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Ensign Elissa Parnell used to fly corvettes, until she flew one into a comms relay. Now she's the pilot of the Rocinante, trying to figure out what's left for her in the wide universe -- and finding it in unexpected places.

Part 2 switches narrators and brings us into the thick of things. I think? Maybe? The last of our crew shows up, we get some more porn happening, much fun. Thanks as always to Spudz for his help, and to Max Coyote for editing and demanding wolf smut.

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

Episode 2: "Risk and reward"

---

In the weeks after her demotion, Eli Parnell had felt the weight of her absent rank like a physical presence on her uniform. The mirror in her quarters reflected not a young wolf but the cold, scornful gaze of her interrogators on the Board of Inquiry. At first, internally, she'd protested -- what had they known, those old admirals?

But then... they repeated it, and she saw it in the rolled eyes of the other officers who saw her passing by, and little by little she decided that they might've been right, after all. Fifteen years of dreaming about a career in the Star Patrol, and she'd gone and fucked it up by being a dumb little girl like her mother had always said she'd be.

Two years of sitting at the helm of bulk freighters gave her some perspective, although not much prospect for escape. The freighters were too unmaneuverable for anyone to get up to much trouble with them, even a_reckless lieutenant_ displaying an unacceptable lack of concern for the safety of her fellow crew.

Two years of trying to point out that there'd been a failure in the engine controls and she'd been fighting the helm with everything she had. Of being told she was making excuses, or being defensive, or not "taking responsibility" for a thruster relay that had physically snapped.

Two years, and she'd finally gotten fed up enough to go to her superior with an ultimatum: a chance at flying a real starship again, or she would resign her commission -- which was her right all along, and she'd expected to be taken up on the offer. Instead, Commander Brown had ordered her transfer to...

Eli wasn't sure. The starship_Rocinante_ didn't look like a museum piece, it looked like the whole damn museum. Her first thought had been: does this even fly? But her second thought had been: I guess this is what I deserve, and on the assumption that this self-judgment was correct she went along with it.

Most of the crew were okay. Leon, the weapons officer, was a little too happy discussing said weapons. Dr. Schatz, the science officer, was neurotic enough to make even Eli seem normal. And the_captain_ -- well.

"I don't know what to make of her," Eli admitted to Mitch Alexander, a ruddy-furred cat from Clearwater who had quickly become her best friend.

"She's okay," the cat shrugged. It was a strange gesture, because she was hanging upside down. Mitch liked to relax in one of the maintenance rooms for the artificial gravity generators. If you picked the right spot, you could stick to the walls. Or the ceiling.

Eli stayed on the floor. "I heard she lost her last command."

"So did I. I talked to TJ about it, and he said she shot up a pleasure yacht."

"What?"

Mitch had a cheshire grin, when she wanted to. The abby's tail waved steadily, curling like a question mark on the furthest edges of its pendulum strokes. "That's what TJ said," she repeated. "I didn't ask where he heard it from."

"Probably one of his prison buddies," Eli smirked. As badly as she'd fucked up crashing the CSS_Cordillera_, it was nothing like having a criminal record.

"He's not_that_ bad, you know," Mitch stuck out her tongue.

Eli was having none of it. "You only think that because you both eat that same disgusting Clearwater herring." And intervention by the XO had ensured that they were only allowed to eat it in one of the airlocks, and only under the condition that the airlock be vented afterwards. Tradition or no, the rotten fish was absolutely vile. "How do you shoot up a yacht?"

"Ask Leon." Her grin was mischievous again. "I bet we'll get a chance to find out, anyway. What do you suppose our mission is?"

"No idea."

"Guess," Mitch demanded.

"I guess some kind of a patrol," Eli said, finally offering a shrug of her own. "Or a courier mission. Something pretty unimportant. If it was important, they, uh. They wouldn't have put me on it."

Rolling her eyes, the abby dropped to the floor -- landing on her feet, as she always did -- and slunk over to pat the wolf's shoulder comfortingly. "Don't be so hard on yourself. You're here now, after all -- that's what matters!"

If only she could believe that.

Sarikaya orbited a small, cooling star. By rumor, the starbase had started as the first stage of an ambitious project to create a Dyson sphere -- a shell, wrapped around the star and capturing all its energy. Whatever the truth to this rumor, all that had been completed was the crystalline snowflake of Oliver Jadranko Brkich University, six hundred million tons spinning idly in silhouette before its parent.

"Sublight speed confirmed, ma'am." Steeling herself, Eli gripped the controls of the starship again.Modern starships -- ones that were not ten times older than their crew -- had lots of automatic systems. They practically flew themselves.

Not so the_Rocinante_. Designed before the prophylactic isolation of autohelm, it was intended for her pilot to have a direct connection to the ship's maneuvering thrusters and gyros. Eli had developed a mostly intuitive feeling for the way the ship would behave, but all the same...

All the same it was stressful.

"Helm, take us in on approach; ahead one-third, please. Spaceman Alexander, contact the station and let them know we're here."

The chipper cat nodded. "We have permission to dock. Ensign Parnell, are you ready for guidance cues?"

"Yes." She wasn't, but who would know that? The she-wolf toyed with the controls gently, and felt the nearly imperceptible shift of the light cruiser in response. "In approach mode, seven hundred k to the outer ring."

"Approach, CL-5662, inbound. We need mode IDB for terminal." She could only hear one side of the conversation, and had to imagine the rest as it became more animated. "Confirmed. That's IDB, Isis-Dayton-Beta. ... Well, no we don't. ... I can't just turn it on. We don't have it. Approach.Approach, is this signal clear? Y... yes, I read you five by five also. No, we don't have a docking sequencer. Well, yes, I would like to speak to your supervisor."

"Why don't you give us some reverse thrust," Commander Bradley advised. "I think we might be awhile."

She liked the retriever. He was nice and calm-headed. "Yes, sir. Slowing our approach. Five hundred k to the outer ring."

Spaceman Alexander was rolling her eyes so hard her head was probably being kept in place by gyroscopic forces. Eli saw that her claws were out, too -- cats! Cats always had the cutest tells. "Hello? Yes, this is CSS_Rocinante_, we're cleared inbound; we just need you to switch your IDB on for us. What? No! We're a warship, that's what! No, we're -- yes, I can see how it does sound like it but -- ugh. Fine, maybe I will get out my sextant. ... Oh I just bet you could."

"Tell them to get their act together or I'll report them as being in violation of Star Patrol protocol," Commander May spoke up. "Number one, find me a protocol they're violating."

Parnell heard a sigh that probably came from the beleaguered XO. "Spaceman Alexander, please remind the university's controller that if we're so old we don't have a compliant docking sequencer, our only other option is a full-manual landing."

"Alright, approach, it's fine. We'll find a way to land ourselves, in our two hundred thousand ton completely unguided cruiser. What? Yes, standing by." Alexander paused, tapping her foot. "Thank you. Helm, your signal is alfa-two, alfa-seven, mistral-echo, three."

Eli listened to Mitch's careful pronunciation, and turned the dials on the ancient navigation computer. "Check digit four?"

"Correct, ma'am."

Gods above. At least now her navigation hologram was working. A flashing line pointed their way to the berths, and highlighted in three dimensions the locations of all the beacons.

At sublight speeds she had two identical controls, one for each engine, and she kept a paw on either. A twisting throttle with helpful notches in it controlled the thrust, and her movements on the grips sent commands to the_Rocinante_'s maneuvering systems.

Modern warships had dispensed with that in favor of an abstracted map on which the helmsman drew the course they desired and the ship's computer calculated it for them. Freighters, which needed greater precision in the tight space of a stardock, still used the older mechanism -- which was why the wolf was familiar with it, and probably why she was on the damned cruiser to begin with.

It wasn't so hard. The old autopilot indicated by increased resistance on the control grips when she was deviating from the suggested path. All she had to do was listen, and to anticipate the cruiser's movements -- since_Rocinante_ weighed the better part of a quarter-million tons.

Anticipation helped when there were obstacles you knew about. Reflexes helped when new ones appeared. "Brace!" Even before she knew what she was doing Eli was suddenly forcing the ship on a downward, evasive course, firing half the thrusters all in opposite directions.

It jolted all of them, and even still it was another second before the collision alarm blared. "Ensign -- what the hell?"

