you came back aboard. I don't know if that's a universal constant for_all_ life there, or if such a constant even exists. Quite possibly, ma'am, it does not. But I have no reason to doubt Venga Demagh's story."

Maddy sighed heavily; it was, she supposed, the best answer she was going to get. She stepped back into the sickbay. "The doctor says you're healthy. What would be the best way to help you? We can return you to the Dominion, if that's your preference."

"Yes--yes, that would be ideal. The Naltabik have a great number of my people confined. We must rescue them."

"And if we send you back, they're not going to try and execute you for cowardice, or... 'behavior unbecoming an Uxzu' or something like that? We generally have a non-interference policy with other cultures, but, you know..."

Venga laughed in the deep, raucous way that was common to her kind, and which May had learned to stop finding unsettling. "Execute me? Do you really think of us as such extreme barbarians, captain?"

"Uh. No, I... I would not say 'extreme,'" she allowed. "We're quite close with the Kolash Pride. Are they friends of yours?"

Maddy received an encouraging grin in answer. "Kenra! Indeed, Matriarch Kenra Tellak is an old ally of ours. It will be good to see them again. Yes, yes--they are friends of ours. If it's within your power, it would be pleasing to see our alliance renewed."

***

Mission Debrief, Stardate 67941

Signing authority: CPT FORD, Jonathan. CAG, TCS Dark Horse

Re: Frame KAHIL 01 (no serial # provided)

All mission objectives to which the craft was tasked were completed successfully. In total, 2.4kg of reactant (4% of capacity) were expended. 16 rounds of large-caliber kinetic projectiles (2% of capacity) were also expended. No injuries were recorded to either crew. However, the following incidents requiring corrective action were logged [INCTYPE / SEVERITY / DESCRIPTION]:

5.04 / 4 / Non-critical failure of current regulator (starboard wing, inboard hardpoint, aux conduit) under combat load.

5.05 / 4 / Leak in undercarriage actuator due to unknown causes.

2.02 / 2 / Targeting array antenna damaged beyond repair due to round penetration.

2.02 / 2 / Targeting coprocessor damaged beyond repair, ditto.

2.02 / 2 / Targeting array data bundle damaged beyond repair, ditto.

2.02 / 4 / Targeting integrator self-test failed, ditto.

2.35 / 4 / Starboard position indicator disabled by incidental damage to internal wiring, ditto.

2.01 / 1 / 12cm^2 hole through dorsal armor belt, ditto.

2.01 / 1 / Internal antispalling barrier compromised behind armor plate, ditto.

2.01 / 3 / Impact damage to inner hull along 2 plates totaling 47cm^2, ditto.

CORRECTIVE ACTION PROPOSED: Quote, "are you kidding me? How should I know?" Submit. Huh? What do you mean, 'section length invalid'? Fine, just delete it. Eh? 'A response is required for this section?' Delete the section, then. Delete it. Override with my biometric signature. Don't make that noise. I know you understand--ugh--pause transcription. Stop transcription. Oh, blow me. Pause transcription or I break you in half right--

CORRECTIVE ACTION PROPOSED [ADDENDUM]: Have informed LCDR Munro to report to ship's doctor for observation and surgical removal of any implanted bullet magnet upon completion of repairs to vessel. There is nothing more that I can do.

"I can handle fixing this myself," Ciara promised. She'd definitely had to patch the_Tempest_ before--never from having a hole punched through its outer hull, but it seemed to the vixen that the problems were essentially of a similar kind.

Torres smiled, patting Ciara's black-furred paw. "I know you_can_. But I'd like to help."

Ciara assented. She liked the Abyssinian's company. And the quicker it went, presumably, the more straightforward it would seem to Captain Ford. The CAG had been terribly amused that, once again, she'd come back with her ship damaged and no injury to its occupants.

He'd called her a good-luck charm. Really, it was the opposite: the impact itself had been tremendously unlikely. Some kind of snapshot from the Naltabik cruiser's defensive weapons, catching the edge of the Kahil by happenstance, had gone straight through the armor and one of the antennas for the targeting array. None of their own countermeasures had detected it.

The fact_did_ remain, though, that the Kahil had survived the encounter; the craft was remarkably hardy. The resistance, Torres pointed out, had been far less able to replenish their losses than their Planetary Union foes. And the Uxzu had a natural tendency towards dangerous behavior that the ship needed to be strong enough to accommodate.

She'd patched up more than her share of such bombers. It was almost_relaxing_ to have the laser torch in her paw, calibrating it to the measurements fed to her from her welding goggles. She wanted to cut precisely through the ship's armor around the impact site. Such attention to detail had been a hallmark of her work with the resistance; she took pride in it, and looked forward to being able to take the same pride in the resulting patch.

The Abyssinian's communicator buzzed just as she was getting ready to switch the torch on. "Yes? Torres here."

"It's Tsukiko. Are you on duty? Can you report to the science lab?"

"Well... I'm busy in the flight bay at the moment. We're repairing some damage the Kahil took in our last engagement. I'll check in as soon as I'm done, Ms. Kimura." She tapped her communicator again, and returned her attention to the bomber. "We should probably replace the entire bit of hull plating, to be sure."

"Agreed. Better than introducing a weak point in the weld or something. You can just go to the lab now, if you want, Torres."

"I don't, actually." She laughed, trying to play it off. "Welding is more fun. I feel like I'm a salvager again."

"Kind of my point." Ciara poked her shoulder gently. "You're smarter than that. Kiko must really value your insight. C'mon--we should get one of the engineers to help with the patch, anyway. It can wait another shift."

The cat couldn't think of a good way to put it off any further; Ciara had taken the wrong conclusion from her hesitation, and made the wrong assumptions about what Kiko wanted her for. She put her goggles away, and headed to the lab.

Petty Officer Kimura waved her in quickly. "You were asking if the beta-chaikalions are a consequence to antiparticle production or some kind of precursor, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Now I'm wondering something else. Here's the data from the last test our lab at RCL conducted. Here's the data we got from that Pictor ship that apparently self-destructed."

