THE LOPER - SUNBRINGER

[Welsh Halfwit]

56


“This time,” Katara said, holding the youthful vixen by the collar whilst she strode down the passageway, “you ARE going in the secure zone, ma’am… And you’re STAYING there!”

Sarafina squirmed a little under the grip and wondered if she had the right to raise a complaint against this officer. Wasn’t she a hero? Hadn’t she proven herself? “But I..?”

The silver vixen thrust a small engineering kit into her hands as they stopped by the open door, keeping aside so the children and others could enter past them. “I don’t have an engineer to spare to be on station in here now I have to send some on an away mission in a firefight so I’m giving these people YOU.” She pointed a finger, almost poking Sarafina in the nose with a claw. “There might be a few maintenance workers in there but there will only be you representing Engineering. Do NOT let me down, girl. Got it?”

Sarafina swallowed hard. She knew the silver was trying to get rid o her but it still sounded important and the Engineer was staring at her, with her finger close enough to nibble if she tried or poke her in the eye if Katara wanted. “Y...yes, ma’am,” she replied.

“It’s Chief,” Katara countered, before turning her around and pushing her in the door. She looked to the guard. “If she tries to leave, you have my order to stun her.”

The guard nodded in agreement, whilst thinking he’d never do that.


Januvitski suited up for zero gravity space alongside Kirrie Muir, Match and a trio of Raitchians from the Raicarran ship. They’d introduced Match as ‘Marcus Flint’ from the command section as Hawle didn’t want the Raicarrans to know Match knew sciences. Although he’d probably give the game away sooner or later. Or they knew already. But the Norveggan’s name had already been changed in the helmet systems so the name ‘Flint’ showed on the headset display. The Human had worked to link in the Avian, called Tragrr – although he’d said ‘Trager’ was acceptable as no-one could pronounce ‘Tragrr’ properly – to the comm systems. He was listening in through his headset, which seemed an awful lot like a motorcycle helmet. He asked how they could move their mouths inside the helmet, only to have Kirrie’s voice tell him there was enough room. Chadwick, the Mican pilot, beckoned the team aboard as Tragrr attached some small pads to his hands and feet as Jan noted the one already in place on his helmet. She had to admit it didn’t exactly seem protective against the void of space but she couldn’t imagine the Avians did well in full suits. As they boarded, she sat next to the Avian and pulled off a gauntlet. “Might I..,” she asked, indicating his arm feathers.

<“Only if you’re gentle,”> he replied, so she gently stroked the plumage.

“Incredible,” she breathed. “And beautiful.”

<“Thank you. Of course we are now mated.”> The entire group heard her bluster in response. <“No,”>. He told her. <“Not really. But you can never tell with alien customs.”>

Jan heard the others laugh at her. “So noted,” she said, more or less amicably.


The shuttle slid from the Loper’s main bay and, weaving its way past the other two ships, slipped down towards the large asteroid with the detection station on it, ready to enact their part of what Hawle had referred to as the plan. Match had to say he didn’t think it was much of a plan but, as something thought up by the so-called ‘mad rabbit’ on the back of a sandwich wrapper over ten minutes, he didn’t think it could be bettered. Except by turning around and running away. But they were here now and he was in the Command zero-G armour. He was the ‘protection detail’. Less scientific systems, more weaponry and stronger shields. He wondered if they’d upgraded the weapons in here too? Photon Shotgun rather than Plasma? That seemed an upgrade. He watched as Chadwick brought the craft down to a bare few feet above the surface on the other side of the rock to the sensor station and slowly pushed the craft over the surface towards their goal.


“Aren’t you rather exposed in just that,” Jan asked Tragrr, gesturing towards their environmental suits as she put her glove back on.

He looked down at himself before replying. <“We don’t do all encompassing suits,”> he told the group. <“So we have personal forcefield technology. I have implanted elements at the major joints. They help regulate the field. It keeps in air and heat. Although I’ve never quite understood quite how. The pads are to help as, of course, I need to hold things with the hands and make contact with the floor so they strengthen the field around the appendages.”>

“And the one on your helmet strengthens it there?”

<“Yes. And it looks good.”>

Jan had to agree with that. A bit.


“Shuttle’s made a landing,” Stikka reported. “They’re about ten minutes walk from the base.”

Hawle looked up from where he’d been watching the science station over Goole’s shoulder, the Feline having subbed in for Match. “Dawton, send the go ahead to our other ships. Chappers, set sail for the planet. The die is cast. We’re crossing the Rubicon.”

“Sir,” Sarah asked in confusion.

Hawle looked at her in surprise. “I’m surprised you don’t know of it, Sarah. An ancient Human General. Salad or something. Felt betrayed by his people so raised an army against them. They kept trying to reason with him and sent someone out to try to turn him back before he got to the border, a road called the Rubicon…”

“River,” Goole corrected before wishing he hadn’t.

“A road called the river,” Hawle asked, winking at Goole. “Don’t be silly. It was called the Rubicon. Anyhow, the representative told General Salad that, as long as he went no further and didn’t cross into the city’s territory, all would be forgiven. Salad simply pointed at a squad of his on the other side of the road and said ‘The die is already cast’. He’d crossed the point of no return, you see? And so have we.”

Sarah simply nodded and started the ship up.

“Sir,” Goole whispered, “Why..?”

“People always say there’s more to learn, Goole,” Hawle whispered. “Sometimes it’s fun to mess with those expectations.” He clapped the Cat on the back and took his seat in command.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Sometimes I think that Hawle is much more of a trickster than Kitsune was. But at least Hawle does get his "just desserts".

[Welsh Halfwit]

Oh, that'll happen. With a sort of twist.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I'm still waiting for him, in the uniform he usually wears (the one in your avatar) to face plant in a large mud puddle.

[Welsh Halfwit]

57

The group watched the three ships pass by overhead, some of the Raicarrans getting their first chance to assess the damage from outside their ship as it went by, still bearing visible scars and gaps in the hull. The bulkheads were still sealed in some places, repairs having been against a large clock and done on a ‘here needed’ policy first and foremost. <“How can anyone on the bridge have survived that,”> one of them asked.

“You can survive a horrifyingly long time in space,” Match told him. “Up to a minute. Possibly longer. Plenty of time for a dart to suck you up. Shall we proceed or stay here and stargaze?” He started off towards the location of the sensor array, his weighted boots holding him to the surface, just as Tragrr’s foot padding did. The Raitchian was impressed by the translucent field covering the Kestalan and decided he’d have to see if he could borrow it when they got back. Assuming the Raicarrans didn’t try to buy it first, of course. The others pretty much fell in behind the lead pair with Chadwick bringing up the rear, having locked the shuttle with a press of a keyfob. They were in for a mile long walk in zero gravity, fastened only by weights to a floating rock. Match wasn’t particularly thrilled with the quality of ‘away mission’ he was getting recently. But he persevered as he led the team. He smiled in the suit. At least he was leading the team this time, not being carried like a sports ball under Raven’s brawny arm.


The ships were getting to be dots by the time they came across it. A smooth pyramid in shape, pointing upwards towards another rock they could barely see from here. The team began looking for some sort of entryway in the structure. Any way to get in. It didn’t look like there was one. “Robon,” Match said, talking to one of the Raicarrans, “You have a better sensor suite than the rest of us. Can you do a surface scan of this thing? See if there’s any way in?”