She set her jaw. Couldn't answer -- the shout had come unbidden, too. Twenty kilometers ahead was the offending object -- a new wing of the university, built in the century since they'd switched off the old approach system. Fifteen kilometers. Ten.

They missed it by ten ship lengths, which seemed like a lot -- except that the_Rocinante_ covered that in less than a second, and she was carrying the kinetic energy of a small comet.

"Cleared, ma'am," she reported when she could think again -- the whole event had taken only ten seconds. "Unexpected construction on the approach path. They, um, didn't bother to update the charts."

Commander May snarled, and vowed to 'take it up' with the university, Star Patrol, and a few underworld deities. The way before them was clear; Eli didn't have to do much more to bring them in for landing...

Which was good. Her paws were shaking now.

What if she'd noticed half a second later?

What if she'd miscalculated the power of the_Rocinante_'s lateral thrusters?

What if there'd been another mechanical failure?

What if they'd hit?

Two hundred and fifteen thousand tons, slamming into the university at two kilometers per second.Rocinante was built for combat and, unless she was greatly mistaken, Oliver Jadranko Brkich University was not. The impact would've sheared the whole section off!

A cloud of debris, metal and composites and very startled students, fired like a shotgun at the rest of the station. With no atmospheric friction to slow the shrapnel it would've torn holes through most of the complex... snapping support structures, breaking off other pieces...

In her imagination she saw the whole complex out of balance, overloading its station-keeping thrusters... even if_Rocinante_ had survived the impact, and Eli had her doubts, they would not have survived close proximity to a reactor going critical.

A million deaths, easily. Her fault. They would've said that in the papers.Tragedy struck today -- and then a few paragraphs later, early signs point to the failure of incompetent helmsm --

"Ensign?"

That was David Bradley, the first officer. She turned to look at the retriever. "Sir?" The ship was stopped. At some point the ship had stopped. She'd brought them in without thinking; it was second nature. The bridge was emptying: Madison May, still more irritated than existentially terrified at the near collision, had stalked off to go find someone to yell at.

"Pretty good work back there," he said with a smile.

"Er. Thank you, sir."

It was another five minutes before she managed to get up the nerve to leave, though; she told herself it was because she was busy securing the big ship's engines. It was not.

"What was_that_ about?" Mitch asked, catching her in the corridor.

"The approach?"

"Yeah. You wanted to test out the inertial compensators?"

And that was_another_ thing! What if the compensators had failed? They wouldn't even have a chance to notice what was happening before the crew was reduced to unpleasant-smelling salsa. Eli shuddered heavily. "No."

"Well, then..."

"We almost hit the station," the wolf muttered. "That's all."

"Wow!" Like Bradley, she didn't actually seem all that worried -- though collisions were not routine. If they were routine, Eli wouldn't have been put before a Board of Inquiry. "How'd that happen?"

"They added a new ring to the station. It blocks the old approach path... I guess they never updated the IDB sequencers. Ugh -- you know what that means?"

"No."

The wolfess shook her head. "It means that nobody in a_hundred years_ has tried to use the technology on this old crate to dock at the biggest public university in the Confederation."

That tickled Mitch. The abby's tail, which ended in charcoal like it had been slightly burnt, swiveled and danced. "I don't want to hear it, dear."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know what the forward sensor integrator is packed with? Agnar coils. Half the systems on the ship are still using solid-state components!" Seeing Parnell's look, her pale green eyes narrowed. "And that's bad."

All the wolf could do was sigh sympathetically. "I'm coming to expect it, at this point. Nothing really seems crazy..."

"No." Mitch ducked into the galley, and her friend followed. The cat switched on their ice cream machine, and waited. "Actually,this damned thing has more modern computers in it. Mint, chocolate, vanilla, coffee, or almond?"

"Vanilla."

"There'_s a surprise." She handed over a small cup, and a biodegradable spoon the recyclers could process into something else edible. Mitch Alexander herself went for mint, the color of her eyes. "I was going over the manifests with TJ, and we're pretty sure they just stuffed this in here for storage. Like, fifty years ago. All the _actual systems? It's like stuff I used to play with when I was a kid. Scrounged from the junkyard, probably..."

"Oh, man..." At least the ice cream was good. Cold; creamy, sweet -- a refreshing change from the synthetics dispensed by the life support system. "I heard Lieutenant Hazelton tell the captain that there was a new hyperdrive in the cargo bay._There'_s optimism for you."

"Why optimism?"

Eli curled her long tongue around the spoon, savoring the taste of the ice cream as a distraction from the foibles of the_Rocinante_. "Ship wasn't designed for it. You know those gold slats on the fins of starships?"

"Yeah, sure." Mitch eyed the ice cream machine, and seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of getting another bowl. "What about 'em?"

"They're called Highfield vanes. You need them to make a Kirilov-style hyperdrive work. You can't just connect_our_ motivator to them and hope it works."

"What would happen if you did?"

Plenty of scenarios flashed through the wolf's brain. None of them were pleasant; many of them were outright terrifying. "It would be bad. I mean. Like,really bad."

The lack of specificity failed to convince her companion. "You know your problem?" Mitch pressed a fresh bowl of ice cream into the wolf's paw. "You worry too much."

"We can't_all_ be from Clearwater," the wolf retorted. Of course it would've been nice to hail from a warm, blue-skied resort world. But that wasn't the way it worked, was it? "I worry because --"

"'Cause it gives you something to do," the abyssinian said; it was echoed by a mirthful snicker in her pale green eyes. "If you spent less time worrying and more time enjoying yourself, you'd be less stressed."

"I'm not... stressed..."

"Uh huh."

And so what if she was? She had damned good reason to be! If you weren't allowed to be a little stressed when your last real job ended in plowing a Confederation corvette into Deep Space Comms Relay 930-Mistral, well...

"When was the last time you relaxed_at all_?"

Eli frowned deeply at the question. "I didn't join the Star Patrol to relax. I joined for the opportunity to serve the Confederation. I_always_ wanted to do this -- since I was a girl! Why the hell did you join?"

Even though her first answer was a shrug, Mitch didn't seem to mind the question. She lazed with feline tranquility against the side of the ice cream machine. "Was bored. It was a way off Clearwater, and TJ was joining to get out of prison..."

"Are you two, like..."

"Nope. Just friends. I was just lucky enough not to get busted when he did -- and, hey, stop changing the subject. We were talking about you, and how you need to enjoy yourself more."

"If you say so..."

"You're in_space_," the cat reminded her. "You get to see stars nobody else has ever seen before! You get to fly a freakin' starship! Aren't you supposed to be a dog? I haven't seen your tail wag once! Hmph. Live a little."

Eli glared. "I'm a_wolf_, first of all. And I do live a little. I'm pretty sure."

"How's your ice cream? Your_vanilla_ ice cream?"

The flavor seemed rather like an accusation. "It was... alright..." She'd already finished it; the bowls were rather small.

"Can I try some?"

"Well, the machine is right --"

She didn't finish. In two steps the cinnamon-furred spaceman had crossed the distance. There wasn't even time for a collision alarm before Eli found herself with the abby's muzzle pressed tightly to her own. The kiss was as brief and nova-fierce as it was sudden; then the shorter woman dropped back to her feet, and she was left with the faint taste of mint on her lips.

"What..."

Mitch turned a feline smirk on her. "Not bad."

"But..."

"Next time, I want to try the coffee." Tail lashing, still wearing that smirk, she padded through the door and back into the ship's corridors.

"Next time?" Eli asked an empty room. What had happened to those reflexes of hers? Taken by surprise, just like back at the comms relay! Although...

Although actually, it had been sort of pleasant.

She was still_slightly_ tingly when she answered Commander May's call for the crew to assemble by the gangway. The cruiser wasn't staying long -- no shore leave. Just long enough to welcome aboard the last member of their ragtag crew.

"Professor Beltran, I presume?" May asked, and held out her paw.

Madison May, Eli saw, had donned her standard duty uniform. Acceptable dress on a starship, of course; not terribly formal, but comfortable, and with lots of handy pockets to tuck computers into. The akita carried it as naturally as she did her thick fur coat.

The leopard facing her, by contrast, wore a suit. She also wore it naturally, because it had been tailored to millimeter precision. The jacket fit her as neatly as a silhouette; the skirt, of shimmering Akembi cloth, trailed her legs like a faithful acolyte. She was wearing heels; they, unlike the professor, were spotless.

