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The season ender, with some space bullshit but also some smut :3

The season ender! This wraps up two separate stories, actually--the one introduced during this season, and... well. Read and find out, I guess. Thanks as always to my beta readers, particularly Spudz who identified some key problems in the first draft. Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff.

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

S7E5, "If-Then"

Stardate 67986

The message on Madison May's console had read:Carthage, with alert the captain beneath it. The message on every console had read 'Carthage,' with 'alert the captain' beneath it. Her security code cleared the message; she'd entered that immediately.

A brief note followed, although actually getting around to reading it had taken several minutes of answering alerts from the remainder of the crew, who wanted to make sure that she saw the message. The note itself called for a conference with Tsukiko Kimura; Kimura, when paged, suggested that Dr. Schatz join them.

Maddy waited until they were both in her ready room; the Border Collie carried with him a handheld computer, the contents of which seemed to be particularly distracting. She figured they could get to that soon enough. Something else was on her mind first: "I am immediately curious about what possessed you to do that?"

"We... I mean. We wanted to make sure that you were informed as quickly as possible," Kiko said. She had not approved the final version of the alert--this had come from Barry--but the basic idea seemed sound. "Given the time-sensitive nature..."

"I have a communicator," Maddy pointed out. "I don't take it off."

Dr. Schatz briefly looked up. "You're always telling me to be concise, ma'am."

"There's 'concise' and then there's commandeering every screen on the ship with a completely uninformative error message."

"Well..." Kiko, who saw May's point, still felt that her previous encounters with the captain entitled the red panda to_some_ self-defense. "Also, ma'am, the last time I paged you, you told me to come back when there was a 'real problem.'"

The Akita frowned slightly. "I was under the influence of an alien sex plant at the time. I don't think that should count. So, maybe in the future you two can try something less disruptive when you need to talk to me." Barry Schatz, she saw, had stopped working at the console and had his head tilted while he stared at the results. "How bad is it?"

"That depends on how you want to interpret some of the... right," he caught himself. "'Concise.' It could be bad. These are definitely signatures associated with a hyperspace weapon. Based on its trajectory, it's probably headed towards... Garakhav, possibly. Somewhere in the Dominion, at least."

"Senior staff, report to my ready room immediately," she said, into her communicator, with a glance towards Kimura. "See? See how that works?"

There was no point in arguing. "Yes, ma'am."

"Dr. Schatz, how certain are you of their target? You can be less concise this time, while we're waiting."

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's the Dominion. I have to make some assumptions. I assume it's not a decoy... I don't know how you'd design a decoy that didn't basically require building an entirely new weapon. They_are_ taking steps to hide it, but their course isn't changing much, so they probably don't actually think anyone knows what they're up to. Or maybe they're counting on us thinking that, hoping we detect it and assume it is a decoy, because--"

He stopped at once when Maddy held up her paw. "Let's hold off on that. If we were to send the_Tempest_ over to take a look, how close do you think we could get before they noticed us?"

"I have no idea at all, ma'am. The ship carrying the weapon has the potential to react with hyperspace in unprecedented ways. If_we_ were building it, we'd have so many sensors attached that we'd detect any approaching ship from light-years away. I have no idea what the Pictor would do."

Neither did Maddy, who hoped that Francisco Vasquez might have better ideas. When he arrived, and she'd summarized the situation to her staff, Lieutenant Vasquez looked over the information Barry had collected. "They're going to be doing like we would," the wolf pronounced. "Trying to stay hidden. The ship's a one-off."

"What does that mean?" Captain Ford asked.

"It means that they've designed it especially for this mission. Nothing in this data shows any other vessel around. Ordinarily, the Pictor would have an entire fleet protecting it, but there are no escorts. They want to stay undetected, and to know well in advance when somebody would be close enough to spot them. Of course, the Pictor only know_some_ of our capabilities. They don't know about the Tempest. They wouldn't necessarily be able to find it at all."

"That's some good news, at least. What about their target?"

"If I had to guess? Garakhav, probably. The Kolash are not just one of our best allies, they're also one of the most powerful prides in the Dominion. Locking them out of hyperspace would destabilize Uxzu politics for years, if not decades. Beyond just the loss of ships and materiel, it would be a leadership vacuum.And they've been our loudest advocates within the Dominion."

"If Kenra Tellak_knows_ what's coming, she'll want to stop it," May thought out loud. "They'll commit their entire fleet, and as many allied vessels as they can. Presumably, the Pictor would settle for taking those out as a consolation prize. Right?"

"Probably. We're stretched so thin that it would compromise the entire front."

Captain May nodded. "So. Can we destroy it? Can we destroy it_safely_?"

"I have some ideas, captain," Kimura said. "If we can get to it while it's in normalspace, I'm confident we can take it out with_minimal_ damage to hyperspace. Whether it can be done without any damage, I... don't know. We still aren't completely certain how the weapon is even constructed."

"You can make educated guesses, right?"

"Yes. And that's what we're doing, captain."

"Is there any way we can help?" Dave asked. "Can we make your work any easier?"

"It's already the number one priority of the science lab, sir. I have the resources I need. At least... the resources I could expect to have on a ship this size. We're not going to catch up to Research Center Leonardo on our own, but... I don't think you can help with that."

"Fair enough. You'll let us know if that changes?"

"Of course. Like I said, sir: it's our number one priority."

***

This had not been shared with the remainder of the crew; when Mitch Alexander tapped the panel next to Barry Schatz's door, the following day, her intentions were both more immediate and simpler.

Chiefly, there was unfinished business to settle before her shift started, in the form of trying to gain some sense of reassurance that there would be no complications with it. The Border Collie opened the door with no such complications on his mind, having been lost in thought and immediately suspecting only that he was late for something. "Oh. Hello, spaceman."

"Hey. Duty rotation says we're on at the same time. Sir. Right?"

"That's right. Yeah." Schatz, technically a lieutenant, did not really think of himself as an officer. He had been standing watches mostly because it often gave him early access to sensor data that might prove to be scientifically interesting. And, more recently, to sensor data that would give them advanced warning about any Pictor intent. Besides, the lighting in the science lab had started to give him headaches. "I'll be there. I just need to put my jacket on."

"Okay. Right. I'm_also_ going to be there. I was going to stop and get some breakfast first. I just... Is it going to be awkward? It's not going to be awkward, is it?"

"Breakfast? I don't know."w

"The last time we had a shift together, we wound up, uh... well, you remember. I had to shower for, like... an hour to get most of you out of me."

"Oh.That." The Border Collie had not, exactly, put the tryst behind him, but like most of the crew he had filed it away in a compartment labeled: avoid thinking too much about. It was not the first incident in the Rewa-Tahi that merited such classification, although it was--for him--the first that had earned it for that reason. "I don't think it'll be awkward."

"You're sure?"

"Why would it? we were experiencing an... altered mental state. I think a lot of people went through that."

Probably, Mitch thought, although she gathered that most of them had not spent quite so much of the incident knotted. "True..."

She was willing to leave it at that, but gears had started to turn in the dog's head--a combination of persistent sleep deprivation and having been caught off-guard by the Abyssinian's appearance. "I'm missing something? There's a reason it would be awkward?"

"Not exactly, no."

"We weren't exactly spit-and-polish Star Patrol before. Neither of us are pregnant. Probably," he amended.

"Probably?"

"On a scale of 'unlikely' to 'there's a mirror universe, and I'm a feared warlord there'? I think 'probably' is safe, but I've been burned too many times to call something impossible."

The point had a certain indisputable logic to it. "True. God knows, we did try our best."

"I don't think that was my best. Anyway--" When Mitch cut him off, he was busy considering the practicalities of male pregnancy, which was not unheard of; nearly all the more complex species on Atiz Luban II, for instance, including the Atizali themselves.

This was not the feline's consideration. "Hold up. What's your best, then?"

Barry had been_considering_ the Atizali--prominent agricultural scientists in the Confederation, but otherwise unremarkable--because the alternative was to consider Spaceman Alexander. "We're... on duty soon?"

He hadn't_meant_ for it to sound like a question. Mitch had meant to ask a question, although not for it to sound quite so much like a proposition. "Right," she said. "True. It is an inappropriate conversation for... right now."