The Raitchian scoffed. <“I’m not getting closer to that thing,”> he protested. <“What if it’s got some thing that can work out who scanned it and zaps them?”>

<“Oh, we’d avenge your death,”> said another, unhelpfully.

<“Don’t get me wrong, Robon added, <“I think scanning it is a wonderful idea. I just think somone else should do it.”>

Januvitski stepped forward but ‘Flint’ held her back. “We have Mark seven sensors in the science suits. I know Raicarra has mark nines in theirs. I read the tech manuals,” he told the Raicarran who enquired how he knew what was in a science suit. “A good Commander knows what forces he has. And I also know Robon has good scores in sensor readings. Patchway told us.”

Complaining and muttering under his breath some dark words about Patchway, Robon stepped forward and, knees almost knocking, started the scan as the others, he noted, backed away.


Hawle paid no attention to the goings on behind him. The situation ahead of him needed his attention now. Half an hour after they’d dropped the team off, the ships were in position. He was outnumbered three to three. Oh, sure, not outnumbered in the numerical sense but there was no way the Raicarrans could hold their own in a fight and he had to acknowledge that. She wasn’t going to be in the fight as much as she liked. Hawle had a different plan for her. He wanted to see what happened if they opened a hole in the defences so the Raicarrans were going to be going closest to the planet. After certain actions had been taken, of course. He hoped the team back at the sensor system had been able to get inside – or were, at least, ready to try. Because, as the Loper hid behind the second moon, he knew things were about to get messy. He watched as the Sholl slid past, ready to engage the outermost dart. It got in, just close enough to be detected by the sleek constructs sensors and it turned towards the Kestalan vessel whilst the birds did their best ‘we didn’t mean to trespass, we’ll go now’ move to turn around and flee from the obviously superior firepower. A second one was taking an interest but not heading towards the fight.

“They’re sending out a signal, sir,” Dawton reported, working to jam it before Hawle told him to jam it.

“Hold on the jamming, Dawton,” Hawle advised, holding a hand out in the Human’s direction to emphasise things. “Let ‘em think it’s nothing until just before we make our appearance. Chappers, ready pattern Delta 4. Tillock? We go in with the now hopefully fully calibrated stuff this time.”

The Mican punched the air. “Yeah! Now yer talkin’,” he said, bringing out his proudest dialect. “Gimme th’ chance an’ ah’ll scunner them glaikit bawbags until ye’ll ken they’re blooter’d!”

“Ok..,” Hawle said cautiously, thinking he’d got the gist of that. “You have Sarina’s report on the debris there, Stikka,” he asked, desperate to not need to talk to the over excited Scottish mouse any more.

“Most of it just says ‘within the automobile if I know,’ sir,” Stikka reported. “The plates were three metres thick, though.”

“Heavier than usual for a hull,” Hawle agreed. “That, given with the fact we never saw any bodies in the debris, indicates they’re drones. I hate drone ships,” Hawle complained. “Or an A.I. I hate those too. Don’t suppose you could plug in and overpower it could you?”

“It’d be like a Marshmallow fighting an Equinna, sir,” Stikka replied. “Sticky for both of them but one gets to wipe the other off underfoot.”

Hawle nodded. “Been waiting to use that one long?”

“About a month.”

“OK, Dawton, start jamming. Chappers, take us in. Tillock? Do… what you just said.” The command deck engaged the seat restraints as the Loper moved into the battle,


‘Flint’ and the others took cover behind a large crop of rock close to the structure as the explosives he and Januvitski had placed under Robon’s direction clicked ominously down to zero and exploded, sending debris and shrapnel out and in in all directions and drawing a comment from the Human that he’d want her to seal that now, yes? Air hissed out from the structure and ‘Flint’ told her that she only needed to do that after they were in.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Is there a translator out there somewhere that can transcribe what the heck Tillock says near the end? I have no clue what it even means.

[Welsh Halfwit]

58


‘Flint’, being the one in the actual combat armour, led the way into the structure, climbing over the smashed section of wall and shining his suits lights into the dark, silent, world inside as the tip began to spark into life. Kirrie Muir pushed him on as he stopped for a half second as she wasn’t anxious to see if the Raicarran scientist had been right about zappy technology and he caught her before she fell the ten or so feet to a walkway below. She coughed a thanks and accepted his help in lowering herself down to the walkway. Electric charges tested the limits of her suit’s insulation until the effect died down, clearly having had little effect. “OK, if your suit’s insulated,” Flint called back, “then wiggle your tails and get in here. Januvitski,” he added, “you just move your backside.”

<“I’ll wiggle it right at ya if you ask nice,”> she replied, hoisting herself over the edge and dropping down. <“Tragar, can your shield suit thing protect you from shocks”>

<“I am not anxious to put it to the test.”>

<“Then land on my back and I’ll carry you. I’m the tallest one,”> she added before feeling the lightness of his weight land on her and feathered arms around her shoulders with the wings covering her like a baggy scarf. She put her arms under his legs to keep his feet off the ground and thought of her niece back on Pandera, who’d take rides like this any day of the week. Although Julia never wore a force field survival suit that kept her an inch from contact at all times. Robon just considered Jan’s tail – or lack of it – and followed.


The walkway was around a small chasm of around fifty foot in depth with consoles set in place down there and a small guard force beginning to head their way after recovering from the shock of someone trying to kill them. They were taking position of the lower gangways, complete with their own sealed armours that Match really hoped weren’t based on their ships as the first shots hit his shields. Nope, he thought, just standard, brute force, blasters. Tragrr launched himself directly from the perch he’d just taken, steadied himself in the airless vacuum and fired a bolt of something from his headpiece glyph. Not just decorative then, Match thought as he fired the photon Shotgun. No shielding on their suits, he noted as the firepower cracked the brestplate of the target it had hit, followed by grasping of the suit and a resigned, painful looking, sagging as the void replaced the air content inside. If he wasn’t taking fire, backed up only by Jan’s less effective weaponry and whatever the Avian was shooting, Match would have admired the artistic merit of the standing puppet. But he was under fire so he didn’t.


Immediately the Loper had made her presence known the other two ships had come towards the battle, firing broadsides as they came. Fire that impacted heavily on the shielding systems as Tillock looked for times to fire his new main squeeze at them. The Kestalan ship had turned and was engaging as well, splitting the incoming fire from attacking just the one of them at a time. “Shields status, Goole,” Hawle asked of the feline.

“Uh, we’re at eighty percent and holding, Captain,” he replied, his eyes flicking between the screens like a madman on narcotics. “They’re at sixty five percent.”

“And the others are at one hundred,” Hawle grumbled as Goole protested the shields had just dropped. Then he said ‘oh’ as he worked out it was so Tillock could fire and the field went right back up.


Match had a chest wound. The suit had sealed itself back up with an automatic sealant but it was going to affect him and he imagined the hole in his side was the size of a rock rather than a pebble. One of the scientists took a zero-g medical kit from a pouch and injected a pain killer through the suit, close to the plug and the suit sealed after withdrawal. The battered shields started to regain power as they moved. Back up to ten percent at the moment. They reached where the defenders had been and, with help from Tragrr, Match tried to lift the helmet off the standing dead. It wouldn’t come. There was no connection seam, he realised. The suit was an all in one device. They LIVED in them. Robon pointed to an intake valve that, he reckoned, took in fluids and nutrients into the body and another one between the legs that he theorised was for ‘extration’ but no-one wanted him to elaborate. And they didn’t have time to wait. “Tragrr,” Match said, “get down there and do a visual scan of the consoles. Probably best not to touch anything if you can avoid it.”