Torres scratched behind one of her ears. "They're pretty different," she admitted.

But she didn't know why that might be; neither of them did. "The quantities are off the scale, too. Is that just because the Pictor are making a bigger weapon? I'm starting to think it's not. Something else is going on."

"Maybe whatever they're using to produce the antiparticles is just very inefficient. How were you making them in the lab?"

"I wasn't. Just collimating what the pulse emitter produced. This thing," she said, and brought the schematics up for them to look at. She found them no more intuitive than Torres did. "I think we'd have to build our own to be sure, and I don't even know where to_start_ with that."

"Can't you ask Lieutenant Hazelton?"

"No. Remember? Disseminating information about this is a serious violation of the general code. I'd rather not be court-martialed. I definitely don't want to have to go back to Terran Confederation space to_get_ court-martialed."

"Yeah, okay. Okay." She sighed. "Well.I don't know how we could make our own, either. I've barely even repaired conventional hyperdrives. And, to be honest, the drives in this universe are a lot more clever than the ones I'm used to."

"Then we're at a sort of--" The science lab door chimed. Kimura would've been happy for the chance to take a break, but their glacial progress made her antsy and she felt it would be best to make whatever conversation was required with their guest brief. She switched the holograms off. "Enter."

Unfortunately for her plans, the guest in question was Dr. Schatz. He had been meaning to find out more about the Naltabik from the data crystal they'd been given by Qalamixi, a living starship ancient enough to have seen the rise of the species and the fall of their original creators. The lab, though, was continuously occupied, and this was a bit of a surprise--especially for its occupants to be Kimura and Mitch Alexander, who had never been frequent visitors. "Um. Am I interrupting something?"

"We're on a special project from the captain," Kimura explained. "Do you need the lab?"

"Well, I... uh, I need the computers, yes," the Border Collie said. "Qalamixi's database. There was that Uxzu we picked up, and I've been--anyway, I was thinking about the Naltabik, basically. Apparently they said they'd been kept prisoner on some Naltabik planet, but... as far as we know, they're nomadic; I don't know where their home territory is. So..."

Kimura nodded. "Alright. Well... we... my shift is over in a couple hours, sir. Would it be alright if we kept using the lab until then?"

"You're using the data crystal?" He perked his ears--it was rare for anyone to even express interest in trying it out for themselves, and even rarer for them to make the attempt without letting him know. "If you're doing that, I can offer some pointers."

"No. Just the rest of the lab."

"Ah. Well, in that case, I shouldn't be a distraction."

The Border Collie sat at a problematic junction of 'inquisitive' and 'troublesome.' He was also a commissioned officer. Kimura struggled to find a diplomatic approach. "Sir, what if... hmm. Could we--"

Sir. Because he was Kimura's superior officer. But not mine. "I... have a question, Dr. Schatz," Torres said slowly.

"Ah? Space--no. You're not Spaceman Alexander. Ms. Torres, right?"

"Yeah. I'm curious: what could create a beta-chaikalion with energy in the kilo-electrovolt range?"

Kimura froze, which Barry Schatz had immediately become too distracted to notice. "Nothing? Beta-chaikalis particles are only formed in extremely unusual situations. Like, if you had a serious malfunction in an aperture generator, or something, as I understand it, but... at those energies they should split back into alpha-chaikalions within a few seconds. Uh--well, because at high energies, they don't really interact with other particles, but they're theorized to be quite unstable."

"How would you produce them deliberately?"

Kimura cleared her throat. "Ah, Torres, I'm sure Dr. Schatz doesn't--"

"Deliberately?" His mind was already spinning. "I guess you'd probably unbalance a Kariv-Atias generator to create polarized Atias effects... maybe if you directed that at some kind of exotic matter, or..."

Before Kimura could stop her--or, for that matter, before she lost her nerve--Torres reactivated one of the holograms, with the data from Research Center Leonardo. "Like this, maybe? Would this do the job?"

He didn't even bother questioning the source of the data. "Oh! Yes, okay, sure--okay, right, you'd take_two_ unbalanced generators and cause the radiation streams to intersect... you'd get an antichaikalion every... oh, I don't know, every trillion collisions or so. Probably an optimistic estimate," he corrected, laughing ruefully. "My advice would be not to cross the streams. But actually..."

"It was a weird hypothetical," Kiko interjected quickly, hoping Torres would take the hint. She had yet to fully acquaint herself with the ship's science officer, himself--not well enough to know that, even if_Torres_ took hints, Barry would not.

"Well... right, I see what you mean," the dog mused aloud. "Because in that case, any beta particles from the decay would be in the tens of millions of electronvolts. Or more. Hundreds of thousands isn't possible. I don't understand why you'd want to, either. Chaikalions don't interact with normal matter. They make neutrinos look positively_gregarious_, which, you know... if you just wanted high-energy particles that don't interact with anything, you could look at what the Nizarish are doing with their entanglement research. There was a paper about three years ago, I think. Or... no, maybe five or six."

"Specifically chaikalions, though," Torres said. Kimura was reaching for the other computer, so that she could prevent anything untoward from happening. The Abyssinian put her paw on it first, and activated its own display. "A pattern of beta particles sort of like this."

Kiko shut her eyes tightly, and considered how she might plead for leniency from a board of extremely uptight admirals. "This is not--"

"No, it's impossible. Petty Officer Kimura is right," the collie said with a nod. She had not finished her sentence, and he hadn't noticed that she hadn't finished, assuming the only obvious conclusion. "I'm guessing she told you that, though. What kind of simulations are you using the lab to run? Hyperdrive theory? Ms. Kimura?"

Now she saw the prospect of her dilemma forking, with a new path that ended in lying to a senior officer. "Well. No, sir."

"It's sensor data, Dr. Schatz."

"If it's sensors..." He stepped forward to look more closely at the hologram, and began manipulating the computer without even consciously noticing it, his brain wandering from one perplexing data point to the next. "This is_incredible_. The density here is too high to be random by... orders of magnitude. Many orders of magnitude. Someone would need to have..."