And, presented with the akita's paw, she blinked and flicked her ears. "Doctor Felicia Beltran. You are Lieutenant Commander May?"

"At your service." Madison held out her paw for a few seconds more, and when it drew no interest she dropped it with a perplexed frown. "Welcome aboard?"

"I shall brief you at your earliest convenience," Dr. Beltran answered primly. "Mr. Vance, here, has my luggage."

Eli had served with Lieutenant Commander May long enough to pick up on some of the canine's quirks. When she felt as though a situation had gone peculiarly, she glanced to her first officer for confirmation. She was looking at him now; the retriever stayed impassive. "Uh. Shall I introduce you to the crew, Professor Beltran?"

"You are not my student," the leopard replied. Her accent was clipped and precise. "'Doctor' will suffice, until and unless you enroll. I will review such details on your crew as are required of me. I must note that section nine, paragraph one of the Diplomatic Protocol Codex requires that you are briefed_prior_ to departure, not after."

"Well, we can do both. Commander Bradley, make the ship ready to clear the dock. Lieutenant Hazelton, bring the reactors back up."

"Prior," Beltran repeated, following the lieutenant commander up the gangplank and into the ship. "It is to ensure that if there are any complications, problems, or additional requirements, they are understood and fulfilled before we leave. It's --"

"You're expecting complications?"

"An adherence to protocol is one of the..." her voice trailed off into inaudibility as they disappeared inside the_Rocinante_.

The remaining crew glanced around at each other awkwardly. The raccoon, Lieutenant Hazelton, coughed. "Well, that was... something..."

Even Commander Bradley looked to be slightly baffled, but he snapped himself out of it. "She told you to get the reactor up, didn't she?"

"Er -- yes, sir."

"Then do it. Show's over. Departure stations, everyone -- Mr. Vance, let me help you with those..."

She trotted up to join Mitch Alexander on their way back to the bridge. "Do you know who that is?"

"Nope." The abyssinian shook her head, and then turned to give a wink. "I'm gonna guess we're not important enough to know a thing like that."

"Commander May looked pretty... taken aback."

Mitch laughed. "I know. But maybe you'll get along with the doctor -- she seems pretty tightly wound, too."

The wolfess rolled her eyes. "You want to get some more ice cream?"

"We have a ship to launch. Try not to hit anything," the feline teased, and shoved her playfully onto the bridge.

Eli took her station, dropping solidly into a chair that was, at least, far more comfortable than the ones she'd grown accustomed to piloting old bulk freighters. The old ergonomics encouraged a nice sort of relaxation -- had she_ever_ been able to relax without immediately dropping back into nervous paranoia.

Commander Bradley, the good-natured golden retriever, skipped the possibility for inviting more such concern. "I have the conn. CCI, are we cleared for departure?"

"Yes, sir," Alexander answered promptly. "Own guidance, outbound on beacon echo-four towards wotan-two. No traffic."

"Release all mooring locks and retract the gangplank."

By the book: the wolf checked to make sure everything that held them in place had been removed. It was supposed to be done automatically, but then... was it possible to be too cautious about a thing like that? The grapples could easily tear away a chunk of the ship's plating, or worse... "Clear all sides," she told him, when she was as confident as she could be.

"Helm, back ten percent."

"Ten percent," Eli twisted the throttles backwards to the first notch. "Aye, sir."

As the university's dock receded, she saw the bright, warm lights of solid ground slipping inexorably away. Only the unforgiving silence of space was now there to welcome the ship and her crew. "Helm, cut your throttle," Bradley ordered.

"Throttle zero, aye." They did not noticeably slow -- there was no air to brake them. Had they all died at that very moment, the_Rocinante_ would've continued unflinching on her journey for years. Just like if she'd hit that communications relay a little bit harder -- maybe enough to overstress the hull and vent all their air into space.

Ghost ships. Tens of thousands of Confederation vessels had never reached their destination; space was unforgiving, for many reasons. Most of them, Eli knew, would still be out there somewhere, wandering lost until the death of the universe itself...

Not the kind of thing to be dwelling on. The wolf kept a watchful eye on her little map, making sure nobody intruded on their course and no new obstructions appeared. There were ten kilometers now, between them and the station. Eleven... twelve...

"Helm, bring us about."

"Aye," she answered dutifully. With her paws at the reins of the cruiser, the way the big ship swung its bulk was deceptively graceful. They ended up not one degree off, with their prow pointed straight in the direction of their travel. "On course, sir."

"Steady as she goes." Eli nodded, although before she could answer properly the door to the captain's ready room opened, and she ordered the commander inside. "Ensign -- you have the conn."

The bridge fell quiet. In the long minutes that passed, the young wolf found that she was more fidgeting than anything else. Running her claw along a scratch in the metal of the controls. Cycling through the different views in the holograms. Checking the engine monitors, over and over.

The door slid open again, and Bradley's yellow head poked out. "Ensign Parnell, a moment please. Ensign Bader, take the conn."

"Aye, sir!"

Eli hopped from her seat, waiting until the shepherd had settled down to replace her before she made her way over to the door. Inside, Dr. Beltran and Lieutenant Commander May were in consultation over the room's glass table. "Hello, ensign," the captain said. "We're discussing navigation. You know where Tuul Prime is?"

"I've never heard of it, ma'am."

"You will find, ensign, that it is not on the charts." Felicia Beltran had changed into a lighter jacket, considering the climate control of the Star Patrol cruiser, but the heels remained. "It will be our responsibility to establish first contact with the Harmony, to determine their suitability for Confederation membership, and to raise the possibility of permanent diplomatic and trading ontocol."

"Protocol," May added, "is very important."

It drew a sharp look from Felicia. "I agree," the leopard said. "I am the foremost authority on the Harmony of Tuul, amongst very few who could claim such a title at all. And they are quite devoted to protocol, as well, so it would serve for you and your crew to remember its importance."

"Oh, natch."

Commander Bradley shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "The Tuul have been broadcasting a signal into space for about three hundred years. According to Dr. Beltran, we sent our last survey ship in 2650. At the time, they were not yet ready to join the galaxy. Now, the Confederation wants to see if the Tuuls are a good candidate."

"Just 'Tuul,'" Felicia corrected sharply. "They are an utterly harmless race of around forty million individuals, and quite unremarkable. However, a spectrographic analysis of Tuul Prime indicates the possibility of large quantities of eshmunite and tellurium."

"They know we're coming," May added. "We've already scheduled the first meeting between the Dr. Beltran and the leader of the Tuuls."

"Tuul," the leopard repeated. "I must stress again their respect of protocol, which includes learning the proper procedures of first contact. Section four, paragraph two of the Diplomatic Protocol Codex is absolutely clear on this point."

"This ship's library only has an, uh, an older version of that particular bestseller," May grumbled. "So we're not all up to date."

"I can provide you with an updated one," the doctor snapped back. They were both aware of the exact same thing: that 'first contact' with an irrelevant, technologically backwards planet with a tiny population was not especially glamorous. A message was obviously being sent to Beltran just as clearly as it had been sent to May. "This is, in any case, irrelevant to the navigational concerns..."

"Right." With ship matters back at top of mind, May straightened. The ready room conference table was a solid piece of glass; like the rest of the ship it had once seemed very advanced. A touch of the akita's paw brought a map of the galaxy forth, with their current position matched against a star that lay just beyond the Confederation's frontier. "Ensign Parnell, Tuul Prime is around five hundred light years from here, but the most direct course skirts the gravitational anomalies in the Ta Tayik Sector. How close can we come to that without problems?"

Eli thought for a moment on the topic. "Well, fortunately, our hyperdrive is a lot less sensitive to those kind of things than a newer ship would be. We won't even notice as long as we stay more than a few hundred light-minutes away."

"Really?"

"That seems right, actually, Dave," May nodded her agreement. "I remember I met an old Upton-drive freighter captain in a bar about five years ago. He was saying he got between Sevastopol and... where's Anna Bauer from? New... Karlsruhe? Köln?"

"Kassel."

"Neue Kassel, yeah, that's the one. He said he got to Kassel in under twelve parsecs. You can do something like that here?"