<“Right ho,”> the Kestalan said, using his familiarity with zero-g flight to angle himself and swoop down, taking five seconds to reach the ground rather than the five minutes it was going to take the others.


David Brunton held on to the closest solid thing he could as the ship shuddered and shook under impact. Night, the closest solid thing he could find in the sickbay, patted his shoulder and told him to sit down before he fell or something.

“Some protector, eh,” he admitted winsomely, taking up a position on the waiting area bench. He wasn’t telling her that, if he’d known about Sarina Raven’s away combat team, he’d have asked to have been part of it as he was looking for a way to not just be a spare wheel on this trip. He knew he didn’t need to impress Night – on a conscious level at least – but he couldn’t shake this nagging doubt that he was letting her down somehow. What had really rubbed it in was that Raven had taken Pangal AND the Alsan saboteur with her as part of the team. Apparently Pangal had requested him as he was good in a fist fight. David had the thought that he was good in a fight too. He knew the best way to fist fight. With your gun from thirty paces. Getting close enough to punch somebody just seemed a good way for them to punch you.

“You do my morale a world of good, love,” Night told him. “And you can triage.”

“Almost as well as we can perform major surgery,” Bazil Fuze put in, ruining the moment as he stepped from his personal office. “Two broken legs, inbound,” he warned. The station nurse and Night immediately joined him in the preparation work.


With the three darts engaged in combat, the Raicarran vessel headed past, refusing to bring her weapons into play as she headed towards the planet...

[Amazee Dayzee]

Looks like in the heat of the battle even Hawle can lose his composure. He thought the shields were weakening but in fact they were done so Mr. Unintelligible Scottish Mouse could fire.

[Welsh Halfwit]

59


Raven finished adjusting her combat armour as she stood in the teleport room of the Raicarran vessel, amongst a group of ten ‘ground walkers’ and five Kestalans, armed with inbuilt weapons and additional heavy energy hand blasters. Only one of the ten was missing the hand weapon as Pangal finished getting him into his armour. Raven had asked Pangal if she could recommend someone good with locks in case they needed to affect an entry and she’d been rather surprised when the Security Chief had offered up the prisoner. Still, it made sense. He wanted reclaim. They wanted to see if he could be trusted. His ankle tags were now tied to Jaqui’s systems, meaning he couldn’t be more than a hundred yards from the Lappinean chief. She’d shown Raven the combat in the torpedo bay and Raven had acknowledged he was decent in a fistfight and, if he were to escape, it’d be on a remote planet that seemed to exist on slave labour from every species that wasn’t their own. She doubted he’d run. She clicked on her communication system. “Testing, one two. Comeback.” She listened in as everyone except Marius checked in. “Jaqui, get his comms on.” The Lappinean tapped the convict’s helmet in three places and his light went on in Raven’s headset. “There you are. Now your comms are on, you can switch from comm system to speaker by tapping this control here,” she explained, pointing to a control on his chest. “You do NOT have a private line. Only I communicate with the ship. Do you read, Alsan?”

<“I do indeed, Burman,”> he replied.

“Commander Burman.” she corrected

<“Are we there yet,”> Yakkuk asked nervously. His ‘first flight’ was gathered around him in the ship’s other teleport bay, almost ready for the off and, Raven imagined, eyeing the platform warily as unfamiliar transport tech.

“Very nearly,” Lieutenant Francks replied into a speaker, the Canine teleport operator having been brought over for the simple reason that Hawle hadn’t trusted the Raicarrans not to just teleport up their crew only. “Get your people on the pads and we’ll send you down at the same time.”


Down on the planet, it was roughly midday and the people were working the mines as they had for many, many years. For some the work, extracting precious minerals, was all they had known. Their pasts blotted through time. Their numbers boosted when the Patreeve brought them other people. Some of them had long forgotten their own species names, the captured having procreated and died. The young having grown ill and died. For a few, the word ‘Mican wasn’t one they’d heard for decades, if not centuries. He remembered when he’d first heard it himself. An orange and white creature his mother had called a Celccian had called him that when he was young. His mother had hidden him behind her and told him all Celccians were bad creatures who would eat you if they could. Like the Katz. So he’d known there was worse out in the stars. Until the Raychans had come. They spoke of peace and alliances and organisations like the usscee that tried to protect everyone. The universe out there might be good. He wished they’d never come. The knowledge was pain.


They rarely met their masters although they did treat the ill and provided the bare elements of nutrients and hard working clothing. Recently words like steak and fish had been brought back into the vocabulary of the old Mican whose feet never hurt now, the pads toughened by a lifetime of digging and pulling at walls. The newcomers would develop a tone like his if they kept at it. If they didn’t, of course, they’d be enslaved into guards. At least that was the rumour. They never saw them again but the number of guards changed. They didn’t live in the same area but he’d never heard of one getting tired or… He looked up into the bright risen sun as his column strode towards the mine from the settlement camp. He could feel something different. Something unusual. The New ones, the Raychans, seemed to be trying to hide and one bore him down to the ground as Kestalans in some sort of armour suddenly appeared in the air and dropped towards the ground, opening their wings and flying like the ones he knew couldn’t. These hadn’t been ankle tagged? He’d seen people arrive like this, of course. They often appearated people for the mines and the colony. He realised these were armed with some sort of firearm as they used them, shooting at the guards. This was new. This was…

“Keep your head down,” the Raychan boy from the newcomers hissed as he struggled to keep the wire muscled old Mican down. Draygan, the old Mican recalled. “Sir,” Draygan continued. “I don’t know who they are but that was our ship’s teleport beam they used. I know the…” He looked sharply towards the ridge to the left. “I know the sound,” the youth said. “And I just heard it again!”

The Mican coughed up the dirt he’d swallowed when his new young friend had pushed him down and looked where he was staring. The ridge? But there was nothing beyond that. Just a barren waste that stretched for miles. There was rumours of another colony of prisoners out there but nothing… He reacted quickly as a guard came over towards them, raising their weapon against the boy. He pushed the boy behind him and raised his hand in supplication as he saw other guards gathering in the people, keeping them close so the Kestalans couldn’t fire. The Kestalan in the work party took off, fighting the pain of the ankle tags until he was thirty feet into the air whereupon the tags exploded, raining his feet and blood back down to the ground as he fell back, wings folded, and crashed into the ground head first. “We’re not fi...,” he tried to tell the guard, before he was struck across the muzzle by the butt of the weapon. Draygan, bless him, charged the guard as he brought the weapon to bear on the Mican’s head and knocked his aim off before being thrown to the ground. The guard stamped on him, breaking the bones in the youth’s hip, then turned back to the old Mican.


A shot fizzed through the air and struck the guard in the back. The impact threw his arms wide and brought him to his knees but he started to recover as his back smoked. The guard forced himself back up, turning around, only to be shot in the chest by differently armoured guards who were moving through the battlefield, helping the Kestalans and the prisoners who, guided by the Raychans’ actions, were struggling with the guards. One stopped by the boy and knelt. The figure said nothing to him. He didn’t even know if it could talk. Fear and curiosity kept him immobile as the giant put some sort of disc on Draygan and he disappeariated. The Mican sagged. So much for hope.