Torres gave him a few seconds to finish, without anything to show for it. "Would need to have what, doctor?"

Would need to have somehow found a way to synthesize--_the Border Collie ran a quick calculation and shook his head before finishing the thought even in his own mind. "No, this isn't right. You'd need to have _grams of antichaikalions to produce readings like this. There's no way those are stable."

Unless, he thought, although neither of the others knew that. Kimura was still trying to figure out a way to undo what Torres had started, and Torres assumed Dr. Schatz was waiting for some kind of prompt from the red panda. "Is there something else that might be going on, in that case, doctor?" the Abyssinian asked. "To produce these results?"

"You said this is actual sensor data? Can I see the other readings?"

"This is what we were sent, I think. Why? What would you be looking for?"

"It's possible that there's another component. Without seeing the tachyon flux, I can't do more than conjecture.If there's a tachyon variance, it brings to mind some discussion I've heard about experimenting with how spacetime curvature impacts the Atias properties of a gateway."

Kimura gritted her teeth, and gave up. It wasn't like she was_disclosing_ information, was it? Not at this point. No, the red panda told herself, she was merely asking questions. "You mean, if you were to speed up the aperture somehow, or slow it down--that could change the energy of chaikalions?"

"Right. What's bothering me, though, is that if we_were_ producing antiparticles in that quantity, I can't imagine why. This represents a huge expenditure of energy--a planet's worth of energy, probably, for at least a few minutes. Why would you do that? Where were these readings observed? It wasn't when I was on the bridge."

"No... I don't know the exact details," Torres admitted. "It was another ship."

"Hm. Sent to us for a second opinion or something? The implications are... well. Quite dangerous." That was the only way the Border Collie could think to put it. "Incredibly dangerous. In normalspace, they wouldn't amount to much. But if you have that many antichaikalions in hyperspace, and you lost containment somehow? You wouldn't have a research project, you'd have a superweapon."

Torres looked at Kimura, who shook her head in disbelief. "What do you mean?" the cat prompted.

"The particle density in hyperspace is far, far greater--enough that normal matter_does_ interact, you know? But also, it means that the antimatter would annihilate conventional chaikalis particles across... cubic parsecs of space. And that's just the disruption to FTL travel--you might even see tears forming, rifts opening between the two without an ability to maintain containment. It's unthinkable. Okay, I mean, I'm thinking about it now, but... but practically, it's unthinkable--so irresponsible that nobody would do this on purpose. It must be a fluke of some kind."

"What if it wasn't?"

"Then this is a weapon of mass destruction, and you need to tell the captain right now."

***

"It's an Uxzu warship. The_Kedagh_, ma'am. We're being hailed."

Overenforcer Xabok Garra beamed, her long teeth looking somewhat whiter than usual. "Tiny hunter! We hear that you have made new friends! In battle with the Naltabik, no less... unworthy prey, but far more unworthy to be sullying our borders. I hope that you enjoyed the battle."

"Yes," Maddy said. "Uh. We destroyed a Naltabik cruiser about twelve light-years from here. They had an Uxzu prisoner aboard--she's told us the Naltabik have even more held captive on a planet of theirs. Her name is Venga Demagh, of the Shathur Pride. Do either of those names mean anything?"

Xabok's massive head tilted. "I may have misunderstood you. Which pride did you say?"

"Shathur. She said it was the 'Pride of Canyons,' in your language."

"That's... true..." Xabok still looked confused. "They were. But that pride has been extinct for seventy years--their property and stories long since scattered and redistributed to the others. She must be mistaken."

"Or mad," an Uxzu, outside the angle of the viewscreen, suggested. "Perhaps that's why they allowed themselves to be captured by those robots."

"Perhaps. And yet, who would we trust more than Captain May? She seems to believe their story." Xabok paused, and appeared more thoughtful than May had ever seen an Uxzu look before. "We shall send someone over to investigate. When the tedious_business_ is done, you will--of course--all come back aboard the Kedagh to celebrate it properly."

"Naturally. We'll be standing by to receive you."

'Someone' was Misho, one of Xabok Garra's husbands. He came by himself, landing with remarkable faculty in the_Dark Horse_'s flight bay. Maddy and Dave met him, also alone--their relationship with the Dominion had evolved beyond the need for honor guards, and Leon Bader was no longer paranoid about what they might do.

"Captain. Commander Bradley." Misho inclined his head in a polite bow to each in turn, once he'd hopped down from the hatch of his shuttle. "Thank you for welcoming me to your ship. Is that what this... Venga Demagh was traveling in?"

He was pointing to the Kahil, parked slightly further in alongside the Type 7 scout ships. "No," Bradley said. "It's a ship we acquired under somewhat complicated circumstances."

"A salvage yard?" Misho guessed, and chuckled. In fairness, its innards were still exposed while it underwent repair. "I've never seen a Kahil in flying condition. You do have a good appreciation for history, though, you Terrans."

They led him to the ship's sickbay, where Misho opened the container he'd been carrying and held it out for Venga to take. Inside were clothes--nondescript, at least as far as the Star Patrol could tell, but also sized appropriately for an Uxzu woman. "I appreciate this," she told him; so, for that matter, did the Terrans. "My escape did not leave me with much opportunity."

"The Naltabik didn't clothe you?"

"In restraint devices, yes. Those, though, I absolutely refuse to wear again. Who are you?" she asked, as she pulled on the tunic and pants she'd been given. "With your curious fashion sense, and all..."

"Subenforcer Misho Tanat, of Xabok Garra, of the Kolash Pride. And I was told that you are of the Shathur?"

Venga grunted. "Indeed. My name is Venga Demagh. I have no rank."

"How did you come to be captured?"

The other Uxzu was silent. Even without explicit telepathic prying, Ayenni could feel how uncomfortable she had become. "Is this a conversation that would be best held privately? We can give you some space, I'm sure. Captain?"

May nodded. "If--"

Venga spoke before she could finish. "No. You should hear it. I was not captured. I was born in captivity. All of us there were born in captivity. All of us are Shathura. I know what that means--I know I have no land claim. But we_must_ free the others."