"Yes."

"Later, maybe."

"Maybe."

"Right. Okay. I'm going to... I'm going to get breakfast. I'll see you on... on the bridge. After breakfast."

"Yes," he said. The door slid closed.

She stared at it for a lengthy spell. "Well," she finally said aloud, and to no one in particular. "I don't see what was awkward about that."

***

"I need your help."

All Tsukiko had_said_ to Ciara was 'can you stop by the lab?' The vixen did so, not knowing what to expect. "Why? What's up?"

Kiko had prepared a selection of diagrams, which she felt would best allow her work to be summarized to her old friend. Partly, she hoped it would help her ability to explain herself; partly, she also hoped Ciara would be able to tell her which of those diagrams would_also_ be useful when talking to Madison May. "The captain wanted me to find a way to destroy the weapon. I think I have one."

"That's good. A way to do it without breaking everything?"

"Yeah. If the containment chamber is ruptured while we're in normalspace, we probably wouldn't even notice. Our deflector shields will keep everything out--no problem."

"So? So what do you need my help with?"

"Well..."

Petty Officer Kimura had, since shortly after enlistment, demonstrated a keen aptitude for Star Patrol weaponry. As an engineer, this endeared her to some of the crew more than others--Lieutenant Hazelton, in particular, was always excited to try new things.

But the red panda also knew that others were inclined to view her profession with a degree of skepticism, especially where some of the more outrageous projects from Research Center Leonardo were concerned. "Back at RCL, they wanted us to be able to design a countermeasure to a hyperspace weapon. We weren't trying to_make_ one, you know?"

"Okay."

"But understanding_how_ to counter it sort of, ah..."

"Required that you know how to make one," Munro finished.

"Yes. But we were never actually successful. There were always problems with the technology. Or the basic theory, I guess, as it turns out."

A significant number of the crew had joined the Star Patrol out of a desire for exploration, or to pursue entirely academic challenges. Munro was not one of them; she'd always seen herself as a member of an armed service, and would not even have described Kimura's work as anything so pejorative as a "necessary evil." It was simply part of the job. "Have you made some kind of progress?"

"I think so. The Pictor are working from a similar concept as we were. What they've added is a hyperspace core that introduces a regular but distinct gravimetric component. It lets them slow down the chaikalions significantly--that's how they're able to have so many of them in one place."

"And you... understand that I don't know what any of that_means_, right, Kiko?"

She rubbed at her neck. "I kind of hoped you'd understand a_little_ bit, at least."

"I tested_starfighters_. Hyperspace theory is for the weird eggheads at Novy Corrada. I'm a straight Kifrea girl, you know that. They were always springing that on me in the exams, 'derive the rotational energy of a 1 kilojärvi centroid' or whatever..."

Tsukiko could only sigh, and look at the charts which she had so diligently prepared. "Really taking the wind out of my big reveal here, vix."

"Sorry. Talk to me like I was a small child. Or, like... Shamrock. Or Captain May."

"You were my test May, Ciara!"

"Oof. Big picture, then."

The engineer sighed again, this time in frustration. "Fine. This number, right here? It's very big. We want it to be small. We can't make it small in our current models. In our current models, it goes to infinity, which is bad. The secret is_this_ number."

What Kiko had pointed to was not a number. It was an equation, and one that needed to be written across several lines. "I see."

"The missing piece was the gravimetric one. In most ways, the Pictor device behaves like what we'd call a Lund body--like the distortion artifact of the field generated by this ship's hyperdrive. Does that sound familiar?"

"Maybe. I think I know Lund, yeah."

"Great! At RCL, we weren't considering the space-time disturbance--accounting for the tachyon component lets us determine the resonant frequency of the core. That lets us dampen it."

"Which is how you'll destroy it?"

"No. You can--look, you could_destroy_ it with a particle beam. If we dampen it sufficiently, we can shut the weapon down. That's--oh. Here, I forgot something. The technology they're using has to be generating large quantities of radiation. Alpha, gamma, omicron: the whole shebang. A bunch of radiation."

"Why didn't we see them any sooner? Do they have a cloaking device?"

"No. Dr. Schatz and I were trying to figure that out ourselves. We should've picked 'em up sooner. The only thing that makes sense is if the outer hull is dense enough to contain it. It's not displacing the right mass, though. It's too light for that."

"It's unshielded? The inside is unshielded..." she realized out loud, and then the implication that came with it: "it's not a ship. It's a ship-sized missile."

"Exactly. Unmanned, and likely preprogrammed. Which_means_..."

"We could shut it down and try to capture it."

"Yes. Learn how they made it in the first place. That could teach us how to find more, or whether they even can make more. But this is what I need your help with, yeah?"

"My help? Why?"

"I'm still..." the door chimed, opened, and admitted Barry Schatz. "Something the matter?"

"No. Just passing by. I wanted to let you know that Commander Bradley agreed we could shut down the astrometric surveys for the moment. You've got those three cores for your models, if you want, until further notice."

"Oh. Alright." He turned to leave, and she thought of something else. "Hey, Dr. Schatz? What does this look like to you?"

Barry tilted his head a few degrees to the side, and then a few degrees more in the opposite direction. "Uh. It looks like a polynomial Heikki-Nguyen equation. Do you... need to determine the resonant frequency of a Lund body with a tachyon component?"

"See? He gets it," she said, nodding; Dr. Schatz, who had become distracted by_other_ things of late, shrugged, and left them alone again. "I'm trying to do you a favor. A crash course in hyperspace theory like this? You really ought to be thanking me."

"Sorry, Kiko. I'm not so much into... sadism."

Tsukiko snickered. "Well.You're welcome, anyway. But I do need your help."

"As long as it's something I_can_ help you with."

"You can. You don't need any math. It's like this, vix: capturing the weapon would be incredibly valuable. And, without its chaikalion source, it's basically harmless. But if I tell Captain May that, she's just going to think I'm being, you know... that RCL lady who likes blowing things up."

"Aren't you?"

"Sometimes. Not this time. If it comes from me or Lieutenant Hazelton, the captain will tell us we need to be cautious. If you say it... she knows we go back for years. She'd listen to your opinion of me, and_my_ opinion. I'm sure of that."

"Maybe."

"Definitely. Look, I'm... I screwed things up letting Torres tell everyone what was going on. The captain must think I'm a liability. Even if she doesn't, I know she doesn't_trust_ me. She trusts you."

"And I trust you," Ciara said aloud; this was something the vixen_believed_ to be true, but her old friend was now proposing to lasso a weapon of mass destruction, when their explicit orders had been to destroy it. She wanted to see how the words felt, when she said them out loud.

"So?"

"I'll talk to her. But no guarantees."

***

Captain's log, stardate 67989.2

Lieutenant Commander Munro has informed me of progress that Petty Officer Kimura, with Mitchell Torres's help, have made. They believe that it's possible to shut down the weapon, rather than destroying it altogether, and that valuable information would be gained from doing so.

They can't have brought this to us at a better time. Tactical data from the last shift indicates that the Pictor vessel has come to a stop in a system several parsecs distant. It remains unescorted. I've asked Francisco Vasquez, whose knowledge of the Pictor is second to none, to brief us on Munro's suspicions that the vessel is an unmanned missile and, if so, what that means for ability to destroy it.

Vasquez came prepared bearing more than just that assessment: with Leon Bader, the tactical officer, he'd also prepared an attack plan that both of them felt offered guaranteed success. Lieutenant Bader was present for the briefing, which--unusually--was purely a tactical one. Captain Ford and Commander Bradley were the only others in the room.

"You sound pretty confident." He'd just finished, and to May's thinking he'd been unusually optimistic about the risks of such an attack. "You say there might be some kind of small escort that we can't detect at this range, and if it were me, I'd sure want somebody with positive control over a thing like that. It seems to me like there's a clear possibility they detonate it on their own initiative rather than let it be destroyed, let alone captured."

"The Pictor generally behave in a hierarchical way. That means that there's no real need for 'initiative,' and... without that, probably no real need for an escort. There_might_ be one, but it's unlikely. We should keep in mind how risky this is for them, too. They'll want to be cautious."

"What do you mean? They're holding all the cards. Why would they be cautious?"