The fighting started to die down. He knew more guards would be there soon but, for now, the old Mican felt things were sa… oh, gods. The large one was coming back over. The suit stopped and he saw it press a button or something. <“They say you’re the leader,”> it asked.

“Galway Lomax,” the Mican said defiantly. “Who are you?”

He must admit he sagged with the next words the voice said.

<“Commander Sarina Raven. U.S.C. Loper. We’re here to rescue you.”>

[Amazee Dayzee]

They must be relieved that they are gonna be rescued from being slaves on that planet. They will finally be able to have the chance at freedom.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Spot the Star Trek gags in this one...

60

The battle railed as the Scholl and the Loper engaged the trio of Darts defending the planet as the trio called for assistance, only to have their calls blocked by Dawton and the Kestalan communications operative as fast as they could. They kept switching frequencies and the Human kept adjusting. It was hard work and seconds of transmissions were getting out at times when they shifted or when the lost connection with his panel due to the ship shields being hit hard. Goole told the bridge the ships shields were down to forty percent and he knew that Katara was going to have to route power from other systems to boost the defences soon. Communications was one of the last systems she was supposed to take power from, due to the importance of his work but it was on the list. He felt the ship tilt to the left and, despite the dampeners, felt his stomach drop into his groin. It seemed she’d already started, taking a little power from the inertia drive and gravity systems. To his right, Dawton heard Kirkin swear grumpily in Gaelic as he fired at one of the three drone ships.


‘Flint’ watched the passages as Tragrr examined the first console and the other scientists worked on the consoles after the Kestalan had given his best guess as to what they actually did. It seemed these glyphs had shown up in several ancient sites around Kestalan space and bore similarities to the language of the Rikerlians, a race of displaced floor walkers who’d been deposited on a planet centuries ago and had been displaced again when the Kestalans, in their colonizing days, had arrived on their world. He didn’t know much about them personally, except that they were reputed to have magnificent facial fur and a strange walking gait but he knew enough of their language to make educated guesses here. <“It’s receiving fragments of signals from the darts within range,”> he advised. <“I can’t tell what it’s about.”>

“I doubt we want to know,” ‘Flint’ agreed. “Can you turn the antennae off?”

The Kestalan raised an arm, his force field glistening around his wing. < “That console over there,”> he stated. <“although I’m concerned there may be a security lock on it.”>

<“This corpse is interesting,”> said Faverly, one of the Raicanna operatives who Match knew had come from the medical sciences section. He was kneeling by the first one Match had shot, running scans over the internal systems.

“What is, Doctor,”

<“He has some of the same systems as us, The waste system is much more efficient, all going down into a single extraction port and, apparently, coming in via another plug to the back of the neck. That keeps the organic systems operational and oxygenated but… Every organ has been enhanced by technology. Implants and direct control systems. The thought section of the brain has been replaced, for one thing. This person is a cyborg..”>

<“Or just a Bor...”> Januvitski started.

“Don’t say anything, Jan,” ‘Flint’ warned. “You never know who’s listening. It begins to explain some things,” he supposed. “The single minded nature of these things. ‘This is ours’ or ‘you are ours’. From the scans of the planet, they’re having people dig for minerals rather than use technology. That didn’t make sense. It might do now.”

<“How so?”>

“That’s the way they were programmed to do it.” He got back to checking the system he was working on. He thought he could read the power flow and began working to see if he could figure out the glyphs.


Januvitski engaged a privat channel with Faverly, standing within five feet of him for the connection. “I take it you’re planning to take this information back to Raicarra,” she asked.

<“I certainly am,”> the Raitchian told her. <“I’m contracted to report any findings to my superiors before all others,”> he continued. <“If I don’t, it’s termination of contract and I get left on the nearest planet with my funds frozen.”>

“You’re going to give them information that can, theoretically, be used to enslave people?”

<“Yes. Behavioural control is something a lot of people have been looking for for centuries, Human. These people have it. After a fashion. Things are in a wild state of flux right now and Raicarra needs to be at the forefront of the hunt if we are to control it. Monta’s outstripping everyone with hardware, Fawren are slaughtering us on Bio-enhancements. The Lappineans created that gel that creates instant biogenesis. Raicarra needs to stay relevant.”> He looked her in the armoured face. <“Or the economy collapses, Millions of us who work for Raicarra or in the support industries end up out of work and thousands die. Besides it’s not like the Council won’t be working on counter initiatives and watching over everyone, is it? Not since I’m copying everything I’ve found over to your suit ‘by accident’ so you can get them working on it?”> Jan felt she heard him dry chuckle. <“I’m a pragmatist and a capitalist. I work for money but not for stupidity. Don’t tell the others.”>

Jan decided she wouldn’t. There wasn’t much about that conversation she liked any of. In fact the only thing she had liked is the fact that, although the private channel had been in play, she knew that Match had been able to listen in through her system. She glanced at the suit that came over to her side and engaged the ‘private’ channel. <“Sorry. We’re not all like that,”> Robon confessed quietly.


Maze Hardy reacted immediately the Schirr and Loper managed to blow out a section of the hull of one of the dart ships and tasked her fighters to dive to the offence, firing into the wound to see what damage they could do. Three metre thick armour, she mused. No wonder they’d had so much trouble breaking it beforehand. Something smacked against the hull of the Loper as one of the other darts made an attack run at the ship, coming up low, underneath her, as the Scholl failed to cover. Alpha’s four though eight turned back to try and protect their home barn as they continued on the wounded beast, that was trying multiple manoeuvres to evade them as they blew out circuits and systems, predators snapping at prey, weakening the strong until it couldn’t stand any more. Sometimes, Maze thought, she understood the Celicans.


“Shields out portside,” Goole warned, before another bolt jolted the hull. “Direct hit to section seven delta! No reports of injuries!”

“Either way,” Hawle said, holding to his seat, “seal the area. No-one goes in any exposed areas. Chappers, shake that git!”

“Working on it, sir!”

“He’s firing again,” Goole reported. Hawle braced for impact.


The impact came several thousand feet from the ship as Alpha four and Alpha five put themselves into the blast and took the hit, both ships exploding, the blasts stunning the dart for a moment. Hawle tightened his grip. “We have a second. Let’s use it! Chappers, Hawle thirty! Now!”

“Aye, sir,” she replied as Dawton put the shipwide on to alert to the immediate emergency turn as the Loper turned at speed to face her attacker, weapons firing...

[Amazee Dayzee]

When Hawle wants someone shaken then you know he is angry. Lets see how far he will take this and how mad he can get in a mission.

[Welsh Halfwit]

61


Katara swore as a starboard power coupling gave out and she worked on rerouteing the power flow so an engineer could get to the physical location and repair the system whilst they were still under fire. She watched as Tillock obviously fired the new weapons again, evidenced by the power flow fluctuations. Someone called that they had a hull breach on deck seven and she told the voice to seal the bulkheads. They didn’t have energy to spare for forcefields and she didn’t want to ask if there was anyone actually in that section right now. Thinking of them wouldn’t help. She had the ship to think of.


Down on the planet, Raven had let the old Mican lead the group back to the ‘colony’ to see the scope of what the team were planning to do. It wasn’t going to be quite as easy as they planned and he was insistent that they hurried. It was difficult to run in armour but Raven had insisted they keep them on. Something about the alacrity was worrying her. When there was haste, there tended to be a reason for haste. “Are the Raitchians down there,” she asked him, trying to keep the puff out of her voice as this toughened old Mican hadn’t even started to breathe hard.