Felicia Beltran had been watching Misho carefully. She saw his ear twitch impassively as he processed what Venga said, and judged how to answer. It turned out to be 'bluntly': "You lack more than a land claim," he said. "You lack a pride. The Shathur are gone."

"That's not possible. The others--the older ones--they said there are millions of us. We're not one of the great clans, of course. But... Xan Tayin? Khavani? I know of those worlds, certainly. And she--this 'captain,' this 'Madison'--she said you knew Kenra Tellak."

"The matriarch of my pride, yes."

"Kenra Tellak Gokhal led ten thousand Kolashar with us--I've heard those stories, Misho. Don't insult my honor by claiming anything else is true."

"No, it's true. But Kenra the Bent-Claw died a century ago. The Kolash Pride today is led by Kenra Tellak Hiran--Kenra the Golden. Xan Tayin is the homeworld of the Makhar. Khavani is shared between the Kolash and the Neviin." He pointed to Ayenni. "You. You can convince her, can't you?"

"How?"

"The Yara we're familiar with can sort of... connect their minds to someone else--a bridge, of sorts. Do you not know of this?"

"I know of it. It's less a 'bridge' and more of a... blending, though. It's a little complex."

"So you're not capable of doing it?"

"No, I am. I have performed such bonding rituals, with those I'm close to. I just don't think it's really a good idea for me to_practice_ on a member of an unfamiliar species to whom you've just delivered existentially shocking news. However... Venga, perhaps Misho is not intentionally misleading you. Do you know how long you were held in captivity for?"

"Years," the Uxzu said. Her eyes flitted towards the doctor, although she mostly kept her attention focused--with rapt suspicion--on Misho. "I remember twenty. Some elapsed before I was old enough to recall their passing."

Ayenni brought up the genetic analysis she'd done on the woman. The Uxzu, like a perplexing coincidental number of species, encoded their genetic information via nucleic acids arranged in a double helix. This was true for Terrans, and for Yara, and it meant she immediately recognized the problem she was looking at. "Twenty years?"

"Yes."

And Uxzu did not age conspicuously faster than her own kind. "Your cellular profile indicates you're at least fifty years old."

"She was kept in some kind of suspended animation or something?" May asked. Misho also didn't seem to have realized the implication; he shared the Akita's puzzled expression. "Her brain was frozen for thirty years before she was woken up? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if she's in her twenties, so was the Uxzu she was cloned from."

Venga and Misho looked equally stunned--the most startled any of the crew had ever seen one of their kind. Venga managed to speak first. "That can't be. Uxzu can't be cloned."

"Unless there's something extremely unique about how you develop, you can be, and you were. I can explain the particulars to..." Barry Schatz would be the only person likely to understand it, and she didn't know if he would truly be a useful ally. But she had no others: "Dr. Schatz, if you'd like, will confirm my analysis."

"She means it is a profound and grave taboo," Misho said. "Clones have no rights in the Dominion. They have not since time immemorial. We would never do this. It is an abomination."

Venga folded her paws in her lap, and stared straight ahead for a long spell. "I shall return to your ship," she finally pronounced. "You may dispatch with me then, in whichever fashion you see fit."

"Good. That's settled, then."

Maddy's brow furrowed as Misho straightened up and prepared to leave. Dave Bradley seemed equally unnerved, which gave the Akita the excuse she needed to speak up. "I'm not... uh. I'm not sure that I agree?"

"We do," Misho said, gesturing to Venga Demagh. "There is no confusion on that point."

"Can we... I'd like to have a moment in conference with you, if you don't mind? I don't quite understand what's just happened."

"Of course," Misho said. "I am happy to explain."

Venga remained silent, watching along with Ayenni as Misho and the Star Patrol crew left the sickbay. She stayed quiet, until the doctor used the Terran custom of clearing her throat; then she stared at Ayenni sharply. "Yes?"

"Is that really it? You're just going to go along with that?"

"You yourself said that I have no right to personhood."

Ayenni's white fur rippled a faint, perplexed blue. "I did not say that. I said that your genetic markers indicated--"

"That I am not a person."

"--That you were not conceived conventionally. That's all. You didn't have any say in the circumstances of your birth. I guess I'm just puzzled because you told May you wouldn't be executed, but then, just like that..."

The other woman raised her great head, looking at the Yara as though she was particularly stupid. "I told your captain that when I still thought I was Uxzu. Before I was disabused of that notion."

"I myself am not from the Dominion, you know. Obviously. Maybe I don't understand."

"Clearly, you don't understand."

"Your existence is something of an affront to them."

"Yes. It is an affront to_me_, now that I know," she added.

"Right. Can I ask a foolish question, then? Just... you know, as an outsider?" Again she was the recipient of a withering glare. "What about the Naltabik?"

"What of them?"

"And the ones they still have in captivity. And the ones they'll continue to clone. What about the affront_they're_ causing? Who's going to stop that?"

Venga blinked slowly. "I don't know. It's none of your concern, though. It isn't my concern, either. It would be a concern for the Dominion, if they choose to pursue it."

"Does that... upset you?"

She tilted her head at Ayenni. "I don't really understand what you're asking. Or why, for that matter."

"I could explain, if you wanted. Like Misho said--connect our minds together."

"You would be willing to do that?"

"Call me curious, at least, yes."

"You made it sound dangerous."

Ayenni spread her fingers, shrugging the way Dave Bradley did at times when Maddy had given him some particularly thorny square to be circled. "It might be somewhat challenging for me, but not_dangerous_. Perhaps it would be a little more dangerous for someone without telepathic experience, like you, but... it kind of seems to me that if the worst-case scenario is that it kills you, that's what you intend anyway. Right?"

Venga considered the offer. At last she grunted: "Perhaps it is what I intend. You lie, though."

"What?"

"You claim to be 'curious,' but your actual aim is to convince me of your opinion regarding the heresy that brought me into the world."

"To be honest, there are many adjectives I might use to describe the Uxzu I've known. 'Persuadable' would be pretty far down the list. I_am_ curious, Venga."