"N-no," Eli shook her head. The suggestion, indeed, was patently absurd. "It doesn't work that way, ma'am."

The akita tilted her head in disbelief, although she_had_ to know how often freighter captains were given to... exaggeration. Eli had seen it herself, over and over again, in the two years she'd spent piloting them in and out of tedious stardocks.

"That... would be like me saying I drank a glass of water in under twelve kilojoules. It doesn't even make sense."

Her captain's ears drooped. "He said that he was able to calculate a parabolic trajectory based on amplifying the gravitic effects of a singularity cluster."

The wolf blinked, and gave May the courtesy of walking through the sentence a few times in her head. No. "Those are just... random space words, captain."

"Would Jaime Bonelli lie to me?" May looked over at Bradley, clearly disappointed.

"Captain Bonelli told you his ship was rated for quasar flux of seven hundred kilobhurias," he reminded her.

"Those are, ah," Eli coughed; there was no diplomatic way to put it. "Those are also random space words, captain."

"Hmph."

Felicia Beltran had neither contributed to nor enjoyed the diversion. "The course, Captain May?"

"Right. Ensign?"

"It's true that a ship with a Kirilov-type stardrive would_slow down_ when passing an anomaly like that, for the comfort of it's crew. But as I said, we... we won't notice, ma'am. I can plot a direct course and there won't be any complications." She steadied her paw and drew an example in the starmap, for illustration.

The akita nodded, and studied the course for a moment. "Isn't there a system with an uninhabited rocky between here and there? Around..." Her finger wagged absently, describing a sphere several dozen light years in diameter. "Some natural wonder, I guess."

Fortunately it was reasonably well known, and she pointed to it on the galactic map. "Yes, ma'am. It's a trinary -- two rockies and some high-density debris. It's where the Falls of Ninmaxa are, but otherwise unremarkable."

"Yes... I thought so. Very well. Plot a dogleg course between here and Tuul that stops over in that system."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Captain, I believe I must clarify that in a first contact situation such as this, the Diplomatic Codex makes it quite clear that the priority is the_diplomatic_ mission. You are expected to travel directly to the subject of the mission, without delays or detours."

"I understand that. Commander Bradley; Ensign Parnell -- plot the course and take us to translight at once. You're dismissed."

"Captain..." the leopard protested.

David Bradley, however, was already on his way out of the room, and Eli trotted after him rather than listening to the argument that was no doubt ensuing. "That's the thing about the chain of command," he said. "It's her boat."

"Yes, sir."

"We do have an interesting time of it. Let me know when you have the course set up."

"Yes, sir," she promised. It didn't take particularly long -- out towards the frontier there was not really anything to worry about. They were not headed for well-trafficked tradelanes. Indeed... indeed, to the extent that it had a meaningful definition in deep space, they were bound for the middle of nowhere.

"I think that's the point," Mitch shrugged, at dinner. They reheated some of the premade rations instead of going for the synthesized food, because if ration 'pizza' was an obscenity at least it was better than what came out of the tap. As it was, Mitch was busy shaking hot sauce onto the sickly looking cheese.

"What do you mean, 'the point'?" Eli flattened her ears, and probed with a chopstick at what, by extremely generous standards, was probably intended to be a piece of sausage. "Do you suppose this is supposed to be here? Or was it some vermin that accidentally got inside the vacuum packer?"

Mitch licked her lips and waggled her eyebrows over the slice of pizza that was halfway to her muzzle. "This is gourmet stuff, Els." Both the effect, and her statement, were sharply undermined by the face she made at the first bite.

"Better than the synthesizer," she sighed. The conclusion was, at least in part, TJ's fault. She'd stopped by when he was reassembling the machine, after cleaning it; it was impossible to enjoy the results much when you knew that 'chicken curry' came from combining the canister labeled 'assorted vegetables >80% vegetable matter' with the one labeled 'exotic spiced protein slurry.'

"Uh huh," the ruddy abyssinian agreed. And it was, just. "Anyway, the point is -- you heard Barry's briefing, right? Tellurium ore? These guys are a joke. This whole thing is a joke! Star Patrol can't_fire_ us as long as we have a good reason for serving. But... I mean, Eli, hon. A washout captain taking a three hundred year old scow to go shake hands with the Lesser Spotted Peons of Podunk VII?" Proud of her wording, she took another big bite of pizza. "Why do you think I told you to live a little?"

"About that..."

"About what?"

"You know, the... the ice cream thing."

"What about it?"

"Why did you do that?"

Mitch had a way of laughing that made it seem both that she was snickering_at_ Eli and that she was bringing her in on the joke. "Because I knew you'd react all cute."

"So you're going to keep doing it?"

"Maybe. Until you crack."

"Until I what?"

She smiled sweetly. "You heard me. I'm going to get you, wolf."

"Like hell you will..."

By the time they'd dropped out of hyperspace, in the Pamir System, she had completely adjusted herself to Mitch's teasing -- which was not to say that she was sympathetic, or that she was about to give in. A wolf had to have some decorum, after all! She snapped her muzzle playfully at the cat on her way to her station, settling in and taking up the controls.

Lieutenant Commander May was choosing to stand, leaning against the captain's chair. "Report, ensign."

"Position confirmed. We're in the Pamir System, about two thirds of an AU away from the closest star. Well clear of the Falls, though."

"On screen?"

The debris had, in eons past, likely been a planet before gravitational forces tore it apart. Now what remained spiraled chaotically towards the three stars at the system's heart. They would plunge into the blazing furnace -- or be flung at impossible speeds out and into the distant reaches of the system, only to begin the whole journey again...

Further away, the suns' light bounced off the asteroids and picked out their angles in occasional dazzling flashes. Closer in, when they started to break apart under the stress, the dust became a softly brilliant glow, charting a path towards inevitable oblivion. From the right angle, and sufficient distance, it had the look of a massive waterfall.

Up close it looked like nothing at all: the densely packed asteroids were still tens of thousands of kilometers apart. May ordered Alexander's CCI station -- Computers, Communications and Intelligence -- to find the closest one, and even that took the better part of an hour to approach.

Eli wasn't certain why the captain was so interested; they were fairly unremarkable. Nothing valuable enough in the debris field for anyone to even bother mining. The only reason to visit Pamir was to glance briefly at the Falls of Ninmaxa, nod appreciatively, and jump back into hyperspace. She imagined it made for a common family trip.

"We're coming up on it, ma'am. Your requested asteroid is pretty much on our twelve, a hundred and fifty kilometers away and closing."

"Wonderful. Ensign Bader, what do you say we get some practice in?"

"Sir?"

The akita's voice carried the sound of a predatory grin. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Ensign Bader: energize the particle cannons."

"Yes,sir!" Eli glanced over -- she could not see the shepherd's tail, but it had to be wagging. He sounded like the happiest dog in the world. "Particle cannons are at full power."

"Target the rock bearing ten left, up two. Helm, come left slowly."

Eli twisted her controls gently, and watched her indicators in their lazy drift. She stopped at the eager shout from the tactical station. "Sir! I have a firing solution and am ready to engage your target!"

"One salvo, all batteries, five seconds at full power. Fire."

Nothing of particular drama happened -- harsh blue lamps flicked on as long as the cannons were firing, to remind them of what was going on. A hundred kilometers away, the rock crackled and began to glow; a few pieces spalled off, escaping the heat by fleeing into deep space. "Salvo complete, sir!"

"Assessment?"

"The beams were on target. Limited fragmentation. I estimate the damage to have been sixty to eighty percent less than projected, sir."

She heard the sound of the akita's boots as the captain joined Bader at his station. "What about the calibration? Ship's been in dock long enough -- it wouldn't surprise me if we had accumulated some serious drift..."

"We are theoretically calibrated, sir, but you're correct of course. I don't know, to be honest. We could switch to our missiles -- that ought to ensure complete destruction of the target."

"The goal isn't blowing up rocks, ensign -- it's testing our weapons. Run a level two diagnostic on the targeting system and try again when you're ready. Ensign Parnell, there's a smaller rock fourteen thousand kilometers off the port bow -- bearing three-fifty, down twenty. Do you see it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Take up a position, matching speed and orbit, five hundred kilometers behind it."

The wolf steadied herself. "Course laid in, captain."

"Ahead flank, ensign."