“Those not taken to medic assistance,” Galway replied. “Either here or in mine.”

“The Mine was closer,” Sarina told him.

“It was,” Galway replied. “But they need mine to work. They do not need all in colony.”

Raven understood and so did Salara, who led Yakkuk into the air to to see what they could see of the colony. Raven re-engaged her comm system. “Surveil but don’t engage,” she advised, getting an ‘of course’ from Yakkuk.


“You handled yourself well down there,” Yakkuk told Salara over a private channel.

“For a female, you mean?”

“For anyone in their first combat,” Yakkuk told her as he circled at several hundred feet, Salara just below him, clearly enjoying the flight, her shorter wingspan allowing for tighter turns. “Especially after not being able to take flight for some time,” Yakkuk chuckled.

“The Floor walkers are very kind and most are honourable,” Salara told her fellow Avian. “But there’s little that beats flight. Are you going to arrest me,” she asked, before reporting to Raven that the armoured ones in the village appeared to be gathering people up.

“What for,” Yakkuk asked. “If your side wins, there’s nothing to arrest you for. If the government wins you had to get the floor walkers to… Raven, double time. It’s a firing squad!… to safety and they chose to leave with you. Raven, we have to engage! Kestalans, form on me for the attack!”

“She has a good name,” Salara said, before switching the private channel off as the others massed around them. They could see the floor walkers raising pace but they were at least two minutes run from being able to intervene, with the shabby houses in their way. The Kestalans dove towards the enemy.


One of the darts was listing now, the inner workings exposed. Tillock fired a torpedo at the exposed area and watched, his face impassive, as the torpedo slid past the bodies of those sucked out in hull breaches as it angled towards the target. He lost it for a moment as Sarah put the ship screaming into velocity one for a second, sending them a hundred thousand kilometres from the impact before it happened. He almost felt the whiplash as the ship accelerated and decelerated almost immediately, putting strain on the engines as they came out of the move and fought to turn back towards the battle. Tillock’s screen cleared as the torpedo buried itself in the interior of the dart and exploded.


Maze pulled her people back immediately she saw the tube launching. “Explosion incoming,” she’d called, “back out now!” They’d engaged the boosters and been thankful for the padded back rests as they rocketted from the direct area of danger.

<“The Loper’s gone,”> Alpha 3 – ‘Tinhat’ – called.

“She’s not far,” Maze advised him. “They didn’t want to get hit by the blast either. Velocity one for a second, I presume. She’s at 127,295,-125 on your detection system. No conspiracy here, Tin.”

<“There’s always a conspiracy, boss,”> the Coydog reminded her.


<“These things,”> Tragrr mentioned, <“must use this site to check in when they’ve made acquisitions and they’re heading for the colony.”>

“Why do you say that,” ‘Flint’ asked, thinking he’d hate the answer.

<“Because there’s an incoming signal here,”> he replied, reading script that flummoxed the others. <“A ship has reported in that it’s acquired interesting things and it’s heading towards the colony. It’ll be passing us in about ten minutes.”>

[Amazee Dayzee]

Once again can't wait to see what you come up with next! I still find this story amazing!

[Welsh Halfwit]

62


Marius huffed as he kept up with the others, his unfamiliarity with the suit slowing him as Pangal and Raven kept pace with the desperate old Mican through the town. “I don’t get it,” he huffed, “this reaction doesn’t make any sense. Why kill their own workforce?”

<“There’s a lot about what they do that doesn’t seem to make sense,”> Jaqui replied tightly as energy weapons sounded ahead, There was screaming and people were probably running if they knew how to. If they had anywhere to ru… He accelerated and thrust Pangal to the ground as a guard came out from one of the shacks and fired his weapon at them. The shot sheared overhead by a matter of inches, impacting on the wall behind them and breaking the mortar as the troops behind them took aim at the attacker and fired, the effect throwing him from his feet as the Mican guide flinched from the noise, cringing down, looking for escape routes and hands poised, ready to defend himself.


Raven spoke to him as some of Galway’s people, who’d been with them at the rear, ran towards the house with it’s shattered door. “He live there?”

“Tomak guards don’t ‘live’ anywhere,” Galway replied, the scowl on his face emphasising what he thought of the silent, armed, opponents. “That one wasn’t escorting so he just ended the family that lived there. But no time now. Come!” He led them through to the fight.


Ten Tomak guards moved smoothly amongst the ‘colonists’, firing at the avians that swooped above them. A Raitchian, new to the planet, took a chance and charged one of the guards, bearing him down to the ground and making him drop his weapon. The guard simply grabbed him around the neck with both hands and twisted the head back to an unnatural degree with a jerk of his thumbs. He pushed the corpse off him and tarted to get up, uncaring about the blood and bodies around his feet. His weapon wasn’t there. He didn’t care. He simply extended a blade and continued with his primary mission. No survivors. A shot from above staggered him and a youngster, barely bigger than his weapon, without the hope driven from him despite this world being all he knew, pointed his weapon at him as he advanced towards the family, ready to strike as the child shook…


A large hand reached around his chest, put a closed fist under his chin and fired an energy weapon at point blank range, excoriating the armour and the organs it contained as the other hand held the body upright so the still waving blade didn’t fall onto the innocent. Someone the boy recognised stooped and took his shoulders, gently moving the weapon aside. “Makras,” the Mican told the alien youth, who looked Varkonian to Raven’s eyes, “take Zeema and get to cover. These people are here to free us. Go!” The youth nodded and took his family to cover as everything was blood and fury around them.


“This still,” Marius protested as he grappled with a Tomak guard, “makes no sense. Why are they still fighting? Surrender seems…” He paused as he managed to grapple the guard into a pose that exposed his chest to Pangal, who drove a shock-prod into him. The figure jerked away like a puppet with broken strings before falling to the ground and jerking wildly.


<“Can we tell it the planet’s not open for delivery today,”> Jan asked, making Tragrr laugh bitterly as he watched the screen.

<“I don’t think it would work that way, Miss Januvitski,”> he replied. <“It would probably set off alarms. We might be able to stop the dart, though. This system seems to state it can fire a directional sonic blast of significant proportions when it detects an intruder craft.”>

“That wouldn’t destroy a spaceship,” Match challenged.

<“It might not do for us,”> Chadwick put in, <“but it might do for them. All this stuff is well maintained,”> the pilot told them, <“but it’s stuff we moved past decades ago. And it’s old. It’s...”>

<“Like things are advanced but only until they hit a point,”> Doctor Faverly finished grimly. <“Judging by the readings I’ve been taking from the dead, that seems to fit. There’s no receiver in his brain. No way of getting new information. He was, essentially, a drone programmed for limited activities.”>

<“Great,”> Januvitski complained, <“like knock off Cyber..”>

“It’s always one of two shows with you Humes, isn’t it,” Match complained with a significant amount of humour. “Can you create this sonic weapon, Tragar,” he asked.

<“With luck.”>

“Anyone found anything interesting?”

Muir held her hand up.

<“He can’t hear you put your hand up, Mouse,”> one of the Raicarrans said.

Kirrie giggled in their helmets. <“Sorry. Think I got a database or something here? I can’t work it out, though.”>

“You wouldn’t. Download what you can. Tragar can provide a translation matrix later…” Match talked over Tragrr’s ‘oh, can I’ comment “...and Harvey can work his way through it later.”