"Why? What would you get out of it?"

"Well... you'd be right if you said that I don't understand..." she nearly said_your people_, and caught herself, in case that would be taken as some kind of insult to one or the other party. "Dominion culture--or Uxzu biology for that matter--especially well. That makes me a worse doctor for my crew than I could be."

"Hmm," Venga said, at last. "But you_would_ attempt to convince me."

"I would explain my thinking as best as I could, yes. Whether that's convincing is up to you. I'm not going to plant thoughts in your brain."

"Your captain seems to believe her culture has a... what did she call it? A 'non-interference policy.' Wouldn't you be violating that?"

Ayenni gestured at her tunic. "I'm not actually Star Patrol, for what it's worth. The Yara have a saying--a doctor's aim should be the best outcome for their patient. That would be my guiding principle. There's an equivalent on Terra, as well, from the Hippocratic Oath, apparently.Primum non nocere: first, do no harm."

Venga grunted again. "Salegh talshai."

"I don't know what that means," Ayenni admitted, although the universal translator failing to include anything like 'no harm' was a worrying sign.

"Mm. I could explain, if you wanted." She echoed Ayenni's words with a bit of sardonic heat. "Do your worst, doctor."

"Is... is that what it means, or are you giving me permission to join my thoughts to your thoughts?"

The Uxzu smiled, and bared teeth.

***

"We're allies," Maddy was busily insisting to Misho. "I don't want to jeopardize that alliance, particularly not during such a... a critical juncture. But I just don't understand. This seems very hasty."

"And what if she requested asylum?" Dave added. "We'd have to consider that."

Dr. Beltran saw that Misho had been trying to aim for something like diplomatic tact, throughout the previous conversation, and stepped in to keep the man from having to debase himself with such niceties. "She will not, sir. Venga Demagh is,philosophically if not in reality, an Uxzu. She would not profane the memory of her pride that way, or attempt to sully your name, captain."

"Exactly. Captain... the very idea of cloning is behavior totally unbecoming an Uxzu. Do you really think of us as such...barbarians, that we'd allow something like that?"

"I don't exactly understand the relationship," she admitted.

Dave was as aghast at the recent developments as his captain, but on_this_ point he thought he did understand. "The Uxzu are a culture that occasionally experiences rather... rather high attrition, captain. A family willing to clone its soldiers would be so advantaged by that decision that every other family would be compelled to follow suit."

"They would show themselves to be without honor." Misho appeared to be genuinely disturbed by the revelation of Venga Demagh's origin, far more than he was by the proposal to dispatch her and be done with it. "No sacrifice would have any meaning. No history, passed down from one generation to the next, would contain any truth. We have rejected cloning for thousands of years. Even discussing it might be grounds for execution, if it fell on the wrong ears."

"But Venga didn't have any choice in the matter. She didn't ask to be created. If it's the big taboo you're saying it is, the other prisoners wouldn't have either. They're victims of the Naltabik. They deserve your help in repaying that... egregious insult to your culture."

"They are, by definition, not_of_ our culture. They have stolen our shape, and our language--nothing else. The Naltabik are thieves, who have produced counterfeits. Nothing more."

"She does not sound like someone who has taken only your shape and your language," Felicia pointed out, as tactfully as she could. "She did agree to let you kill her. I expect she would also help you find where the others are, so that they could be executed as well."

"Perhaps. Xabok might agree to that, even, since it would let us end this atrocity_cleanly_. If you have some appeal that you think could be made to Xabok, or to our matriarch, say it, captain. I don't think you truly understand the degree of this affront."

Maddy didn't have to_think_ about it: she knew she didn't understand. "My appeal is that you would be punishing Venga and the others for a crime they had no part in. That is fundamentally unjust. Cover your ears, Dr. Beltran. I would go so far as to say, Misho, that it is fundamentally dishonorable."

"You propose to inflict your system of values on the Dominion. That is no more just, Madison May."

She set her muzzle, and held her ground. "You yourself said that you thought the Dominion needed to change. You said your old ways held you back. I'm sure you have your reasons for considering cloning like this to be beyond the pale. Many of those in the Terran Confederation agree--I do, for one. Especially in Demagh's situation. But this_clearly_ isn't what your taboo was meant to address."

"Not all of our cultures, either," Dr. Beltran said. "Many others consider it_different_, but not abhorrent. They would say that what makes someone an individual transcends their genetic code; they would look to their behavior, or their history. Perhaps Venga Demagh is unique in that regard."

"Perhaps. We shall see what Xabok Garra has to say."

"Will you tell me before you make a final decision?"

He inclined his head in a nod. "I should be able to convince my mate to delay that long, at least. It isn't as though this needs to be rectified at once, even if we'd all prefer to simply be done with it--Venga included." Leon Bader, waiting outside, said that the other Uxzu was indeed ready to depart, and offered to escort them both to his shuttle.

Maddy watched the door close, and looked to the two others in the room. "Well?"

"If it's her choice, Maddy..."

She glared at Dave. "Brainwashed into it, you mean? Dr. Beltran, you have some... smart answer for this, right? You can get them to see reason?"

"We were not aware of this aspect of their culture," the leopardess began, carefully. "I do not have any answer, let alone a smart one. However, I feel I must note that the Uxzu have strong beliefs on this point. You said you did not want to jeopardize our alliance--"

"I don't."

"And I will do everything in my power to help you navigate these conflicting impulses. But I think you must understand they_are_ in conflict."

She growled. "Yeah. Yeah, I understand perfectly. Alright. Think on it, and_try_ to come up with something. You're both dismissed."

Dave hesitated. "Maddy, if you want..."

"I have another meeting," she told the retriever. "It's fine. You should let me calm down, anyway."

He sighed, although there was a certain logic to her request. He also knew that, if she didn't want him to stay, there was no use in him forcing the issue. He followed Dr. Beltran out the door, watching the slow, agitated twitch of the leopardess's tail.

Maddy poured herself a cup of coffee, and waited for the chemicals to do their job in heating it up. The smell helped to relax her, even if the caffeine would not.Dave, she thought. I should've kept him around for this. If only...