She jolted, and looked back in surprise. "Ah, captain... Due respect; that's much faster than we need to --"

"I know that. I want to see you do it anyway."

The ensign took a nerve-calming breath. "Aye-aye, captain." A flick of her wrists twisted both throttles to their limits, and the ship charged forward. Just in case, she backed off the power a little early, coasting for half the maneuver and then braking heavily to settle the ship where May wanted it. "Five hundred kilometers trailing, ma'am."

"Thank you. Tactical, are you ready to try again?" He was. Again the shepherd fired; the results were not conspicuously better. May growled in frustration, and summoned the chief engineer to the bridge. She paced while she waited for the raccoon's arrival. "I don't like not being able to trust my weapons..."

"I don't either, sir," Leon Bader protested. "It could be a question of power, it could be a question of beam width..."

"Yes, ensign, it could be a lot of things; I understand how troubleshooting works. But we need to find a way to fix it. Increase power by twenty percent over the rated limits and try again, please."

"Firing..." He shook his head. "I don't get it, sir. There's virtually no effect..."

Lieutenant Hazelton joined them, at last. "What are you doing to my reactor, Mads?"

"Visiting the universe's wrath on old rocks -- poorly. What's going on? Why aren't my particle cannons doing anything?"

"Because they're twenty decades obsolete," the raccoon answered. "That's the easiest answer, but I suppose you won't take it."

"It lacks... practical utility, yes."

"Well, have you tried increasing the power?"

"That's your answer to everything, lieutenant. Twenty percent, yes, though."

"Try fifty."

May splayed her fingers, and shrugged at the suggestion. "Do it, ensign."

"Firing, sir." None of them were happy, but no answer appeared to be forthcoming. "You know, in the simulations I could always get more than double the beam energy by bypassing the input filters on the first stage..."

Shannon Hazelton didn't seem all that impressed, at first. "Yeah, well_in the simulators_ you didn't have to worry about the power couplings going into protective shutdown from the thermal stress." The raccoon paused a beat: "But it's a pretty clever idea. In the simulators, how did you compensate for spiking without the filters?"

"I didn't. The translator banks are rated for like... eight times the power they get fed anyway. The limitation is temperature, not power cycling."

By the way she snorted, Eli could hear the raccoon's eyes rolling. "This is why we have to overbuild things. You can't just go, 'yeah, I'm sure it'll take it' -- that's a recipe for disaster." She trailed off, and the next time she spoke it was into the intercom. "TJ, bring the auxiliary cooling systems online and plug the beam emitters into it. We want to increase the power up here."

"Sure thing, boss. On it..."

"You'll get maybe a dozen shots before you overload the temperature regulators. And it ain't gonna go into no protective shutdown, Mads -- it's gonna_melt_. You're gonna have melty bits of particle beam generators leaking out everywhere."

"Great..."

"Lieutenant, it's TJ. Ready down here, as far as I can tell..."

"Ensign. Salvo, please."

This time, the effect was instantaneous. The rock glowed brightly on their viewscreen, and began to spin -- the vaporized outer layer was acting just like a rocket, nudging the offending debris away. "That's more like it, sir."

"I still don't like how little beam power we're getting," Lieutenant Hazelton mused. "It should be delivering twice as much energy on target as you're seeing there. It's like it's getting lost somewhere..."

"Another salvo, Ensign Bader," May ordered.

"Good effect on target... I think we're looking at --"

The next voice Eli heard was filtered through a radio. "Hey, chief, it's TJ." That was Mitch's friend, the otter.

"Go ahead..."

"Uh, yeah, so. Just letting you know we've got a little... uh, a little fire going on..."

Everyone on the bridge turned at that. "What do you mean, a little fire?" Hazelton turned to a computer on the wall, bringing up a schematic of the ship's interior. Eli could see the dull red flash of an active alarm -- very little was worse on a starship than fires. "Oh, damn it all!"

"You told me we'd get a dozen shots," Madison reminded her engineer.

"Yeah, well,you try managing a four hundred terawatt proton beam!"

"A dozen," May repeated. "Not two."

"Yes -- yeah, I know that! Gimme a --" The raccoons claws dragged over the computer -- she was flipping through diagnostics faster than Eli could possibly follow. "-- a second. There. It's the fucking collimator, it's -- son of a -- TJ, vent that section -- I'll be right there! Captain, I need to take care of something..."

"Clearly," the akita said drily. "Get to it."

"Damage control drones have already been mobilized," Bradley assured the bridge crew. The drones, which could put out fires and repair most of the ship's systems by themselves, were a force multiplier for the small engineering team. "Looks like the fire's out. I don't get it, exactly; it seems to have been in the focusing part of the cannon. That's not normally a high-stress area..."

May groaned. "No. Lieutenant Hazelton better have a damned good answer..."

The raccoon returned, twenty minutes later, holding what looked at first glance to be a knife. A sliver of shiny metal, half the size of her paw -- she showed it to the captain with an expression that implied self-explanation. "Here's what was going on."

"What... is that?"

"It's a Ripley body."

Like it was expected of her, May took the offered object. Staring, she dared it to reveal its secrets -- to no great effect. "Alright... and that would be?"

Ringed tail all a-twitch, Hazelton repossessed the offending sliver; then, effortlessly, she snapped it completely in half. "They're like... metal crystals. They grow out some of the old solid-state circuits. Short out things. The collimator assembly wasn't even activating, Mads. Maybe a quarter of the beam power was getting through. Seventy percent was being diffused. The rest, you were basically firing_into_ the ship."

"Oh. Lovely. Permanent damage?"

"None, thank god. And I've confirmed that the collimating unit is online_now_, so you should try firing again."

Neither Leon Bader nor their captain, of course, needed to be told twice. One moment there was an asteroid -- the next, nothing at all. It shattered violently, in a brilliant spray of rock and dust and plasma gouting like a lighthouse beam into the darkness. When she turned around Eli could see just the tip of Leon Bader's tail, wagging happily. "Complete destruction, sir!"

"That's more like it," Madison said, and Eli suspected that the akita's tail was wagging, too. They were cut from the same cloth. "CCI, where's our next target?"

"There's a seventy kiloton rock forty thousand kilometers away, bearing two zero right, down thirty. Delta-v to match... five hundred meters per second?"

"Helm, you see which one she means?"

Eli satisfied herself with a quick look. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Engage that target, attack pattern Alfa."

A good two years had elapsed since the last time she'd even had to think about tactical maneuvering. Eli was surprised how quickly it all came back. Steady course with no evasive actions to delay their progress, full throttle, ready for a final breaking maneuver to clear any debris.

A little exciting, really!

The wolf wrapped her fingers around the controls and drove the throttles all the way to the stops. As the_Rocinante_ leapt forward, she found herself... smiling? "Pattern Alfa laid in -- weapons range in one minute thirty."

"Firing solution calculated and locked, sir!"

"Ready all particle cannons..."

"Standing by!"

Eli's eyes were drawn to the range counter, ticking down swiftly. The ship was a living thing, humming to her touch. "Ten seconds to firing range."

She heard the soft tone of the shepherd's computer announcing its readiness at the same time as Madison May did. "Ensign," the akita barked, "fire all cannons!"

Seventy thousand tons of rock never had a chance -- for, after all, it was only seventy thousand tons of rock. Molten stone sprayed in all directions for the half-second before the whole thing shattered. Eli picked a clear trajectory and the_Rocinante_ swept through the expanding cloud of debris, heedless.

"CCI -- find me something else to shoot at!"

For two hours they played at this, darting along the helpless asteroids before reducing them to tiny, harmless pieces of white-hot shrapnel. They plunged into the Falls at flank speed, charging at their prey. They circled and stalked and pretended they were evading counterfire. They snuck up and pounced like a hunting cat -- and after the sixth attack run Eli was starting to feel that old adrenaline back in her veins.

"Take over," the akita was saying. Not to Eli.

"Yes, sir!" Leon had nothing_but_ adrenaline in his veins, so near as the wolf could tell. "Helm, attack pattern Shadow, left, hold out on the break as long as you can."

Bank. Rotate. Yaw the ship around to keep the target dead ahead of them, where the particle cannons could get it. Let Newton pull them on their swift course, even though they were gliding sideways. "Framing maneuver in thirty, six on primary."

"Give me eight."