<“Providing he’s still alive,”> someone added. No-one replied.



Colleen held on to Sarafina as the ship shook again. Something sparked over in the corner of the room and the light began to fade. The Vixen was looking frightened now, wide eyed and ears folded back as the corners of her mouth showed teeth. Colleen rubbed her hand gently. “I think it’s time for you to go to work, Saffy,” she told her, indicating the light.

“Is there a p...point,” the vixen enquired.

“It would enable us to see,” Colleen counselled gently. “And it would impress Katara. And your mother,” she added, looking over to where the old Politician and her bodyguard were trying to keep the children distracted. Another section of light went out. “Now go do what you do well, eh?”

Sarafina made a watery smile but pulled her courage up with a deep inhale and set off to work.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Sounds like things are being sent to the very edge. It will be interesting to see what relative of his Hawle pulls out of his hat to come out of this in one piece.

[Welsh Halfwit]

63


The Loper lurched forward, up and over, as a strike from one of the two remaining darts struck the underside of her stern, shuddering the entire ship as part of the hull blew out before the Avian associate could intercept the enemy, her fire damaging the Darts’ integrated weaponry. Hawle found himself thankful that the restraints were on (and that they were equipped for pregnancies, this being the 24103’s) as they held most of the crew here in place. “Report,” he ordered.

“Damage to the… starboard side engine,” Goole gasped, getting himself back into a position where he could see the screens. We’ve lost about twenty percent of the engine. Repair crews standing by.”

“Don’t send them,” Hawle advised. “No sense in it. Chappers, get us on that other dart! Corkscrew it!”

“Aye, sir,” she replied, “vomit maker coming up,” she added, setting the ship to forward, rotating around its’ core as it did so by usage of the starboard rockets. It kept them twisting around as they barrelled towards the enemy, the rear port engine reduced in power to stop the ship slewing around as it went. Tillock fired the main weapons as they went, allowing incoming fire to strike the ship. The twisting meant the fire merely scarred the ship as the Lopers shots blew chunks from the dart.


Maze led what remained of her fighters in on the damag, taking their shots to try and cripple the thing before it recovered. She didn’t know if these things had damage control but she knew that, if it did, the best thing was to overload the system. It was, of course, a good thing that this thing didn’t have its own fighters as she weaved the incoming fire and stitched hers across the hull. Most of it fizzed and skittered on the armour as she weaved but a few shots entered the wound to do their own pricks of damage as the bright flashes of whatever the new weapon was flashed past her cockpit and ripped the ship almost in half as it struck the inside. She imagined Tillock fist pumping at the sight before she wheeled around towards the other ship. They just might win this, she thought. She cursed herself. She’d probably just jinxed it.


Having ideantified the frequency output system, ‘Flint’ had gotten to work realigning and boosting the output, having Jan and Kirrie work on the power flow systems at best guess capabilities to make a sonic pulse weapon. The engineer would rather have a half hour build up – or count down – but he had a bare few minutes. Tragrr was going to handle the shooting as the Raicarrans kept him up to date with the darts whereabouts. None of them knew how the battle was going but they did know the principle that, re-enforcements were always bad timing when they belonged to the enemy. “That appears to be about as good as it’s going to get, Tragrr,” he admitted.

<“Thank you, Flint,”> the Kestalan replied, noting the increase in power.

One of the Raicarran Raitchians laughed in their helmets. <“Who are we kidding with this ‘Flint’, Lieutenant Match,”> Robon taunted. <“Why the subterfuge?”>

“No subterfuge,” Match replied, thinking quickly. “I don’t normally do these missions. This is Flint’s suit. There wasn’t enough time to reprogram the headset links so I didn’t want to confuse matters.”

“<Or you didn’t trust us, hmm,”> Robon asked, a hint of an upturned lip in his tone.

<“Does it really matter at the moment,”> Januvitski asked.

<“I suppose not, Hume,”> he replied. <“You ARE a Hume, yeah?”>

<“Last time I checked, sweetie.”>

<“Can it, you two,”> another voice told them. <“Thing’s coming into range. I think.”>


Galway stepped back and put his Grndson behind him as Sarina and Jaqui took their helmets off in front of him in the shack he’d lived in all his life. He’d mated here, his daughter had been born here. She’d mated here and born her own children. Gone now, the way of bitter memories. He’d seen others mix with the others throughout his lifetime. He’d seen the few that survived the birthing process – as advanced as it was here or in the Tomak Care centre – grow strong and die or live weakly. Ome few had been allowed to work in the fields rather than underground and they’d made things that made life slightly more bearable. He’d begun to think there might be a chance of life without fear but, now… He knew the word for what this female was. He pointed a shaking finger. “K...k..killur,” he stammered, thinking of the few pictures he’d seen and the pictures his own great grandfather had drawn.

“The wars were a long time past, Galway,” Sarina said, kneeling so she didn’t quite look as menacing.

“We still fight,” Jaqui added, putting her hand on Sarina’s shoulder, “but we’re trying to make it that we fight together now. But we need to get you up to the ship we have up there.” She pointed upwards and, on reflex, Galway and his grandson looked up before remembering they couldn’t see through the roof.

“Above the roof,” the boy asked.

Galway chuckled through his fear. “They mean above the sky,” he told them. “Like how blackfurs arrived a few rises back? They wish us to travel up there.”

“It won’t hurt,” Jaqui assured the boy, reaching out her hand after taking her one gauntlet off. Galway nodded simply, knowing that the Rabbitoids were on the Mican side in the war. Tentatively, he reached out and put his already toughening palm pad to hers and tried a frightened smile as she squeezed it gently. “Would you like to leave this place,” she asked. “With your grandfather and friends?”

The boy glanced from her sparkling eyes to his grandfather’s hardened gaze and, after the elder gave the slightest nod, he looked back and said ‘please’ as his heart thundered.

“Then we’ll get you up to the ship.”

“There are five hundred here,” Galway advised.

“It’ll be cramped,” Sarina told them, “but it’s doable. Do they have guards in the mine?”

Galway shook his head. “One or two only. No point. Only one exit. Some at gate.”

Sarina nodded. She’d ask the Kestalans to take out the gate guards whilst they made time… Oh, wait. “One of the Raitchians,” she asked, “has anyone mentioned one called Solomon Utraya? Or ‘Captain’?”

Galway nodded slowly. “He took ill,” he said. “new to food sometimes get ill. Taken to care centre. Not back yet.”

“Guess I know where we’re headed next,” Jaqui remarked.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Wonder how many people are gonna end up vomiting on the Loper after the corkscrew? I would imagine that Hawle is probably used to it having done it so many times.

[Welsh Halfwit]

If you were wondering where she was...

64


The boy held himself still, frozen in fear he was fighting as the sparkles took him and the other ten colonists who they were sending up first. The old and the wounded and the hurt. His grandfather dissolved in the light that dazzled his eyes. He found he couldn’t close them and he reacted with surprise internally as everything suddenly darkened into grey and steel and with the smell of the newcomers as the humm he’d just become aware of faded away and he stumbled forward in surprise as the weight of his body lightened. One of the aliens scooped forward to help him but the Grandson of Galway Lomax had to stand alone and lead so he freed himself from the hand as quickly as he could. The… She wasn’t a Newcomer, was she? She was, effortlessly, the most elegant thing he’d ever seen in his life. Not someone who’d worked in the fields or mines, he thought. She spoke.