***

Petty Officer Kimura had passed Dave and Felicia, who were deep in quiet conversation and didn't comment on her--or notice her apprehension. She, in turn, had no idea what they were discussing, and would not have had any valuable insights had she known. Politics was largely beyond the red panda's concern.

She liked to think that she dealt in the clean world of numbers and physics, although as a weapons specialist Kiko knew that there was always some implication, some non-scientific aspect, to her knowledge. It was just that it rarely exposed her in such a fashion. She paused at the door to the captain's ready room, and then tapped the buzzer.

The door slid open. "Come in," Maddy said, and waved her attempt at a salute away before it began. "I'm not in a good mood, Ms. Kimura. You said you had an update for me, and I've gotta say, I'm trusting that means something good."

Not in a good mood. Kimura flinched. "It means that we... have made... we have made some discoveries. At least new opportunities for research."

The Akita took a slow sip of coffee. "Can you explain? Ideally as simply as possible."

"I'll admit I don't follow all of the nitty-gritty details." She licked her lips nervously, and decided it was best if she tore the bandage off. "It's a theory Dr. Schatz came up with."

"Barry? What does he know?"

"Pretty much everything, ma'am. Once he got on a roll, it didn't take him very long to piece the rest of it together."

Maddy set her coffee down with a heavy, pointed_thump_. "I gave very explicit instructions that no information about this project was to leave the group authorized under the Carthage protocol."

"Yes, ma'am," Kimura agreed.

"I can't do anything to keep you from being court-martialed." For that matter, the Akita supposed, she couldn't do anything to keep_herself_ from being court-martialed. "What were you even thinking?"

"We had... hit a wall. Ms. Torres and I, that is. We'd been working in the lab for a dozen shifts without getting anywhere. He came by looking for something about... I didn't exactly understand. Something about an encyclopedia, and a living spaceship?"

"Qalamixi."

"That's the one, yes."

"And you decided to leak extremely sensitive classified information to him?"

"I... In my judgment, ma'am, the exigent circumstances justified disobeying the order I was given. You asked me to take point on this initiative. I believed that, in this case, the ends justified the means. That implies nothing about you, Captain May, or your command. I take sole responsibility for it."

Her paw folded about the handle of her cup and, at last, she brought it to her lips. She stared across the rim at the red panda, in a way that she did not_intend_ to be as inscrutable as Kimura perceived it. "And what did you find? What's the theory?"

"The emissions that we detected show chaikalis particles that contain far less energy than would be expected from a normal annihilation reaction. In our experimentation at RCL, we found impossible to contain more than a handful of such particles without the destruction of our apparatus. The Pictor have found a way to... 'slow them down,' effectively. Thereby, to keep large quantities under containment."

"Do you know how they did it?"

"Not_exactly_. Dr. Schatz theorizes that there is some relativistic component. The reaction itself is occurring in a different frame of reference than ours. Proving this theory correct would involve having scanned for tachyons or, ideally, omicron radiation. But I don't expect that was done."

May didn't know what that really_meant_, at least from a scientific point of view. "You have all the data that I do, Ms. Kimura. I didn't hold anything back. Can we stop it?"

"It's_possible_ that we've already done so. I raised as an objection to Lieutenant Schatz that, if his theory on how the particles were synthesized is accurate, there's no way it could be done without... we would be discussing losses on the order of... maybe twenty orders of magnitude, captain."

"What do you mean? That sounds like a lot."

"I mean that, in our universe, we would perceive the annihilation of the material involved as a detonation in the hundreds of terajoules--a decent-sized antimatter warhead, in other words. Chaikalions don't really interact with normal matter. In hyperspace, it would be fifty orders of magnitude more powerful, probably. That's the question of its destruction. Its_creation_ is dramatically inefficient. You'd need to capture the total energy output of Earth's sun, and you'd need it for weeks."

"In other words, something like that megastructure we took out. The... the Pekaalan Cradle?"

"Something like that. I don't think it's possible for them to have more than one or two of these devices, and we know that one has already been destroyed. This may be a problem that's solved itself."

Maddy, who had asked for good news,did like the sound of this. "I'd like to know for sure, though. Would there be a way to look for any others?"

"I think so. But it'll take more work to know what we'd have to be looking for--some kind of very specific omicron signature is most likely. It's also likely that the Pictor will try to protect any remaining weapons quite heavily, considering how valuable it is."

"See what you can do. Although... perhaps put Ms. Torres in charge of the data, since you apparently do not understand how access to highly classified information works."

Kiko chewed her lip hesitantly. "Well..."

Maddy took a sip of coffee, savoring it. Then, having paused long enough to also savor the idea that they could be finished with this newest wrinkle, she grinned. "Or don't. Were you ever going to say who actually gave Barry that data?"

"It seemed irre... it didn't seem like it mattered, ma'am. Security was my responsibility. In effect, I_did_ give it to him." She paused. "Although..."

"Yes, Ms. Kimura?"

"You're not looking for an apology. Did you...order Torres to do that?"

"I hoped she would do the right thing. Apparently, that meant judging whether or not our science officer should know what was going on. It seems like that was helpful to all three of you."

"Should I... allow her to make that judgment with the others in the crew, captain?" Maddy stared at her until the red panda figured no answer to the question would ever appear on the record. "Understood. We'll keep working and let you know. But, um. If you think Admiral Mercure is authorized to hear about it, you should also let him know we might need some help."

***

Spaceman Alexander looked at the flashing alert on her console and tried to decide what it meant. Targeting scanners were now active, apparently: this part was easy. It was also easy to see that they were coming from a strike craft that had launched from the_Kedagh_. She could not, however, tell exactly who was being targeted.

"Captain?" she spoke up, after a few more seconds in which the situation didn't become much clearer. "A corvette-sized ship just departed the_Kedagh_. Its weapons are hot. I don't think they're aimed at us, but I can't be sure."

Maddy cocked her head. "What? Gold alert, then. Dr. Beltran, Commander Bradley, please report to the bridge."