Jack Ford could only chuckle at the Akita's question. "It's a bomb that could leave you and every ship in your fleet stranded in deep space forever. A bomb made of extremely unstable materials that aren't even supposed to_exist_ in our universe. I'd be scared shitless if I had to escort that thing. 'Caution' is the nicest word for it."

"There's that, yes, sir." Vasquez agreed. "But also, Captain May, consider something else: we don't know how many weapons they've been able to build. Or even_if_ they've been able to build any other weapons. The first time they use it, they're revealing their capabilities to the galaxy."

Hearing that, Dave Bradley grew thoughtful. "That's true. If they set it off and it takes out every Star Patrol ship in the border sectors, that's one thing. If they set it off and it decapitates the Dominion, that's one thing, too. But if they don't manage that, and all that happens is they knock out travel in a desolated sector with a few mining rigs..."

"They'd just be pissing the Dominion off," Maddy finished what her first officer had started. "Rallying every pride that's still uncommitted, and their allies. The stakes would would've grown a lot more severe."

"So," Vasquez concluded: "I don't think they can afford to set it off unless they_know_ it's worth it. They must be waiting for orders on a final target. If they come under attack, the weapon will send off some kind of distress signal. We could probably intercept that."

"They use hypersondes to amplify their FTL comms, just like we do. We know what those look like, and how to track their signals down," Lieutenant Bader added. "I can scan for them and come up with a plan to destroy any we find."

"Do it." Maddy figured that was the least they could do to prepare for the encounter--no sense in making it any easier for Pictor reinforcements to show up. "What happens if the missile doesn't get an answer, though? How smart do we figure the smart bomb_is_?"

"Eventually, it would go off, I'm sure. But we'd have a window to destroy the weapon first. Five or ten minutes, probably."

"What about disabling it? Dr. Schatz is of the opinion that Tsukiko's idea has merit. Lieutenant Hazelton tells me that the modifications to our ship and the_Tempest_ could be completed in a few hours. The Carthago protocols mandate that we destroy any such device. But... they don't say we can't have a look first."

Nobody answered. Francisco Vasquez was, eventually, the first to speak. "If we can do it safely, ma'am, it's not a bad idea. If we know how they built it, we might also learn how difficult it was... whether they're likely to have more."

"If we can do it safely," Jack stressed. Even a coyote's recklessness had limits. "Remember what I said? I'm not thrilled getting as close as we're already gonna have to, even before we start trying to board it. What about you, shep? We have a plan B?"

"We can keep our particle beams trained on the device. If I understand things right, it'll have to jump into hyperspace to detonate. At the first sign that it's going to, I don't see why we can't blow it to hell like Lieutenant Vasquez already suggested."

The coyote shook his head, frowning. "So it's just plan A with an unnecessary bit of waiting around. If you ask me, Maddy, maybe we'll get lucky and find something in the debris that'll help us figure out what we want to know. Number one priority should be taking it out."

"Dave?" May asked.

"I think he's right. It's too risky."

The Akita nodded slowly. "Here's my concern. Ms. Kimura is our expert on this, and she tells me it's our best chance to understand what the Pictor are doing. There's too much we don't know... too much our own scientists back in the TC don't know, I'm assuming. We're in the same boat Vasquez outlined. When we attack, we're telling the Pictor we know how to find them, and how to destroy them. There's no guarantee they wouldn't adapt."

"There's no guarantee they even have another weapon. Everything I've read from Dr. Schatz and Kimura says the odds are against it," Jack countered. "So we'd just be finishing them off."

"We do seem to have more than our share of luck," Maddy granted. "If the weapon is stopped for now, how long do we have? Can you give us an educated guess, Lieutenant Vasquez?"

"They've parked it in the shadow of a B-class singularity. I'd say they're trying to keep it hidden for the right strategic moment. Days? Weeks?"

"Long enough to ask for help, then," the captain said. "Let's start making the modifications, just in case. Under the assumption that we_will_ just destroy it--unless we hear otherwise."

"From whom?"

"Someone who can tell us if the Star Patrol has learned anything more. Get the_Tempest_ ready."

***

She saluted. "Lieutenant Commander Munro, reporting as ordered."

"At ease. And this is?"

"Mitchell Torres," Munro said, introducing her.

"Mitti," Torres offered, and held her paw out for Mercure.

He shook it thoughtfully. "A civilian?"

"Yeah."

"A civilian hyperspace weapons specialist?"

Torres's cybernetic eye had swept over the lion's body, and given the Abyssinian some peculiar results on which to dwell. "No," she finally spoke up. "I was a salvager for the Link. They rescued me from a prison camp on Clearwater. I didn't work with hyperspace weapons, but... you know what hyperspace is like..."

"I see," Mercure said. He betrayed nothing that Ciara could detect--and Ciara would have assumed, incorrectly, that Mercure had already been informed of a fellow refugee from his universe, and that nothing Mitti Torres said came as a surprise. The brief eye contact he exchanged with Torres, though, was enough for her. "Well. I'm sure any kind of expertise in hyperspace has come in handy with this sort of... thing. You have news for me, Ciara?"

"Yes, sir." The data crystal she carried required two signatures to decrypt it: hers and the admiral's own. She did her part, and handed it over. "Our captain's intentions, and the current tactical situation."

"I see," he said again, setting the data chip into a port on his computer and turning it so only he could see the screen. "This looks quite serious. The_Dark Horse_ is in a position to strike?"

"We can be within a day or so, once I return. But time is of the essence, naturally. As is security, which is why I'm here in person."

"Naturally. The operation's approved. Only... would you mind waiting outside, Ms. Torres?" he asked. The Abyssinian did so at once, without complaint, trusting that Ciara would tell her anything she truly needed to know later. "Captain May is confident that she can pull this one off?"

"As far as I know, sir, yes."

"And you agree with the tactical assessment that the weapon is uncrewed, and would be easily destroyed in a surprise attack." That wasn't a question; he seemed to have concluded that the conversation would not be taking place otherwise.

"The simulations are convincing, yes. It doesn't appear to be escorted--not from any signals we've been able to detect."

"Well." The lion drummed his fingers on the desk, staring past the walls of his office. "Here's the problem, commander. We don't know if that's the only weapon they have."

"No, I suppose not."

"The Admiralty has given me troubling orders. You can imagine how I intend to execute them." He smiled distantly at her expression. "Speak freely, please."

"You intend to execute them... incompletely, sir?"

"They want a weapon like this captured if at all possible, so that we can study how the Pictor are making them, and hopefully counteract any we find. Personally, I think that's quite reckless. Some of the other admirals are... less wary. Or more desperate. Do you think it's reckless?"

"I don't know. Petty Officer Kimura has some ideas about how it might be stabilized and shut down safely."

"Does she? Well, Ms. Kimura is one of the most qualified to say that, I suppose. Hmm."

"I can't claim that I understand them, sir. But yes."

"That makes things more complicated for me. Here is the second problem, then: our communications_had_ been compromised for some time. For all I know, they still are."

"That's why we're meeting like this, I imagine. Captain May didn't even consider trying to establish a long-distance link."

"Precisely. I had ordered my team at RCL to be sequestered. For the last few weeks, ever since the initial discovery, they have been directed to report only to me. My hope is that, by isolating them, they'll be able to work in secret."

"Are they working on this project?"

"The Admiralty wants them to. So, yes. I was given some updated schematics a few days ago--the first that, as far as I know, there's no_chance_ have been leaked. Maybe the older ones weren't, either; it would take an incredibly skilled hacker, well beyond what it takes to crack our comms, but..."

He had started tapping on his computer again, and handed Ciara the data chip back. "These are the new schematics you mentioned?"

"All of their research, yes. I need to trust you, Ciara. Impress upon May that_if_ she thinks it can be done safely, she should try to recover the weapon intact. If she doesn't--if she has the shadow of a doubt--then you should destroy it, and we'll deal with the consequences later. Can you do that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Understand that you're on your own, too. I'd love to have other ships I could send to help, but I can't risk it and I can't take the time."

"I know. We'll manage."

"Very well. You're--wait. How's Lieutenant Vasquez working out, Munro?"