“My apologies,” Colleen Una said, “sometimes people stumble when they come on a starship for the first time. I didn’t want you to fall.”

He sniffed. Her scent definitely wasn’t like the newcomers. It wasn’t like the Feel-lines or Rabbitoids or Seelican either. There were legends in the books from ages past that Grandmother had read her. Something called Kaynines? Was this one? Other newc… Raychans. He had to remember to call them Raychans… came forward to help the others. “I thanks,” he said, his voice quavering as he wondered how this Kaynine understood him? The others had said something about teknowledgy under the skin but… “I am Brae Lomax,” he said proudly. “Grandson of leader Galway Lomax.”

“I,” Colleen said, putting a hand to her chest, “am Colleen Una. Pleased to meet you,” she said, putting the hand forward in what Brae now understood was a greeting between leaders having seen his Grandfather and the Raychan leader do it. She was accepting him! “You have a lot of strength,” she told him, confusing him slightly until he remembered what he’d thought on seeing her.

“Needed when working the field,” he replied, watching her face. He looked around as others appeared. Friends and those he didn’t like. “Where we are,” he asked.


Raven and Pangal had put their armour back on and Galway was leading them towards the care centre as Marius kept pace with them, engaging a private channel to Pangal as he kept close. “Saw you with the kid,” he said positively. “You were good with him.”

<“Thanks,”> Pangal replied sharply. <“Weren’t you supposed to be watching the street with Gering?”>

“I was making sure no-one was sneaking up on you, Jaqui,”

<“That’s Chief Pangal, Marius.”>

“So noted.” He chuckled. “Ever thought about kits?”

<“Not a conversation for now,”> she told him straight.

Sarina engaged her suit speaker. “You could have gone with them, Galway,” she said.

The craggy Mican looked up at her and fluttered his hand above his head. “To your ship of stars,” he remarked. “I will in time. But who can show you way to here if not me?”

Raven put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at it as though it was hostile. She felt him flinch and regain his courage. “You’re a good person.”

“This I know,” he replied frostily, as they turned a corner to see a squat, featureless, building ahead of them. “This,” he announced, is Tomak care centre. Not seen guards here. Just things that heal. Some of things from mine help make healing potions. Other things go… somewhere. Sometimes things land here at night. Take things we mine. Sometimes take people too. From here.”


Raven stepped up to the closest door she could find and looked to see if she could open it. “It has an ocular scan,” she told the others. Marius put something into her hand and told her to try it. Jaqui asked him where he’d gotten it, although she pretty much knew. He shrugged and told her a thief takes anything that might come in useful. After all, wasn’t that what he was supposed to be in for?

<“What did it look like,”> Jaqui asked.

His suit visibly shuddered. <“Don’t ask if you don’t want nightmares,”> he advised. The door remained shut so he checked the system. <“Ah, there’s a chip in the eyeball,”> he advised. <“It needs power to send a signal to the scanner here. I need a couple of clips and connectors to a power source...”>

A minute later, he had the door open and Jaqui trying not to be sick in her suit as he gave her back her connectors.


Salara was almost loving this, the feeling of the wind in her feathers and the ability to soar freely like the Kestalan’s thay’d just rescued. Yakkuk and her had needed to convince them to stay in the village to act as long range watchers for the ground walkers until everyone else had been sent up to the starship and they were on their way back to the mine now. She noted the Captain was playing with her a little, letting her get ahead before speeding up and swooping in front of her or circling her as she did him, in concentric circles. The Military Aide gave thoughts to the possibility of joining his flight. But not right now, of course. The mine lay ahead, a vast hole, built into the side of a mountain. A rail track came from the maw, extended five hundred yards and vanished from view under a crevasse that had opened up. Conspicuous amounts of ore lay, ready to be transported, close to an antiquated set of vehicles. “Two hundred years they’ve been doing this,”. She reminded the others.

“They must have hollowed out the whole mountain by now,” Yakkuk remarked. “Possibly more, judging by that collapsed area.” He twisted sideways in the air to avoid a shot that would have shredded his left wing and fired back as the new fight began.


Brae had no words as Colleen helped him to look out of one of the Raicarran ship’s windows. Despite his youth, she could feel the muscles and weight in him as she lifted the child, who she rated as no more than eight, to see the world below them. “Never been up this high,” Colleen asked the smelly, rag wearing, child with slight amusement.

“And I think Baden Hill high,” he breathed, his tail still in fear as his eyes widened in excitement. “You live with gods?”

“Well, one Lappinean.. uh, Rabbitoid,” she corrected, using the old term, “who thinks he could be but nah. Just a lot of good people trying to help.” She tapped his nose. “Got another one now, don’t we, Brae?”

He nodded, thinking of his Grandfather.

[Amazee Dayzee]

You know I actually was wondering where she went off to so thank you for answering that question for me. I do love to see The Loper in action in a fight.

[Welsh Halfwit]

65


“Damage report,” Hawle ordered as the third dart died on screen, all signals from it going dark and draining. He could tell some of the damage already. The lights were darkened, several consoles were offline. Four of the main viewer cameras were offline and the temperature had dropped seven degrees but he wanted it official. Katara had already notified she’d dispatched repair crews to where she’d decided they’d be of most use, including the engines and shields and would he get off the line and stop bugging her although he might have just made that last part up “Signal the Kestalans, Dawton,” he instructed.

“On it,” Goole and Dawton reported at almost precisely the same time.

“Geez,” Hawle replied, checking Sarah was OK, “stereo.” He put his hands on her shoulders and checked her monitors to make sure things were clear as his armrest sensor panel wasn’t working right now. Stikka, for his part, was running over the computer systems, helping the pair down in IT to make sure the databases were as intact as they could be.

“Initial reports,” Goole added, “damage to most decks. Hull breaches on decks four and six port side aft, three and one starboard aft, three and two port fore. Force fields inoperative but bulkheads holding. Maintenance teams working to stabilize structures enough for engineering to make repairs.”

“Thank you, Goole,” Hawle replied. No wonder it had gotten cold. The bridge was on the third floor, set some way back from the hull but close enough that the air pressure that had slammed the bulkheads automatically had thinned the atmosphere here. It was probably a good thing it had ended when it had. They might not have been able to take too much more.


<“Straighten out the feed,”> Tragrr demanded as the team worked hard to comply. Having noted they’d blown a hole in one of the capacitors on their way in and having needed to compensate.

Match deployed Muir and a Raicarran techie to work on diverting the flow and Muir had been laying cables to the Raitchian’s directive. “Looks like it’s about done,” Kirrie told her compatriot. “It’s a good job they plateaued when they did,” she mooted.

<“Yeah,”> Parka replied, <“they could have been well ahead of us instead of twenty years behind on this stuff. Wouldn’t want to meet these things if they’d kept adapting.”> He looked around. <“And we still haven’t found a door.”>

<“It’s obvious, Parka,”> Doctor Faverly advised. <“They teleport them in. They send them enough nutrients to last for months, if not years and they do the maintenance upto the level they’ve been programmed for. It’s very efficient.”>

“But very cold,” Kirrie added.

<“It is very cold in space, Miss Muir,”> Faverly opined darkly, before lightening his tone slightly. <“Wrath of Khan reference. Thought you might appreciate that, Miss Januvitski,”> he added to the Human.