She was able to adjust the numbers in her head, without even thinking about it. Ensign Bader wanted two more seconds with the asteroid in the line of fire. Simple. Burn the thrusters against their line of travel, recalculate their egress from the maneuver... "Framing in twenty-five, eight on primary."

"Weapons ready. Helm, switch interlock."

She waited until there were only a few seconds left before flipping the heavy manual switch on the control panel. "Tactical interlock on...now." The shepherd's firing computers now had subtle control over the Rocinante's course, so that they could point her nose just so for the particle beams. Eli had to hold the switch in place; if she let go, control would revert to her in an instant. Such was the sacred nature of the conn!

"Firing!" The asteroid exploded quite obligingly, having served its purpose well after four billion years of pointless existence. "Target neutralized, sir."

Neutralized was a very demure way of putting it.Annihilated would also have served. Obliterated. "Good job, you two. Now, we should probably..."

Madison found herself interrupted by the bridge door opening -- or, more properly, by the leopard striding boldly from between them. "Captain May!"

"Oh. Hello, Dr. Beltran."

"We have been in normal space for nearly six hours now. Again I feel I must remind you: Section nine, paragraph six of the --"

"Diplomatic Protocol Codex, yes," May cut her off brusquely. "What about it?"

"We are not to engage in any unnecessary detours when tasked on a diplomatic assignment,which, I need to note again, this is."

May looked to her first officer. It was, Eli sensed, not really a request for advise so much as a warning that her desired response would be impolitic. Sure enough, David put on his best smile. "Dr. Beltran, trust me, we understand that. We're well ahead of schedule. And considering how long this ship has been drydocked, it's extremely prudent to test_all_ our systems, including our defensive ones."

"We've already needed to address a few defects," the captain added. "Wouldn't have wanted to find that out in actual combat."

Like May, Felicia was trying to hold back -- the leopard was wound up so tightly her tail had given up twitching for something closer to an irritated quiver. "There will not_be_ any actual combat. Captain, this is a peaceful first contact, and the Diplomatic Protocol Codex requires that we observe appropriate procedures for that. We should not delay our rendezvous with the Harmony of Tuul, and we certainly should not delay it for your... your... militaristic paranoia."

"It is not paranoia," the captain answered with a low growl. "This is your first damned assignment; you need to keep that in mind. On my ship, like on_most_ ships you'll find, we're not going to charge in blindly."

"Your ship!" Dr. Beltran echoed incredulously. The diplomatic task may have been insultingly pointless, for both of them, but she clearly intended to make the most out of it. "This is not your ship! My first one or not, it is on an official, chartered mission of the Foreign Affairs ministry, not some Star Patrol cowboy fantasy!"

When she was in a good mood, Eli had found, the akita's face took on a puppyish, excited quality. Now, though, she was pure predatory fury. Her stocky body tensed with a dragon's anger: by the way her muzzle opened, Eli wouldn't have been surprised to find the captain breathing fire. Instead, though, she took a deep breath and held it in pregnant, ominous pause.

"Captain, we might --"

"Thank you, Dave." Her tongue cleaved each word off icily. "I will put us back on course, Dr. Beltran."

"Thank you."

"In a moment. We have some matters to clear up -- you and I, in particular. First -- Ensign Parnell! My ready room -- now."

The wolf jerked in surprise, but May was already gone. "Uh..."

"I have the conn, ensign," Lieutenant Commander Bradley said, and stepped down to take her place at the helm.

Eli hated the way her ears splayed when she was nervous. It meant everyone could see. She padded hesitantly up, and into the ready room; May was facing the wall, her tail curled tense and tight and her paws bunched at her back. "Er -- reporting as ordered, captain."

"I'm not going to kill you," Madison May began in what, to be honest, was one of the least reassuring ways she might've chosen.

"I didn't... think you were..."

"Quite the opposite." The akita's shoulders rose. "Take a deep breath, Madison. Slowly count to ten in your mind. One. Two. Three. Four." It didn't come off as especially genuine -- more like something adopted by rote. Finally, after 'ten' had passed uneventfully, she turned. "I needed a... buffer."

"A buffer?"

"Before talking to the good doctor."

"Oh."

"Commander Bradley would just try to talk some calm into me. I think I'm calm enough, though."

"Yes, ma'am."

May grinned. "Well there's a difference between trying to calm me down and_lying_ to me, ensign. I just wanted to see what you thought about those maneuvers. How's the ship?"

Don't lie, was the lesson she'd just taken. "It's unique. It's a lot more work than flying the newer ships."

"In your profile, doesn't it say you became a freighter pilot?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dave said that meant you'd be trained on all the manual maneuvering systems. No?"

Following her demotion, she'd been transferred from the helm of a warship to serving as a pilot -- guiding freighters in busy Confederation docks. It was broadly similar, in that freighters used a lot of old technology, but... "Well... not exactly. The controls are the same, but the superheavies and orbital platforms I was moving have thirty times the mass and half the power."

"What's that like?"

What had she been doing, the day the transfer orders came in? Working the_Donald E. Kidd_, an asteroid mining tug, and sliding her up to the pier at Port Liberty. Half a million tons of starship, six million tons of cargo... "It is... like trying to move a dead cow into the goal of an ice hockey rink."

"I see."

"By blowing on it. With a straw."

Madison's grinned widened. She seemed to do that often -- most of her emotions were exaggerated -- and Eli suddenly realized why. The akita's black mask framed her eyes in an arch that gave her neutral expression, perpetually, a degree of grave concern. At least the smile appeared to be good-natured, if slightly forced. "Different now?"

"Yes, ma'am. The cruiser is a lot more responsive." Honestly, she was even more responsive than the corvettes had been. Modern Sundberg ships were all computer-controlled, and the computers kept them limited to gentle, efficient maneuvers. The overbuilt_Rocinante_, in the hands of a skilled pilot... "She could fly circles around one of the Star Patrol's new ships."

"Could?"

"Well..."

The akita knew what had been left unsaid. "You have talent, you know."

"Thank you, ma'am."

May's dark eyes warmed a few degrees. "You're still too cautious, though. I know what happened on that corvette, but c'mon, ensign. If I ask you for flank speed, it's because I trust that you can do it -- and that means I want flank speed, not ninety percent, not ninety-five, but every damn bit of acceleration you can give me."

"I... I just want..." The wolf flattened her ears, and fumbled for an explanation that didn't seem pathetic. "It's important to know the ship's limits..."

"And your own," her captain added. "We need to find that out now, though. It's our best chance. Look -- we've all got histories and reputations.I've got a reputation. Right?" Eli's silence spoke volumes. "I do. Of course I do; the rumor mill's gotta be saying something, ensign."

"M... maybe, ma'am. Yes."

"That I'm too much a fan of cowboy fantasies?"

First the ensign tried a sigh, and then a faint shrug. "I've heard you fired on a civilian resort ship."

"Oh, yes." She admitted it instantly. "I did. That's why I'm here. I know this mission is a joke just as much as you do. Just as much as Dr. Beltran does -- you think she's really looking forward to using her degree for something like this? But as long as we're here, we're going to do it right. We've all got a past, Ensign Parnell. And all our pasts have one thing in common -- that was_then_, and this is now. I don't care what you did at Relay 930, I care what you do as my helmsman. I can't expect things to change overnight, but... take some more risks, okay?"

Eli lowered her head, but her ears were starting to come back up. "Yes, ma'am."

"I mean it. You pilots are supposed to be hotshots. Start acting that way," the akita grinned. "Now get back out there. I want us back on course for Tuul at thirty marks. I guess we have some time to make up. Something tells me that I'm about to be told that..." She gestured Eli out the door and, indeed, Felicia Beltran was waiting just outside. "Come on in, doctor; we don't have all day..."

"Take the conn, ensign?"

"Yes, sir," she dipped her head, and settled back in at the controls. "Captain May has asked me to get us back underway. Tuul Prime at thirty marks." She made quick work of the nav calculations. "Here's the course, sir."

"Looks good. Make it so, ensign."

Strange to think it had taken earthlings so long to figure out how to build a bridge to hyperspace. Now, generating the Ka gateway -- formally a_Kariv-Atias Aperture_, but who thought formally? -- was as simple as flipping a switch. Flipping the switch, powering up the suspension field generator... and then they were humming along again, at nine hundred and fifty times the speed of light.