"Uh... fine, sir," she admitted. She let out a short, uncharacteristic laugh. "He's learned to fit in. I underestimated him. You were right to send him to us, admiral. He came up with the tactical plan. Nobody argued. It's solid."

"Good. I'm glad. Alright:now you're dismissed, commander. Get back to your ship as soon as you can. I'll wait to hear from you, and I damned well better hear from you again. That's an order I'm giving Captain May, too. Pass it on straight from me."

"Understood," the vixen promised. She met Mitti in the corridor outside, and began walking briskly back to the shuttle bay. "It was nothing," she said, in response to the Abyssinian's quizzical expression.

Back aboard the_Tempest_, with the reactor coming up to power and Ciara working on their navigational plot, the cat figured they were in the clear. "Was it actually nothing?"

"No. The Admiralty wants us to secure the weapon for research, if we can. He gave me some updated files from Research Center Leonardo, too."

"You and the captain both know where he's really from, right?"

"Yes. The rest of the crew doesn't, but... yes. She told me."

"And you trust him?"

"It's not really up for me to decide that."

"Hmm. Well, you do trust me, too..."

There had been an awful lot of questions of_trust_ circling Ciara's encounters over the previous few days. "You can't give me orders."

"Sometimes!"

"Coffee doesn't count." The Abyssinian's presence had already begun to put her at ease once again; she laughed. "We'll see what the captain thinks."

***

Captain's log, stardate 67996

Long-range scanners suggest that the weapon may be powering up its systems. Commander Bradley and Lieutenant Vasquez point to indications of a large Dominion fleet now assembling at Garakhav. The Pictor would be able to see that, too. The Kolash Pride will arrive back at their homeworld in four days. We assume that's when the Pictor intend to strike.

The return of the Tempest has brought another quandary: the Admiralty, too, wants us to try capturing the weapon if possible, and they've provided some ideas on how to do so. With time running out, I've asked the team working on our solution to tell me what our options are.

"There's good news and bad news. The good news is that RCL is thinking along the same lines that Petty Officer Kimura and I have been pursuing. That is, we all agree that using a directed particle beam to destabilize the field so that it can be dampened by applying an inverse--I mean--I can explain it if you want?"

"Hit us with the bad news first and we'll see," Maddy suggested, although the answer was highly likely to be 'no.'

"The bad news is their_approach_ is... not identical, at least not from the actual practicalities. Their thinking is that two different devices would need to be used, to completely shut down the weapon's core."

"For us," Kiko added, "that would mean two different ships. Back at RCL, they can count on having plenty of cannon fodder around."

"That could be a problem," Dave pointed out. "Unless we can use one of the shuttles."

"The_Tempest_." The particle generator she'd designed was not particularly large, and the spy ship developed plenty of power. "We could use the Tempest, if we wanted to. But I think RCL might be missing something, too. We should stick to our original plan."

"Dr. Schatz, do you agree?"

The Border Collie tried to avoid glancing over at Kimura, in case she was about to judge him. "She's the practical engineer, sir. I only know theory. In theory, RCL's approach does make some sense. And they say there were some problems they've fixed in our original code, but neither of us know what those are."

"Can you do a comparison? See what's different, line by line?"

Kiko stepped in. "Yes, but it would take weeks. There are thousands of lines of changes. And, beyond_what_ they changed, we'd still have to run down why. I'm sure the theory is sound, and they've got a big team. But we're closer to the actual data. Plus, we have some observations of the weapon itself that they wouldn't have had access to."

By nature, Maddy was inclined to be sympathetic to the red panda's point of view. On the other hand, there would definitely be questions from the admiral if they ignored the updates he'd sent them. "How certain are you that your approach is still the right one, Ms. Kimura? Are you_absolutely_ certain?"

Her long tail curled and uncurled slowly. "No."

She looked to Barry next. "And you. How certain are you that their_theory_ is better? Absolutely certain?"

"It's cleaner. Yes," he added hastily, when he saw the Akita's eyes narrow. "I'm certain it's better. But I don't know how it will work in practice."

"Then we're going to have to find out. Ms. Kimura, adapt your work to the_Tempest_ and brief Lieutenant Commander Munro on what she needs to do. If you decide that you are certain that it's the wrong approach, tell me at once."

"Yes, ma'am."

"With the communicator, though."

Tsukiko nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

'Adapting her work' was not difficult; Ciara supervised--along with Torres, who would be acting as her copilot, since she'd helped to design the thing in the first place. When they'd finished installing it, and Torres had left to get some sleep before the mission, Kimura explained in as much detail as she could what the pair would need to do.

Ciara's head swam when the red panda stopped, at last: there was a dissertation's worth of work, lingering in dense holograms in front of the two. "You're welcome," Tsukiko teased gently. "I know it's a lot to take in, but..."

"I already told you. You don't get my gratitude for torturing me, Kiko."

"Well, a whole bunch is gonna be riding on you and Torres. You_should_ be grateful I'm lecturing you. All the theory on the ideal phi-sub-2 values is new. RCL seems to be making some odd assumptions there."

"You said that, yes."

"Keep an eye on them. Listen to me, vix..."

"I'm the pilot," Munro protested. "There's no phi-sub-anything in that. The mission plan isn't even giving me any buttons to push, unless Mitti needs help. My job's just flying the ship."

"'Just.' At least you_get_ to do that."

"What do you mean?"

Kiko bit back a reflexive answer. "Nothing," she said. "Okay. One more time: when the field differential--"

"Hey. No, Kiko, c'mon. What do you mean?"

"I already told you."

"It's not 'nothing,' obviously."

"Not what I meant. I told you before. I feel like..." As she trailed off, the red panda felt her tail curling protectively around her legs. Kiko sighed sharply. "Okay. I feel like I'm useless to the captain. I want to make a difference here, y'know?"

"Sure. I know what that's like."

She shot her friend a look, and pointed to the_Tempest_. "Really? You're the only one who can fly this thing, right? I'm a weapons scientist who burnt out one of the Agnar coils in the targeting array the last time we tested the beam upgrades."

"Captain Ford could fly the_Tempest_, I'm pretty sure. Eventually," she amended--the ship could be quite temperamental. "But you want to talk being outclassed? Some of the other crew... Dr. Schatz has, what, half a dozen degrees? I mean, and... and, like, the chief engineer? She should either be running one of the research centers by herself or, you know... in prison..."

"I suppose..."

"Captain May obviously listens to you. You're the one who got her thinking we could stop this weapon to begin with. If you hadn't said that, she would've just ignored Admiral Mercure's suggestion to even consider it.And you knew enough to have an information on what they were doing."

"I'm still not sure about the changes they've suggested," the red panda countered. "But we're still going with them, anyway."

"If you think it's dangerous, you know, you could tell the captain that."

"No, no. But... I'm not going to have the time to review all of it in the next three hours. I just have to hope I'm not smarter than my old colleagues."

Ciara grinned. "I'm sure you_are_. There's just more of them than there are of you."

***

"Pancho was right. They just tried to send a message to that hyperspace beacon we knocked out. I can't decrypt it, but it was definitely a Pictor signal."

Now they had to hope Vasquez was_also_ correct about his guess that the weapon would not be fail-deadly in the event it received no response to its distress call. Spaceman Alexander and Dr. Schatz watched their telemetry closely; there was no sign of any change.

Captain May finally broke the tension. "They're not going to try and set it off?"

"There's no sign of it, captain, no," Mitch told her. "I think we're safe."

"Ms. Kimura, are you and the_Tempest_ ready?"

"Tempest here. In position and standing by."

Up until the last minute, Tsukiko had been trying to understand the_intent_ beyond the changes Mercure had given them. Most of it made sense. The rest, she had to assume, would too--given enough time, which was in preciously short supply. "I..."

"Yes or no, Ms. Kimura."

"I'm ready. Yes. We can proceed."

"Do it." On second thought, May felt she would benefit from an amendment: "and keep talking. Let me know what's going on."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm energizing the LRU and configuring the field generator now. Okay. The data looks clean... field differential is a nominal 0.2." Kimura waited until the frequencies had completely harmonized. "Ciara, can you confirm the weapon core is still within its expected parameters?"

"Well, it's within the parameters I was told to assume were expected."