They watched as the corvette gained some distance from the Uxzu dreadnought; it was headed for the_Dark Horse_, and had gotten half of the way there by the time Bradley got to the bridge. Maddy brought him up to speed quickly. "It's Venga," the retriever guessed. "She must've stolen it."

"If she requests sanctuary, she's going to--oh! Dr. Beltran," the Akita noted the leopardess's arrival with interest that immediately set Felicia on edge. "Venga Demagh seems to have stolen a corvette and might be planning to ask us for asylum. Am I correct in assuming this would put us in a difficult position?"

I do not, Felicia thought to herself, ever get called to the bridge for easy questions. "You would be correct in that assumption, yes, captain. However, based on our previous conversations, I am not sure that is really the most... Uxzu of options."

"Well, that's true. But what else could it be?"

Mitch was beginning to see more signals appearing on her tactical display. "The_Kedagh_ is launching her own attack squadrons. They're heading in our direction, too, ma'am. And... wait, picking up transmissions. They're in the clear."

"Let's hear 'em."

Mitch nodded, and patched the radio into the ship's intercom. "--face an appropriate tribunal." That was the_Kedagh_, although it was not Xabok Garra's voice.

"I will not. There is no appropriate tribunal for these circumstances." That was Venga. "Tarrukesh bakhat, Kolash and pejada."

"Do not be absurd, Venga Demagh."

"Pejada hanik did not shutara patorollari listen." A deep growl. "Tarrukesh bakhat."

Maddy looked to Felicia Beltran, and concluded promptly that the leopardess was not to be bothered. She had taken over the science station normally occupied by Barry Schatz and she had a paw clamped over her right ear, dampening every sound but what the universal translator gave her.

Venga's dialect had proven to be challenging, but Beltran heard_shutara patorol_ and knew it was only a matter of time before someone actually contacted the Star Patrol--either Venga Demagh herself, or Xabok Garra looking for permission to blow the corvette to pieces.

There was, she thought, a predictable consonant shift in the way Demagh spoke. Applying a few hypothetical filters gave both what she was looking for and what she feared.I demand bakhat_, Kolash and your ancestors. Your ancestors did not know that you would listen to the Star Patrol_. I demand bakhat."

"That corvette is reversing course and headed straight for the_Kedagh_," Mitch reported. "The Uxzu attack squadrons have their weapons hot."

"Will we get caught in the crossfire? Shields," Maddy ordered. "Tactical, set our point-defense grid in active-standby."

Lieutenant Bader had been waiting for just such an order. "Done. Point-defense grid rigged for countermissile profile."

"Flight ops?" Captain May asked. "CCI, are we ready to launch?"

"We should stay where we are, captain." Beltran spoke before Mitch could answer. The details she could piece together were fragmentary, but relatively clear about what had transpired: "This is not about us. And, in my judgment, we would not want to be seen as interfering unnecessarily."

"Interfering in what?"

"Single combat. Venga Demagh is challenging the Kolash Pride."

Madison's eyes met those of her XO, who clearly felt the same way as the Akita. "Ah. Yes, I suppose that_would_ be the Uxzu way of solving things," she realized aloud. "So we're just going to watch her get annihilated on the grounds of keeping the peace?"

"Perhaps, captain," Beltran said; she was still reading through all the notes they'd gathered about the Dominion. She was not_entirely_ surprised that, as the two combatants drew closer and closer together, the Kedagh had yet to open fire.

Venga Demagh passed through the first squadron of attack ships without incident. She was headed straight for the dreadnought, and lacked any of the Kolash Pride's apparent reservation. A barrage of missiles burst struck the_Kedagh_'s hull. "Minimal damage," Leon Bader told them; the massive warship had been designed to shrug off nuclear warheads, and nothing the corvette packed was going to make much of a difference. "The corvette is now close enough that it may be difficult for their defenses to track her effectively."

"Clever," May said.

Dave Bradley suspected the opposite: "I don't think she figured she'd make it that far, to be honest, Maddy. Their attack ships aren't closing, either. They must be waiting for orders."

The same voice as before, from someone aboard the dreadnought, came over the intercom. "Cease this attack, Venga Demagh. We concede your challenge."

"What?"

"We are conceding. If you desire to land, we will receive you and hear your terms."

***

Captain's log, stardate 67944.5

Well, as far as I know, nobody exactly knows what just happened. I guess we'll have the chance to figure it out--Xabok Garra has invited us over for dinner. Apparently it will just be with her senior advisors, and not Venga Demagh. But as far as anyone here can tell, Venga is still alive and not going to be executed.

"What even are the circumstances in which the Uxzu would surrender?"

"We did not_surrender_," Xabok corrected her. "We conceded. Those are quite different. How else were we to react? Carry out an old ritual that hasn't been practiced in a century? Besides, there would be no honor in accepting a challenge only to find yourself facing someone who is deranged and not in control of their faculties. I believe we both understood that."

There was a degree of logic at play in that, which was in and of itself somewhat confusing to the Akita. "Stealing a corvette and threatening a ship the size of the_Kedagh_ would fit the bill in my culture, I guess. But I'd think, for an Uxzu..."

Xabok Garra pressed her fingers together, her sharp claws meeting like crossed sabers. "For an Uxzu, yes, tiny hunter?" she asked. Her sharp eyes danced.

"It's just that it doesn't honestly seem that out of line."

"Doesn't it," Xabok said, her voice so flat that it wasn't possible to tell if she was truly asking a question. Her muzzle curled, adding a fanged grin to the display of claws. "What are you trying to say?"

"Well. It's just... I mean... uh. Dr. Beltran?" she prompted hopefully.

Felicia saw, from Xabok Garra's expression, that the alien captain understood exactly what May was implying. And, from the same expression, the leopardess knew what her grin meant. Had Beltran been Uxzu herself, she might've let May continue to squirm for a bit. She was not: "Overenforcer Xabok is not referring to Venga Demagh, captain."

"Well... who, then?" Beltran attempt to indicate this with a subtle nod of her head. "Misho?"