There was nothing else for her to do, really, so Lieutenant Commander Bradley relieved her. Eli was halfway out the door when a strange thought flicked into the wolf's head. A cowboy thought. "Spaceman Alexander?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"When you're finished with your analysis of our power consumption rates back there, can you bring it by my quarters? I want to take a look at how efficient our maneuvering is..."

Now -- for once! -- it was the abby's turn to be caught off-guard. "Uh... ah... yes, ma'am," she finally said. "It might take a little while."

"Sure."

The quarters were one nice thing about the_Rocinante_, which had been designed to handle a crew ten times the size. Nobody was sharing a room -- certainly not hot bunking, like they'd had to do on the corvettes. That had been miserable. Eli slipped from her uniform, and stepped into the bay for the ultrasonic shower.

Supposedly there was water, too, but the pipes were so old 'stagnant' was an unnecessarily kind word for describing their contents. She settled for the electronic version, which also fluffed up her russet fur and left it nice and tingly. Hm! It had not been such a bad day.

Madison May thought she had talent! Eli smiled inwardly -- and then, hearing the akita say it again in her mind, she smiled outwardly as well. Her tail wagged, and she treated herself to another run of the shower. The assignment was likely to be her swansong -- Mitch was right, they were all being quietly shown the door -- but maybe she could get something out of it.

Talent! And she mentioned the relay, so the captain must've read the official incident report -- which was classified. Ensign Parnell had never been able to lay eyes on it; it was above her pay grade. Probably it hadn't mentioned the mechanical failure, just blamed the wolf like everyone else did... and if_May_ was willing to take a chance on her then maybe somebody else would, too...

She tugged slacks and a light tunic on, to look something like presentable, and considered her options. Dinner was not a particularly enticing prospect. The computer had decided that "pork and potatoes" were on offer, which almost certainly meant 'preserved potato equivalent' combined with the disconcertingly named 'ordinary tissue protein slurry.'

Living on ice cream didn't seem like such a bad idea, really. Maybe she could do that.

Her door buzzed, and she waved it open. Mitch regarded her with honed feline skepticism. "Hello, ma'am. The report you asked for..."

"Thanks," Eli grinned, and took the tablet from her. "Looks good in general?"

"Well, it didn't make sure to shower for me, if that's what you mean." Back on the offensive! Eli snapped her teeth in answer, and stepped away so the cat could enter. "Did you_actually_ want that report?"

"Of course..." The wolf thumbed through it, skimming the graphs and noting which ones warranted later perusal. Mitch plopped down on the side of Eli's bed, and watched the ensign reading. "It's amazing how wasteful combat ops are..."

A snorting laugh came in answer from the abyssinian, who did not seem surprised. "Considering our reactor can't even power_one_ particle cannon continuously? You don't have anything to worry about."

"Yeah, Leon better watch out..."

Mitch shook her head. "That boy is_compensating_."

"What if he isn't?" Eli teased. "You never know."

"Suddenly you're interested, huh?"

"I_didn't_ say that," the wolf stuck out her tongue. "Besides, he doesn't go for anything that doesn't explode."

"'Besides'?" Repeating it, Mitch waggled her eyebrows. "I bet you_are_ interested."

"No I'm not," she insisted.

"Are so! I can see it in your eyes!" The cheshire grin was back. "Are --"

"Not!"

"Is that with a 'k'? I can never tell with you pups."

Eli tossed the tablet aside -- it was sturdy -- and pounced. Mitch probably couldn't have taken the she-wolf's weight if she wanted, not coming off a jump like that, but she didn't even try. Instead, Eli found herself pinning the cat beneath her, and their eyes locked.

"Well, hey..."

The wolf wrinkled her nose to show off her teeth, briefly. "Not. Interested."

"You sure?"

Before she could lose her nerve, Eli cocked her head and sought the feline's muzzle. Mitch was ready for her. A murmured gasp flickered against the wolf's nose and she was reminded in its quiet heat that she had never really done anything like of the sort before. Just that once...

Fortunately it was easy enough. She could just lose herself in it -- soft, reassuring warmth as the tabby relaxed under Eli's weight and their lips nudged closer. There was a pounding rush in her chest, a dull roar she was only half-aware of, so unlike the smooth, silky touch as the kiss lingered.

Mitch folded her arms around the lean wolf and Eli found that she was being enveloped in dreamy warmth that muffled her rapid heartbeat. She pulled away, hesitantly, and felt Mitch's breath sighing warmly, beckoning her back... this time when she kissed the abby her mouth was still open, ever so slightly open, and Eli slipped her tongue forward curiously.

Warmth, and sweetness, and the hard edge of her teeth -- the coarse heat of the abyssinian's tongue pressing back against hers, inviting the wolf deeper. And she took that invitation, her ears twitching to the sound of a purring groan from the ruddy cat blushing deeper red as the wolf pressed inwards, urgent in her need.

For a second, and then two, and three Eli tried not to yield her own resolve but then she was moaning too, and her sharp intake of breath as she gasped for it filled the wolf's sensitive nose with Mitch's scent and the heat of the feline's body.

Mitch still had her uniform on. That wouldn't do. Would never do. But getting it off would mean ending the kiss and that wouldn't do either so -- so she growled and took out her frustration by locking their muzzles in tight, clinging fierceness.

The abyssinian had to push her away. The wolf was heavier, and Mitch had no leverage, and so it took some doing but then Eli was on her back, peering up at the ceiling wonderingly. The cat re-entered her vision, stage left, tugging open her uniform blouse and discarding it off the side of the bed.

Her tunic followed. And since Eli was not reacting quickly enough, the abyssian's paws slid under the wolf's own shirt, pushing it forward, up, against the grain of her thick pelt. It was ticklish -- she squirmed, and twitched, and then gasped because Mitch's warm paws had found her breasts, were squeezing playfully, and the cat's lips were back on hers...

Eli was trembling. Craving all of it. Her nipples were hard, and achingly sensitive -- she gave a puppyish whimper to the cat, getting a stroking, lingering pinch in reward that sent a little shock racing up her spine. A shock, and a giddy moan that Mitch's deep kiss muffled.

But... two could play at that...

If they should? There was a line, wasn't there? Between_take some more risks_ and... and... and the abby had a fantastic body, all soft and sinewy and lithe and when she arched her back under Eli's paws the wolf caught the hint of flowers in her shampoo, and honey...

Whatever it was, her fur was moleskin-soft and before she knew it the wolf's fingers were at the bones of her hips, pulling Mitch's pants down over her firm rear as a long, lashing tail kept the pace of their building rhythm. And those long, impossibly toned legs: she had a dancer's build, like so many cats did, not like the sturdier wolf --

Except sturdy or not she felt so tense and fragile on the bed there, hanging on every touch, every breath. She kicked her slacks away and before she could bring her legs back together Mitch's paw was between them and with a shock Eli realized how wet she was, how much she'd already given in...

"Should we --"

"What?" Mitch purred. Her fingers touched, and probed, and sent giddy tremors through the young wolf's frame that she was helpless to resist.

"Well... the Star Patrol is -- I mean... fraternizing..."

"It's not fraternizing, pup, it's just sex."

Eli's ears flicked. "I think that's what they mean..."

The abyssian's eyes danced, and she dipped down to steal another kiss just as Eli felt her finger slide up and inside the wolf, sinking into her easily. "Oh, shh," Mitch giggled. "But you can stop me if you want...ma'am."

Instead the wolf closed her eyes and let herself drink in the taste of the feline's lips on hers, and the warmth of those fingers -- claws sheathed, thank the gods. Mitch stroked her clit gently, nudging her partner's frame into the bed to pin her pleased shuddering, and started to work a little faster.

She was in heaven. Everything was hot, smoldering, electric -- like the other woman's touch was opening her up, pulling her walls down, erasing all possible resistance... Eli couldn't stop herself, couldn't stop anything; her legs bunched, and tensed, and she heard_someone_ whimpering, the sound thin and pathetic in its weakness but...

But sort of endearing in its weakness, too, because Mitch was purring, whispering to her. That meant they weren't kissing anymore -- Eli was aware of these things only with a syrupy lag, like time was dragging its heels to linger on the pleasure that followed...