That, Kimura knew, was just one of the limitations they had to work with in such uncharted territory. "I'll take it. Beginning the dampening sequence,Tempest. Let me know how it's looking."

"No change so far."

"Increasing power, then. There, that should be having an effect. I read it at 0.16. Let's hold there a second. You're stable?"

"We're stable, Kiko. Confirm, 0.16, and we're ready for the next stage. Dropping again..."

"Good." It was taking slightly more effort from the LRU than Kimura had_planned_, but she assumed her after-action report would identify some extra source of resistance she hadn't accounted for. The outcome was still as she'd predicted. "Continuing. We're almost synced enough for you to start the shutdown protocols."

"Copy. Torres says we have a green light, too. She is activating the particle generator... generator's online, uh... now."

"Got it. Good impulse response... good signal spectrum... everything's nominal for you, too?"

"I'm seeing some minor power fluctuations, but that's all... nothing too concerning. The core output is definitely dropping. And I think we're stable? Our differential is, ah..."

"Steady at 0.06," Torres's voice joined them over the comm link. "Now 0.051... 0.047..."

"The weapon's output has dropped by almost half. I think this might work, captain," the red panda reported, breathing an inward sigh of relief. "Down to 15%, now. We're at the containment threshold."

"Good job, everyone," Maddy said. "Shut that damned thing down, then."

"Transmitting the sequence. Uh... hmm." Kimura frowned, and tried again. "I'm not sure about the... let me double-check the variables. Dr. Schatz, can you give me a hand?"

"Tempest here," Ciara cut in, over the radio, while Barry listened with a half-perked ear and tried to sort through the telemetry they were receiving. "The field differential is rising again. Back to 0.2... 0.5..."

"Can you compensate for it on your own?"

"We're trying. It's over 3 now... 6.2... 15..." Her voice had the same tense alarm as Kimura's expression was beginning to take on. "We have to back off, Kiko."

"Yeah," she agreed, although other warnings on the engineer's console were now drawing her attention. "Stand by. Just a few seconds... that generator needs to stay operational until I can isolate it from our systems..."

"Hey. Engineering says there's a feedback loop in the LRU's main emitter." Kimura didn't_need_ Mitch to tell her that--it was one of a growing assortment of numbers that her console chose to render in flashing, garish red. "The power grid's overloading."

"Stand by... Dr. Schatz, can you try--"

"Dark Horse. I think your field is collapsing. We need--"

Maddy saw a briefly startled look from Ciara Munro, and then the channel cut out. "CCI, what just happened?"

Before she could answer, there was a brief shudder, and the ship's lights dimmed. Lieutenant Hazelton's voice came over the shipwide intercom. "Inner hull breach at frame 20, decks 4 through 7, starboard. Damage control teams in ER2 gear to forward ops. Expect contingencies. Engineering out."

"Report," May barked. "Now, spaceman."

"Power failure on deck six, near the LRU maintenance space," Mitch said, sorting through a barrage of alerts as quickly as she could. "Pressure fluctuation; probably a hull breach from a blown conduit. Life support is--"

"Not_us_," her captain interrupted. "I know we're alive for the moment. Shannon can handle that. What about the Tempest?"

"Um. Our communications have been disrupted. Sensors are on auxiliary power, ma'am, so I can't get a precise reading. But, uh... I'm detecting two life signs. Probably stable; it'll take a minute to clear up the noise."

"Were they damaged?"

"Their hull looks intact. I believe they might be maneuvering to get a better look at us, though."

"We took the hit on this one?"

"I think so, captain, yes."

"And the weapon?"

That, at least, was a question she could clearly answer. "It's gone. Even with limited sensors, I'm picking up a debris field with the largest components on a trajectory consistent with a massive explosion at its former location."

"Any sign of damage to hyperspace?" Commander Bradley asked.

Dr. Schatz, rather than Spaceman Alexander, answered. "It's unlikely. The theoretical science on this is all still purely speculative, but the weapon was almost completely neutralized by the time our dampening systems failed. Preliminary data from the hypersondes indicate nothing out of the ordinary."

"That's something. Have..." Captain May thought through her options quickly. "Have Sabel get to the shuttlebay and prepare the Vostok. Tell him to be ready for an EVA if we have to rescue the_Tempest_ and her crew. Can you coordinate that, Dave?"

"Sure thing."

"Good." That having been taken care of, it was time to turn to their_own_ survival. She tapped the communicator on her wrist. "Lieutenant Hazelton, this is the bridge."

"Later, Mads."

She raised an eyebrow. "There'll be a 'later,' lieutenant?"

"Yes. There'll be a 'later.'If you let me get back to work. Engineering out."

***

The initial report from Dr. Schatz and Spaceman Alexander said there had been nothing Ciara could've done to salvage the operation. Mitch delivered that hastily, and then headed off back to the science lab. The two seemed to have been growing closer, the vixen thought. Perhaps, now that Ciara herself was obviously off the table for Mitch, she had turned to easier pursuits.

She laid back on her bunk, staring at the ceiling. "But, I mean... was there_any_ sign?"

Torres shook her head. "I don't think so. It looks like the power spiked exponentially, right there at the end. I don't see what you missed. Stop beating yourself up over it."

"When your fur grows back," Ciara countered.

The Abyssinian's harness hadn't kept her arm from being jammed into a console when the_Tempest_'s deflector shields took a piece of debris from the exploding weapon. In the interest of expedience, Ayenni had shaved the back of her paw when she set the shattered bones back into place.

It was not the worst Mitti had experienced, not by far; the painkillers in the scout ship's first-aid kit, and Ciara's doting, kept her from feeling anything until the_Dark Horse_ was ready to take them back aboard. After that, the doctor's work was superlative. Torres was already back to 100%, so far as she was concerned.

"Before you know it," she promised the vixen. "Maybe we'll even get a second shot."

"Admiral Mercure didn't think so. I'll be just as happy if we_don't_, you know?" The doorbell chimed softly, before Ciara had the chance to explain further. "Come in?"

Torres saw who it was first. "Oh! Hi, Ms. Kimura."

Petty Officer Kimura nodded to the cat. She had been dreading the impending conversation, and psyched herself up for it, only to find an unexpected variable in Torres. "Um. Can we have a moment alone? Ciara and I?"

"Keeps happening to me," Mitti teased; she hadn't picked up on the red panda's apprehensiveness. "Sure. Give me a call, vix, okay?"

"Yeah." Ciara had noticed that something was wrong, but she waited until the door had closed. "What's going on?"

"You tell me. That fucking--that--you goddamned--"

"Wait. Calm down..."

She gritted her teeth. "I'm not_calming down_. I found your fucking note, Commander Munro."

The vixen blinked, and pinned her ears. "What? What 'note'?"

"In the code. Those 'research updates' we got from RCL--I mean, the ones you_said_ came from RCL," she amended, having quoted 'research updates' with her fingers. "Did you--did you not want me aboard? Why didn't you come to me first?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

It took every bit of Kimura's patience not to simply throw her computer at the vixen's head. The plastic creaked under her tight grip. "Your code destabilized that weapon. It introduced a harmonic in the impulse generator that the LRU amplified. If we'd used my original idea, everything would've worked perfectly."

Nothing in this explanation, delivered angrily as it was, actually made anything clearer to Munro. "It wasn't 'my' code," she pointed out. "I didn't even_look_ at it. The data Admiral Mercure gave me was encrypted, anyway. He said it was straight from RCL."

Tsukiko had known the vixen for years--long enough that the confusion in her expression was,itself, a bit difficult to understand. The evidence, however, was not. She turned the computer on, and shoved it in the pilot's face.

Ciara tilted her head, her brow furrowing:

until reject:

_ #_

_ # !!OLD!! $cv ?, $cv,deflectorPID(this)_

_ # additional constraint for derivative_

_ # use these, kiko_

_ #_

_ $cv => lerp(tau,{mv,mu,mx}) :? deflectorPID($cv)_

_ wait_

"Some of this is in English," she finally said. "What does it do?"

"I just said what it does. It changes how the PID function for the phase compensator is defined. That creates a harmonic in the generator output that's significant enough to--"

"I don't--stop," Ciara said, before bafflement got the better of her. "I don't even know what a 'PID function' is. This is gibberish. I can't be the only person who calls you 'Kiko,' can I? Hell, doesn't Pancho Vasquez call you that? You and he both worked for the admiral."