"His head, alas..." Xabok grabbed her mate by the scruff, pulled him closer, and tapped his skull with her index finger. "Is full of strange ideas. No thanks to you, tiny hunter. Nor_you_, I suspect," she added, looking at Felicia Beltran. "Though your mind understands us as well as your captain's soul does. A credit to your scholarship, truly."

"What did Misho do that was so deranged?"

"I proposed that we accept her challenge and open fire."

"Which... would have killed her," Maddy said slowly, still unclear on what had transpired. "That was the goal, though. Wasn't it?"

"And how would we tell that story?" Xabok asked. She plucked one of the scuttling roaches that served as an appetizer, holding it still while she waited to see if May needed any more of an explanation. "Only an Uxzu can make that challenge. It was, indeed, an honorable challenge to make. But if we were to obliterate her, with all our might... there would surely be no honor at all in that. Even if she is not one of us, it is true that--in this case--she_behaved_ more like one of us than we ourselves did."

While Maddy considered this--it seemed to be a rather convenient excuse for explaining what had happened--Misho continued. "The Dominion has long realized that it includes more than simply the Uxzu. Other cultures and species belong to our pride as well. It's only fair that we evaluate whether or not Venga might be one of these."

"Where will she go?"

"That would be up to the matriarch, who is indisposed. Before then..."

He nodded his massive head towards Xabok for the answer. "I wish to know more about this individual before making my recommendation to Kenra Tellak. It seems that, perhaps, we should expand our hunting of the Naltabik, the better to discover where their various lairs are. It is often best if the huntress is familiar with her prey. In this fashion, she might also acquit herself and her name. Perhaps."

"We'll give you all the information we have on the Naltabik. I'm pretty certain we've only had two encounters with them, though."

"Indeed, indeed," Xabok agreed lightly. "They are endemic to parts of our space, although their range was once purely beyond our borders. They should be controlled better. We will do this now."

What the Uxzu_meant_, May realized, was that the Naltabik had become more of a threat than the Dominion realized, and the discovery of Venga Demagh and whatever other prisoners the robots might have held was now a strategic concern.

She was considering how best to ask Xabok just how serious that concern_was_, where the war effort with the Pictor was concerned. But the Uxzu captain indicated Felicia Beltran instead. "Talkperson. If you aren't going to eat, then talk. Tell us an interesting story."

Xabok was looking for a reason to change the subject, the leopardess knew. Despite the closeness of their alliance, Maddy_had_ repeatedly called into question fundamental tenets of Dominion culture--an affront more egregious than the Akita had considered. Not, given how it intersected with her own deeply held morality, that she would've changed her mind. Managing this was Beltran's job. "Stories of what?"

"Something interesting. Not whatever it is you keep putting in Misho's head."

That raised another point, as far as May was concerned. "What about him, anyway? Will he be punished for his, uh, transgressions?"

Hearing his name, Misho had looked up from his food. Now he gave his mate a knowing look. "Didn't I tell you, Xabok? They would stand on matters of protocol."

She sighed heavily. "They can't help it. It would be foolish," she explained to the Star Patrol crew--slowly, as if speaking to a wayward child. "To punish someone for their actions, instead of the_consequences_ of those actions. Misho's folly has produced a commendable result. He has thereby honored himself."

It seemed, to Maddy, as though the entire affair had only_happened_ because of the Uxzu's own protocol where cloning was concerned. But she did not wish to argue. "Alright..."

"So I am keeping him. You may not have him," Xabok declared.

"That wasn't--"

"Borrow, yes. Have, no." And then, the matter settled, she gestured towards Dr. Beltran with half of a roach still in her massive paw. "As I was saying. Regale us. Recount stories of your captain's exploits."

She needed to restore some semblance of goodwill, or else assent to eating insects. "Exploits with the Naltabik, or exploits with Misho?"

May and David Bradley flinched with the hush that came over the table. "How long was he aboard your ship, tiny huntress?" Felicia did not flinch. She held Xabok's narrowed gaze, instead, until the Uxzu jerked her head towards her husband and repeated the question. "How long were you aboard their ship, again?"

Beltran briefly switched her universal translator off. "Xava tegh," she said, as gutturally as her voicebox could manage. "Is what my captain would tell you."

"Mm," Xabok Garra grunted, although this was the only sound that broke the silence. "Your pronunciation is not bad."

Another Uxzu, from further down the table, cleared their throat. "You mean 'long enough,' but that is not the right kind of 'long,' the one you used. That is not what you meant."

"No," Dr. Beltran said. "It was."

She knew when her words had sunk in because Xabok grinned. And, while her comrades roared in suddenly permissible laughter, she reached across the table and pushed the leopardess over backwards. "Ah! Star Patrol!" She was beaming, the diplomat could just barely see, as she extricated herself from the toppled chair. "This is why we are friends! Even their talkperson--Subenforcer Kellin, why are you being useless?"

Beltran found herself being hauled upright by a massive-pawed Uxzu, who accomplished this with deceptive gentleness despite leaving some kind of sauce smeared along her blouse. "Thank you," she managed, as Kellin set the chair back upright as well.

"Even she is one of us," Xabok finished. "You can borrow Misho, too. Mm--I see you about to decline my offer. You don't eat, and you don't fuck--what even is it that you_do_, spotted one?"

"I talk."

"She keeps her children in line." That was the same voice who had corrected Beltran's grammar. "Like Matriarch Kenra does with all of us--and these ones, too, the Terrans. She has to do it while we are not around. It is an immense challenge, I imagine."

Xabok laughed, and returned to her meal. "True. She's very cunning. You could be a great general--if you ate more to keep your strength up."

"Would that this were my calling," Felicia said, attempting to convey the appropriate degree of respect. "But I serve my captain in other ways."

"And I'm grateful for it," May added, having not for the first time come to this conclusion. Their encounter with the Parixians, too, had proven her value, and the limits of the Akita's own instincts. "When we're back aboard, I... I'd like to learn a few things from you. Keep me honest about that."

"Yes, ma'am," the leopardess promised, even if she doubted much of it would stick. "With pleasure."