A little jolt as a coarse tongue flicked and darted against her nipple -- never staying long enough to be more than a bright, flaring hint of sensation. Warmth. Tight, clinging warmth -- throaty, rumbling vibrations. Mitch suckled on her lovingly, tenderly, and when the wolf's spine curved like a drawn bow the abyssinian was there to keep her still, to protect her...

Her fingers were plunged up and inside the wolf, thrusting her paw between Eli's clenching thighs as the wolf keened and bucked. It felt so good, everything felt so fucking good, burning almost; everywhere the cat touched smoldered and stayed lit, radiating through the wolf's senses.

Mitch's rocking paw rubbed the soft flat of the cat's palm against the wolf's clit, the gentle caution giving away to an insistent rhythm that bordered on the demanding. She needed to scream with it -- to_howl_, like a good little wolf -- except -- except she almost couldn't breathe, even.

Her chest was heaving. Hard, sucking breaths gasped through her quivering muzzle kept her from doing anything. It was such an effort to keep from... from... from what? What was she fighting?Take some risks, Eli...

And it came crashing down in a hot, rushing wave that surged and uprooted and tossed her gods-only-knew where, not that she cared. She got about a quarter-second of a howl out before a giggling Mitch clamped a paw over her mouth and let her howl into that, instead.

For the next few seconds or years -- time was relative, wasn't it? -- each time she thought she might be coming down another wave lifted her up, unstringing the helpless wolf, so that when she was finally still she was also completely. Utterly. Drained.

Mitch draped on her like a blanket. A heavy, fuzzy blanket. Eli's arms were jelly, but she hugged the cat as best as she could anyway. "I knew I'd get you," the abyssinian whispered into her folded ear.

"Maybe..."

It didn't seem like such a terrible thing to surrender to. Even later, when she drifted off to sleep in Mitch's arms, her dreams were remarkably pleasant.

And so was waking up to find her still there.

It made the weeks of boring hyperspace bearable, at least. Nothing but the white glaring chaos beyond their walls, and working on drills, and sneaking away to grab ice cream, or...

That last part made it a_little_ disappointing when they reached Tuul Prime -- but they were Star Patrol, and they had a job to do! Eli took the helm and mentally prepared herself.

"Dropping to normalspace in three... two... one..." The field collapsed automatically, and once again they were surrounded by stars. "Position is confirmed, ma'am; we're on target."

"Spaceman Alexander, report, please."

"We're two hundred thousand kilometers away from Tuul Prime. I've got signals... lots of signals, actually. Mostly comms traffic, I'd guess; regular modulation. And... a whole lot of sensor contacts, bearing zero zero three, down ten. We're heading towards them..."

"On screen."

It looked as though they had disturbed a wasp's nest. Hundreds of starships swarmed about, silhouetted against the planet behind them. A massive orbital construct dwarfed the university back at Sarikaya: it had to be at least a thousand kilometers in diameter, and the way its huge arms splayed above the white snows of Tuul Prime gave it the eerie appearance of a spider with an egg sac.

"What the hell is that?"

"I... don't know, ma'am," Alexander murmured. "Sensors are useless. I'm reading massive energy spikes. I think it's... it's drawing power from the surface. They're beaming some kind of energy up to it, but on the order of...petawatts."

"It is a gateway generator," Dr. Beltran spoke for the first time since they'd rejoined normal space. "The Tuul hyperspace research program is well underway. We have seen signals from passing starships that they are capable of opening a Ka gateway, but apparently_not_ yet capable of generating a suspension field."

"Final piece of the puzzle, then..."

"Yes, captain." The leopard appeared more interested than overwhelmed by the massive space station; Eli wondered if she'd known what they were getting into. "This is the primary reason why the Confederation Foreign Affairs ministry has decided to contact them now. We feel that, given their nonaggressive nature, a gesture of kindness is likely to pay dividends in normalizing our relations. With your permission, I would like transmit a greeting..."

"Do it," May ordered, but stepped back to the tactical console. "Ensign Bader, keep our weapons in standby just in case. I don't like the look of that installation..."

"It is a different aesthetic, captain," Beltran sighed. "That does not make it_threatening_ or scary."

"Ensign?"

"Weapons in active-standby, sir," he replied.

Eli heard the leopard sigh again, far more strongly. "You Star Patrol captains are all the same. Go for the guns, chase glory wherever you can find it... they are returning our greeting with a formal request that we dock with their space station. They will assign pilot ships to guide us in."

"Helm, do as you're asked -- but careful, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am." The wolf gripped her controls, waiting, and when the pilot ships approached she maneuvered as carefully as possible. First contact! How often did that happen? It was important to make a good impression, even if the aliens were rather primitive.

"I should remind you that the Tuul are fanatically dedicated to their protocol and histories," Felicia was explaining; Eli only half-listened. "They also evolved underground, so they are extremely sensitive to light. We will be conducting all of our business in what, to you, will seem like pitch blackness. There is no reason to be alarmed. Use the equipment with which you were provided."

Grapples secured the_Rocinante_, and after a few minutes Mitch Alexander announced that a seal had been achieved between their hatchway and the station. On Beltran's orders, they cut the lights across the ship. With the viewscreen turned off, the ship was quiet and black as a premature burial. Eli switched on the goggles she'd been given, and the bridge revealed itself in an eerie red glow.

"We should be armed, captain," Bader suggested.

"No, we should_not_," the leopard kept her voice more level than, in Eli's estimation, she really wanted to.

"Captain May, I repeat, we should be armed..."

"That's not a bad idea."

Beltran stiffened. "As per section four of the Diplomatic Protocol Codex, I am taking the lead on this assignment. It is a peaceful first contact, and we will not contaminate it with bared teeth. No weapons."

"Captain..."

"She's in charge," May muttered.

"Exactly." Beltran led the way, then, keeping her voice whisper-soft. "Please do not speak unless I address you directly, and remember that our communication with the Tuul will take place entirely via the computer translator. They do not speak our language, yet, and the automatic translation is not yet synchronized."

The entire crew assembled at the airlock, none of them certain what to expect. The doctor lifted her translating computer up, waiting -- and then the door hissed, and slid open. Eli had, of course, seen an alien or two in the past -- on space stations, or communicating with the captain of whichever ship she was on.

Four Tuul waited, in the darkness of their station. Like the construct itself they were tall, and spindly, and black. They had the appearance of crabs: four long legs supported a shiny black carapace; four more served as arms. The arms were tipped with claws, and in the dim red light of her goggles Eli saw the claws of one shudder and twitch with a rasping clatter.

Felicia Beltran bowed, tapping at her computer, and a series of answering rasps came back from the device. "It says, 'welcome to Tuul,'" she announced. "We are their honored guests. The first aliens that the Tuul have ever... seen." She paused over the word, and Eli took a second glance at the huge Tuul. It had no visible eyes. "It would be customary for you, Captain May, to offer some greeting as well."

The akita was unfazed by the whole affair. "Of course. Please tell the Tuul that on behalf of the Star Patrol, I have had the_great_ honor of conveying you, our diplomatic representative, to meet with these esteemed individuals. And that I am greatly impressed by their technological achievements."

Beltran worked at the computer for a few seconds, until the translator finally chittered and hissed. The Tuul stiffened, and swayed. Its answer came with more scraping of its claws, and a sighing moan so deep Eli thought at first it came from the very walls of the massive station. "It says that it is, itself, grateful for the honor of first contact."

Eli looked around, straining her eyes to pick up whatever she could. They were in a massive room, a hall at least as large as the pier at Starbase Gustav Holst. She had the sense that the walls were...moving, and then with a startled jerk realized that they were occupied -- home to the slow, jerking traffic of more Tuul, clinging to its angular interior. Thousands of them, if not more!

It was very much like a wasp's nest, indeed.

"Captain," Beltran murmured softly. "It is time to begin the negotiation phase. I shall recommend this to them -- on their approval, you may retire to your ship. Please keep the lights doused and the noise levels low."

"Of course."

The leopard straightened, and spoke through the computer again. More moaning; more claws. Eli saw the doctor's ears suddenly twitch, and she typed rapidly at the little translator box. The Tuul swayed closer. "Ah, captain. It says that it will not be necessary for you to depart."

"Well, we can --"

"It says that you will surrender immediately. Or we'll all be killed."