"Sure. You're not the only person who calls me that. You_are_ the only person with your Star Patrol credentials. That code update was signed. You signed it."

"No, I didn't. You need..." She took a few deep breaths, and sighed sharply. "Okay. I'm not going to tell you to calm down. But you're sure this was the problem? Somebody sabotaged the salvage operation?"

"You sabotaged it, yes."

"Come off it. You know me. I'm a pilot, Kiko, not a physicist. This is Greek to me. I mean..." she took a second look, to see Kimura's brief explanation revealed some useful insight about the code. It did not. "Some of this is_literally_ Greek, as far as I can tell. Admiral Mercure said that he was concerned Star Patrol communications had been compromised. Maybe a foreign agent snuck that in, somehow. An actual saboteur."

Kimura had calmed down, a little, since first discovering the offending code. "They'd have to have known_exactly_ what we were doing out here. I guess..." Despite her old friend's assurances, Tsukiko did make an effort to calm down. "I guess there was a fleetwide alert about this kind of weapon, but..."

"If it wasn't me, could it have been Admiral Mercure?"

"I don't think so. He's the one who wanted us to salvage it, right?"

Ciara frowned. "Have you gone to the captain yet?"

"I was going to punch you first," the red panda admitted. "Then decide what to do afterwards. You made me look like an idiot, Ciara."

"I didn't," she repeated. "But you need to talk to Captain May. Right now. Tell her everything you've found, including the bit about my signature being on it. Admiral Mercure... he wasn't sure that salvaging it was a good idea, but... I don't know why he'd put my name in the code."

"You think he did that?"

"No, not really. But I don't know where else to start. Maybe the captain will."

***

"Yes. Probably for the better," Barry said; Mitch had told him:guess we're done in here, right?

She grinned. "I'll get out of your den, don't worry."

"My den? I stay in the archives. The lighting here's been killing me lately. I asked for it to be fixed weeks ago, but Hazelton said there was nothing we could do. Grid frequency, I think. Which doesn't make sense, exactly, but--"

Mitch looked at the illumination panels. "What? No. They're just old. This is a secondary space; power gets switched off when it's not being used depending on our readiness condition. Over a few centuries, all those cycles... things get worn. I'll check 'em when I'm done on the bridge."

"Oh. Thanks. And thanks for your help with the analytics, too." She was also, out of all the crew, the one best equipped to make sense of the_Dark Horse_'s old sensor equipment, which always had its own set of quirks.

"Don't mention it." The quirks were not top of mind for the Abyssinian; she had watched the incident play out from the CCI station, in the dark about what was happening to her crewmates on the_Tempest_. "You don't think we missed anything, do you?"

Barry shook his head. "No. I mean. Well. Probably? Are you trying to reassure yourself, or asking seriously?" They'd been reviewing the data off-hours; he had other work to do in the lab, and Mitch was supposed to be headed to her next proper shift.

Mitch curled her tail in a slow, looping lash. "If I say 'seriously,' what will it take to keep you talking at, like... a paragraph length?"

"I'm sure that if we looked at it_now_, you could find patterns in it. I think it's safe to say that there was some kind of harmonic that we didn't detect, and we could've... these components here, for example," he said, gesturing at a few of the lines threading their way through a three-dimensional holographic plot that looked, in all other regards, like a tangle of yarn.

"So it's something we_could've_ seen, if we'd known what it was."

"Yeah." He powered down the computer, and the plots disappeared. "This_was_ a very unique case."

"You don't think we were distracted?"

"No." He paused, and took a second glance at the look he was getting from the Abyssinian. "You do?"

"Not exactly, no. But what if we worked_better_ with our minds clear?"

"Because..."

For being some sort of genius, Mitch thought, he can be strikingly dense. "Because I want to get fucked. Consider it an experiment."

"As to whether you work better--"

"When I've gotten off. Yeah. That would be scientific, right?"

The Border Collie eyed the door to the science lab. "Well.Well... probably," he decided, and pressed his paw to the lock. "Probably there's something scientific about it."

"Only 'probably'?" She was leaning back against the console, her tail swaying in a rhythm Mitch herself had not consciously adopted, but absolutely would not have stopped had she known the effect it had on the dog. "We need a hypothesis or something?"

"What_you_ need is pretty clear."

"Control group?" She was wearing her off-duty clothes--slacks and a light tunic--which meant that when Schatz padded over and slid his paws along her waist, it was easy enough for her to use a bit of feline athleticism and wriggle slightly free of the former.

Barry gave a firmer downwards push, and just the_hint_ of a growl. "We are the control." Mitch shivered, as his claws ran through a few centimeters of exposed pelt. And, after the growl deepened, she took the hint and extracted one leg from her pants and underwear.

The other remained trapped, with the fabric bunched at her thighs, but before she could finish the job the world spun, and she found herself staring at the blank console. The Border Collie was behind her, his muzzle nudging her scruff and his arm wrapped around her, paw already between her legs.

Mitch shut her eyes and let the dog work. The soft fur of her thighs seemed to feel especially sensitive to his attention--the rushed gasp she got out had no theater to it whatsoever. And his stroking fingers were as purposeful as they were insistent, the heat of the collie's touch drawing quickly upwards...

She gasped a second time, with an oath of gratification at his directness, as he traced her bare slit. Barry felt her tail twitch and jerk against his leg, alongside the gasp; it took almost no pressure at all to part her lips around his fingerpads, and only a few strokes until they'd grown slick and wet, the fur already matted.

His curled fingers slid inside, and as Mitch tried to navigate between her_desire_ and her responsibilities it took a few tries to get any words out. "How--how much... how far can we, uh--do we have time for?"

"Enough." And he retained, if not a great deal of restraint, at least the presence of mind to bite down on her scruff. Her brain fuzzed into pleasant static, and she heard without truly_understanding_ the sound of the dog's pants hitting the ground. It was indeed only the feeling of something stiff and hot pressed up between her legs that drew her back into something like useful consciousness.

Barry let his breath out in a low growl, already pushing forward and into her. If he wasn't really in_control_ of his body, he was at least gratifyingly aware of how warm and wet the feline was around him; how easy it was to arch his hips until he had her pinned between the console and his body, with every last bit of him buried in her.

He thrust just as easily, taking her in a nice, steady rhythm. Mitch had not been_entirely_ serious with her suggestion, but with the dog's pleasantly thick shaft sliding through her in one full stroke after the next any doubts were immediately banished. In that moment, she was absolutely sure it was exactly what she'd needed.

Her vision kept going blurry, and then dim, as her eyes rolled back and her tail smacked against the Border Collie's legs like a whip. Somehow he knew_exactly_ how hard she needed to be taken, exactly how quickly. Each thrust worked her up just a little bit more, drove her just a little closer to the edge, and her rising pleasure never had a chance to ebb before he was doing it again.

His knot was now decisively thick, adding a shocking punctuation to every hilting plunge. Barry saw her reach out, claws extended.I do not want to have to explain that to the captain, he thought; his response, though, was to take the Abyssinian's scruff again. And then to bite down harder, when the claws stayed out. Her own mouth opened wide, fangs bared: "Fuck!"

It sounded perfectly clear in her mind. To anyone else, it was an odd, strangled yelp, and the next thing she knew was the energy of release surging through her. Her legs weakened, and Barry ended his next short, sharp lunge in a grind that helped keep her upright, although what she_felt_ was the warmth of his frame behind her and the throbbing pulse of the stiff dog cock hilted in her somehow pressing even further in, somehow asserting a claim just as strong as the teeth fixed in her neck.

He did not know_exactly_ how intense it was--although the way she bucked erratically, her paws aimlessly striking the computer console, was a fairly good hint. Particularly after it led to her turning it on, although he managed to switch the power back off before she flailed her way into starting some other experiment in the science lab.

She found herself staring sideways, panting rapidly, her breath fogging the smooth surface. Her arms were splayed awkwardly, with one paw gripping the edge of the screen and the other... she twitched a bit until she figured out which muscles controlled which limb, and glanced over her shoulder at the Border Collie. "Fuck," she tried again, and was satisfied that both of them found it intelligible. "Holy fuck, Barry."

"You still with me?"

Mitch did, she had to admit, feel somewhat as though if the dog started thrusting again her knees would give out completely. As it was, every minute movement forced her to contemplate the solid heft of his knot. "Yeah. Are you tied?"

"No. You're going on shift, right?"

She could've_sobbed_ with the implications of that one. "Shit. Yes. I am. Okay. Okay..."

Mitch was steeling herself, something Barry didn't pick up on until the cat pushed him back and, with some degree of effort, he slid from her. Mitch shuddered, sliding to the ground, and rallied.Get ahold of yourself, she thought, or else something more like: payback.

They both ended in the same next step, which was with the Abyssinian's lips parting around the sloped tip of the collie's dick, sucking on him as she took a careful few centimeters into her mouth. He groaned brokenly at the heat; the sudden, overwhelming_pressure_ working over him.

Mitch could taste herself on his cock, but only briefly: his next groan was accompanied by a heavy jolt, and a pulse of runny, salty precum spilling against her tongue. She grinned, satisfied that she_could_ acquit herself well after the undignified lead-up to it, and sank her maw over him hungrily.

It was not the dog's first blowjob. He could, however, have sworn otherwise by the third or fourth revolution of the cat's bobbing muzzle, because it was proving to be in a whole other league. The inside of her mouth was deliriously hot, and the way her tongue just_barely_ brushed him, muted into just a hint of dangerous roughness, sent sparks through his vision.

When he glanced down, the look she gave him--the devilish_wink_, with his cock buried to the knot between her lips--flipped the last switch from think I could cum to the absolute certainty of his need for it. He was starting to hump against her, and when she reached her paw up he figured it would be to stop him.

Instead her fingers closed around the swell of his knot, and the next time he thrust forward she squeezed down. Hard. He snarled, but his surprise at hearing the sound come from his own throat didn't have time to hit him before he was spurting into her, the hot bliss of his own surrender jetting from him in long, draining pulses.

Mitch swallowed quickly--ordinarily she might've chanced letting a bit of him escape, but she sensed that if she let him get away from her_at all_ she'd start choking on it, and then she'd be wearing the dog's copious load and there would be more awkward questions. When it started to taper, she gripped his knot again, and earned a deep grunt and another strong splash of cum along her palate.

She relaxed her hold when the grunting turned to panted whimpers, and she sensed his ability to stay standing beginning to falter. She kept her lips fixed around his tip, suckling gently, for the last weak trickles, then let him go altogether.

The Border Collie leaned back. He was looking_towards_ the ceiling, although not capable of looking at anything in particular, taking in the faint flicker of the old lights, which for the moment had ceased to bother him. Mitch grinned, satisfied that her dignity--such as it was--remained intact. "Successful experiment?"

"Don't... don't know yet."

"What did you mean, 'we are the control,' anyway? I forgot to ask before you bit me."

"Huh? Oh, I mean, last time we were under the influence of those plants. Now we know what it's like_without_ them. If you wanted to treat it like that, instead of just a way to blow off steam."

"So I should remember to tell you how I perform on my shift?"

"Or just show me how you perform when it's over."

Mitch laughed, pulled her pants back on, and then grew thoughtful. "You know... you_do_ get different, afterwards. Can't imagine you saying something that lewd normally."

"Maybe..."

"Think on it," she said, poked his chest teasingly, and turned for the door. "And get dressed before you go back to work. I don't think my twin will be quite as into... that."

With a final wink, she left him in the lab. There was, he remembered, a report waiting: Kimura had asked him to look at the code signatures on the update they'd received from Research Center Leonardo. She hadn't said it in so many words, but--thinking over what she'd told him--it was clear Tsukiko suspected some kind of sabotage.

She was being paranoid. The signatures were fine; crew records were classified, but the DNA matched someone with a valid Star Patrol authorization code within the rigors of what their security system considered perfect. He wasn't going to go base-pair by base-pair, after all. What did she even expect from him? Just enough to make the red panda happy, and then he could close out the request.

Huh. Maybe Mitch is right. His thoughts had become markedly clearer. Nor, it occurred to him, was it the first time that had happened. Rather than letting himself become distracted with the prospect of formulating an actual hypothesis about the likelihood that regular sex helped keep his brain organized, and a statistically meaningful way of testing it, he chuckled to himself and retrieved the data Kimura had sent him.

Paranoid, he concluded again. The security check raising an error or two was to be expected--for that matter, when he checked his own genetic signature and compared it to the stored value in his personnel file, the two weren't molecularly perfect.

He ran a third analysis, and then a fourth. The flickering was getting on his nerves again. Tsukiko would have to be satisfied with--

All those cycles.

There was something else he could try, Barry supposed. It wasn't going to come back with anything special, either, but maybe the red panda would be happy with the extra initiative he'd taken...

***

Captain's log, stardate 68001

I'm not sure I'm supposed to tell anyone else about this. The regulations aren't clear, but I'll be damned if I'm having this conversation without Dave around. Yeah, this bit of insubordination goes in the official record. Put me before the board, if anyone ever hears this damned thing.

Maddy and Dave Bradley stared at each other across the ready room table. Both, periodically, looked towards Petty Officer Kimura. Kimura, in turn, looked towards the door. Ciara Munro, when entered the room to find the three facing her, froze.

"Have a seat," Maddy said.

Ciara did as she was ordered. "Ms. Kimura has told you... everything?"

"Everything except what's in_your_ head. We have to find that out ourselves." Captain May had been trying to come to terms with what she'd been told, and was too distracted to perceive how ominous her words sounded.

Dave, self-appointed voice of reason where the Akita was concerned, cleared his throat. "What do you know about this operation? Start from the beginning: the weapon, the salvage, the Pictor's intentions..."

"Very little. Mitti told me that you'd found evidence of a Pictor hyperspace weapon a few weeks ago. Same time the rest of the crew found out, I guess. You sent me to rendezvous with the 16th Fleet, and Admiral Mercure gave me the latest software from Research Center Leonardo. I brought it here."

"And Torres?" Dave asked--the Abyssinian seemed friendly, but she_was_ from the same mirror universe as Mercure, and who knew what that might imply? "Did she have access to it? Did she talk to the admiral?"

"They exchanged pleasantries. The data stayed right here," she said, and tapped her breast where, on a flightsuit, a secure pocket for such data lived. "And then I gave it to you. And then you asked me to fly the mission. And then Petty Officer Kimura came to me with something she'd found in the code."

"Dave?" Captain May prompted. Bradley shrugged. He was not any happier with the conversation they'd just concluded with Tsukiko, even if he was better at hiding it.

Given that she was facing all three of them at once, but not yet detained, Ciara realized_something_ was still being left unsaid. "She found something else. If you thought I was lying, you... you could just ask the doctor to read my brain or something. Couldn't you? Even if I said 'no,' you could have me thrown in the brig."

"It didn't come to that," the first officer admitted. "Not that I think Ayenni would've agreed, on general principle."

"Still. You found something. And Kiko's not looking at me. Which..." She shook her head. "That's at least a step up from looking like she wants to_kill_ me, so..."

"Several things," the red panda began. "I found several things."

"About the code, or--"

"I was so goddamned furious," Kiko continued, still not making eye contact--with Ciara or anyone else. "I was sure you'd betrayed me and I didn't know_why_. It didn't make sense. Before I... before I went to you or the captain, I wanted to be able to explain to Captain May exactly how your new code failed. So I went back through mine and compared them. I told you my idea would've worked. It would've. I'm sure of it."

"I'm sorry. I really am," she told her friend. "I believe you. I'm not sure what else to say, Kiko. I don't know what happened."

"I do." Tsukiko called up some of her models, a chaotic mess of data floating above the table that helped obscure her features. "Once I figured that out, I ran some simulations. This, here... these graphs. Based on what we know_now_ about how the weapon failed, the generator I designed would have served as a reflector of sorts. I'm pretty sure my instinct, seeing the instability when it was at low power, would've been to ramp up the field intensity."

"Okay..."

"Resulting in the field dramatically increasing the chaikalion flux. That would've led to a core implosion. Our computer... you see this here?" She gestured at where the graphs seemed to burst apart. "This noodly_bullshit_ is because our computer can't even guess at what an implosion would've done. The numbers don't even have names you'd use. Trillions of yottawatts of energy, is the point. But the Tempest, with that generator running, would've acted like a lightning rod. You'd have been okay."

"My understanding is that we would not have been so lucky." Dave was putting it lightly, based on the intensity of Kimura's expression when she'd told it to the retriever. "Although, as it was explained to_us_, I don't think we would've have time to notice."

"They wouldn't have, Ciara. We, I mean.We wouldn't have. Our ship would've been obliterated. Reduced to wayward baryons. At least reduced to wayward baryons. At those energy scales, maybe even a chaikalis singularity. Or..." Kimura tapped at the table, and the graphs disappeared, leaving nothing behind. At last, she did look Ciara in the eye. "Or a temporal inversion."

"You... said that very dramatically," Ciara began, "but I don't know why." The entire conversation had, indeed, largely consisted of having phrases thrown at her that might as well have been completely made up.

"We asked Dr. Schatz to examine the code we were given for signs of tampering. He confirmed that it_was_ tampered with. You didn't add that code, commander," Dave reassured her. Then, before she even understood that a knife had appeared, he twisted it: "Someone with your genetic profile did. And, according to Dr. Schatz, the chromosomal degradation indicates they were perhaps twenty or thirty years older than you are now."

"Someone stole my DNA?"

"It's worse than that," Kimura said.

"Worse than me being cloned by... who? The Pictor?" Ciara was having a somewhat difficult time understanding how anything could be significantly_worse_ than that. "The mirror universe? Was there another crossover event?"

"The behavior of the new code relies on an implementation of a different, older package for calculating multidimensional interpolations. There's a bug in it, which only affects very specific edge cases--like this one. And that bug was introduced as a regression, back in 2783."

"Let me guess: also by me?"

"No. It's an open-source library. I have no idea. We can't check from here."

Commander Bradley and Petty Officer Kimura stared expectantly at Ciara, who looked between them with increasing bewilderment. Maddy saw, in the younger woman, the sort of response the Akita herself was given to having, when told the sensors had detected an "anomaly" or that she had "better see this." She cleared her throat: "Perhaps be more direct, Dave."

"I thought we didn't want this on the record?"

"We'll see."

The retriever nodded--although he would, of course, be the one who inevitably had to_create_ that official record. "The evidence strongly indicates that you did sabotage our salvage operation. Maybe it's because you--and perhaps also Admiral Mercure--are in league with the Pictor. Alternatively, perhaps our attempt to recover the weapon led to the ship's destruction in some kind of temporal incident, of which you were the only survivor."

"Eventually," Kiko took up the conjecture, "an older you discovered that you could prevent it by introducing a subtle error that would collapse the dampening field prematurely. Or, I don't know, maybe you discovered that immediately, but it took you years to figure out how to slip the bugged code into the RCL archives."

"After my experience in the 1960s, I decided to become a time-traveler again?" Munro asked. The skepticism in her voice, she hoped, was obvious.

"If you're anything like me? Not intentionally," Maddy assured her. "But you might've thought that you didn't have a choice. Really, I just want to understand how much you know about this. Mercure didn't tell you anything? Not a hint?"

"No. Can I..." She tried, and failed, to begin the sentence a few times. "Can I have a moment to think?"

"Plenty. But right now, I'm trying to figure out why I almost lost my ship."

"I don't know anything about what happened, captain. I'm not working for the Pictor... not unless they've really done a good job making me a sleeper agent. You can have the doctor pry as much as she wants on that one, because now_I'd_ sure like to know."

"That won't be necessary. Commander Bradley?"

The retriever knew his captain's mind was 90% made up--but not completely. She was trusting him to make up the difference, and he'd been turning over everything he knew about Munro as a result. A few more seconds ticked past, while he tried to second-guess himself. "We wanted to close out the report on the incident. Petty Officer Kimura is here because she had been reviewing the procedures we got from RCL."

"Uh. Alright, sir."

"And because we'll need to provide an official report to Admiral Mercure, given the significance of the mission. You said he was expecting to hear from us. I hate to say it, but... according to Petty Officer Kimura, it looks like..."

"A random failure," the red panda finished. "Like we first thought."

"An old thyristor, probably. That was Lieutenant Hazelton's suggestion, and I gather from this report..." he gestured with the computer he held in his paw. "That it's about as clear as we're going to get. Ms. Kimura says the damage makes a proper analysis difficult."

"I tried. It's actually more a problem with Lieutenant Hazelton's rather aggressive damage_control_ destroying some critical evidence. We do know the ship's LRU was upgraded with Grant thyristors. And we know that happened two centuries ago. They can be pretty load-sensitive even when they're new, vix. I thought I'd taken it into account, but..."

"Alright..."

"The upshot is that we didn't learn a whole lot about how to avoid it in the future. Except that, in my opinion, it's too dangerous to attempt a second time. Captain May is willing to make that our official conclusion, but since you'll likely be the one telling Mercure, and since the_Tempest_ was also damaged, we figured we'd run that by you."

"I don't know what happened, sir. My_opinion_ is that I wouldn't make a second attempt, either."

"Then we're all agreed," Maddy said.

Aware of what was going on, and that the question went against that intent, Ciara asked it anyway. "And all those graphs? The data and everything?"

"Nobody else is going to look." Kiko picked the data chip off the table, and the screen faded into darkness. "And nobody here's going to want to. If, um... if we're done?"

"You two are dismissed, yes."

In the corridor, as they started walking back towards the crew quarters, the red panda sighed. "Hey. Vix?"

"Kiko?"

"I'm sorry. I... I should've known you wouldn't try to hurt me. I... panicked."

"The information you had wasn't exactly exonerating. I might've done the same thing. I mean, for all you know, I_am_ a Pictor sleeper agent. Right?" She scowled at her friend's wry smile. "Like I'm not going to have to ask Ayenni to scan my head for that? You know how you're worried what Captain May thinks of you? Ayenni definitely thinks I'm an idiot."

"You're not a sleeper agent."

"Yeah? You found that in the code, too?"

"Yes, actually." She paused. Ciara stopped, too, and tilted her head at the look Tsukiko gave her. "Do you remember what I said about the predicted phase values when the core was at low power?"

"You said RCL assumed phi-sub-2 was a quadratic function, but you disagreed. And that I should monitor the values to make sure there wasn't a hidden fourth-order component. Why are you smiling at me like that?"

"Because you remembered."

"They_do_ teach us to pay attention during briefs, Kiko. Even if it was a very long, very technical one."

"I wasn't completely honest with you the first time. Or with the captain, even. The code that you changed is for the phase compensator. I showed you that, but not, uh... not the message when it was added to the codebase. When I saw it, I thought you were mocking me."

"Oh?"

"But if you remembered that I'd said I didn't trust RCL's assumptions, it would've been a logical place to start. And it also would've been the easiest way to keep me from accidentally destroying the ship."

"I'll take your word for that."

"You will, yes. Literally. Or you did. Anyway, the code was checked in with the message: 'thank you.' There were quote marks around it. It might've taken you long enough, but..."

The vixen stared at her. "Kiko..."

They moved at the exact same moment, with the exact same intent. Ciara hugged her friend tightly, and felt the strength of Tsukiko's own embrace. There was the faintest hint of a sniffle, when the red panda drew away, blinking; Ciara's own eyes were damp.

"I'm sure I meant it."

"I'm sure you did, too. Captain May... I wasn't kidding, nobody in that room wants to look too closely at the incident report. Too many questions, anyway. So I think it's best to sweep all this under the rug. But I thought you should know."

"Thank you."

Kiko grinned. "Exactly. And no matter what..." She held the data chip up, and then snapped it between her fingers. "I'll remember that. And thank_you_, vix, too--apparently. Anyway. I'll stop by the hangar tomorrow and we can get the new equipment removed from the Tempest."

"Sure." Ciara gave her friend another hug, and then let her go, watching as Kimura broke the two halves of the chip into further pieces, and tossed them lightly into a recycling slot. She made her way back to her quarters, and stopped, with her paw resting on the door. "You're welcome," she said softly, and supposed that she meant it.