<“Ten seconds until the Dart arrives,”> Tragrr reminded them all, getting their focus back. They didn’t know how long the thing would stop or if an automated system would ‘handshake’ with it and send it on its’ way. So they had barely a few seconds to aim exactly, along the communications channel and fire. Chadwick was ready on what they hoped was the communications station and…


...It arrived. All of a sudden it was their, as though on a pre-preogrammed instruction, as it probably was, stopping to request permission to enter the area, Tagrr reckoned. It was sending a cargo log that he could make out a few words of but it was irrelevant. It was here. He fired.

Energy swirled and sparked all around they group, threatening to overload the suit systems as the power flowed from everywhere to the tip of the pyramid and out into space towards the ship as Chadwick sent the ‘reply’. Januvitski cried out as several bolts of electricity hit her and Faverly put himself between her and the source, pushing her forward as the whole room, possibly the whole asteroid, shook. <“You were standing on one of the power vents, I think,”> he said, pointing to a small, barred, gap in the floor that, Jan realised, did seem to be one of a set sending electricity upwards. <“Makes sense they had electrical protection in their armour. Raicarra’s is better than the Councils, it seems.”>

<“W...why..?”>

<“Need for profit aside, my dear,”< he replied, <“I am not a complete barsteward.”>

The power flow drained off and Robon noted it seemed to have been drawn from below. Perhaps there was a power core down there? <“Did it work,”> he asked carefully as the room continued to shake. <“Because I don’t think we can do it again.”>

“I’m not sure we could even do it once,” Match advised, feeling the movement continue. “In fact, I think it’s time to leave.”

<“But we don’t know if it’s worked yet,”> Robon protested.

“As it may, I THINK we’ve started an earthquake on a very small asteroid. Tragar,” he added, “can you carry Chadwick?”

<“IF he disengages the gravity systems, possibly,”> the Avian replied.

“Give it a try If it works, get yourselves back to the shuttle at best speed. The rest of us? Back to the entry point as fast as we can.”

The evacuation began.


Raven walked the hallways, avoiding a roombah like automaton cleaning dust of the floor in a slow, methodical, way as they walked the passages, looking in on automated rooms with barely alive people looking back at them. The people who’d been brought in and left in automated rooms that weren’t quite working. The doors had been locked. Marius used his eyeball on several scanners to open the doors and Pangal and Galway had placed teleport pads on the barely struggling locals without saying a word to each other. They knew some of them were beyond help but they weren’t Doctors. One door opened and a stronger looking individual looked at them from artificial eyes and blinked as the old Mican came in, the cameras in the pupils whirring and clicking as she focussed on Galway. “Gal..way,”. She said, rendered monotone by the artificial larynx.

“Barnwyn,” he told the group, moving forward to release her restraints. “What have they done to you?”

“They were turning me into a Tomak,” the Mican female replied, emotion showing only in how she swallowed. Galway explained how she’d been taken ill the month before and brought here to recover.


The next door brought them to who they were looking for.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I think that this is the first time that I have heard anybody being referred to as a "Roomba" before. I just hope that she isn't the one that runs over dog poop and spreads it all over the house.

[Welsh Halfwit]

66

“Alright,” Harvey said, linking up his computers to his wrist system, “that’s what we can do from here, Gilly, let’s back away in case of explosions.” He closed up his main system and turned to where his girlfriend was out cold on the floor. He hadn’t even heard… The shifting and juddering and exploding and things being thrown around the room. He’d forgotten he had a more inbuilt stability than Gilly… He stooped to pick her up, forgetting his concerns about explosions, and took her over to their sofa to lie on something that wasn’t unvacuumed carpet with nutshells on it. She was breathing. It was quite shallow but it was there. “Gilly,” he asked, gently stroking her face. He couldn’t feel any blood on the back of her head which was good, right? “Gilly,” he said again, wondering where he could get some water from as the replication systems were offline. Perhaps… He scrabbled on the floor to where her night pack was and took out the small bottle of scent she kept in there for beating the smells of nature as she put it. He spritzed some of the noxious niff onto his shirt before taking it off to show his red stomach and placed the spritzed shirt against her nose.

“Kaff, Kaff!” Gilly coughed and held her head as someone called on Harvey’s comm. His attention was needed elsewhere. He had to focus, didn’t he?


Katara grumbled as computer control absolutely failed to comply with her instructions and IT didn’t respond so she worked on the damage control console herself, jumping back as systems cracked and crackled around her until she pulled the power supply. She moved over to the standby station and worked from there, delegating external repairs to the engines now the battle was done. She’d rather they were able to shut the engines off to do these things but the suits could take the heat and radiation for fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. Maintenance were patching up the interior disruptions as much as they could. A rupture had put Pember down for the count so Polva was in charge, even though he’d been wounded in the same blast, breaking a leg that Fuze had worked to set quickly before giving Edelmar enough painkillers that the Russellian had joked that, if he’d been able to stand, he wouldn’t be able to stand! But he was compos mentis enough to delegate teams. She scowled at her comm as Harvey finally replied. “Backed up,” she demanded crustily. She made her demands for assistance clear without waiting for him to reply. She heard him pause and, eventually, relent. He said he’d be on his way now. She could hear the doubt in his tone.


“Captain Utraya,” Raven said to the Raitchian, who looked at her curiously, the metal tinge in his eye betraying the fact that they’d started work on him already. “It’s Sarina Raven,” she told him as she tried to help him get free of the restraints. He didn’t believe her, she thought, or he wasn’t able to think straight, which might mean… A box released itself from a wall and hurried, squeakily, towards the bed, probes and clamps extending from the main body as Galway stepped back, into Marius’s uncomforting gauntlets, as Pangal fired her weapon at it. The box swerved back but stayed upright, continuing its duty by coming forward again as the alert sounded, releasing security systems. “Time to go,” Raven warned as Marius got to work on the restraints keeping Utraya down as Raven added her fire to Pangal’s, eventually stopping the medical device in a small, internal, explosion. She noted the incisions on the Raitchian Captains’ arms and wondered what they’d been doing to him.


Marius worked quickly, trying to overpower the locks with the limited systems he had in this suit as old combat systems ratcheted to life. Being inactive for a century seemed to be holding them back, he reasoned. Then he recalled the Fawren 14. Being inactive for TWO centuries hadn’t eliminated the danger from that completely. A fact re-enforced by a shot from the security whatever that blitzed into the back wall as Pangal kept Galway behind her and kept firing. The security systems had limited forcefields. Nothing they couldn’t get through but it’d take time and the incoming fire wasn’t going to get any less deadly… Marius grabbed something pointed as sharp from the medical unit and pulled it free before jamming it into a similarly sized hole in the restraints. He jiggled it to see if something loosened and Utraya managed to pull his arm free. Lazily, the Raitchian slapped the arm down onto the other manacle and gripped it tightly, crunching it through sheer force, even as his fingers bled from the metal. He lay there until, covered by Sarina, Marius helped him sit up and, with Utraya still feeling no pain, Marius put his hands onto the manacles holding his feet. Head lolling forward, Urtaya clenched his hands and Marius thought he could see the augmented systems working as they clenched the manacles free this time, tearing into his own ankles. Now he was free of the restraints, Marius picked him up as Raven called for teleport and Pangal turned to grip Galway, shots impacting fully on her armour as she did so.


The team reassembled in the Raitchian teleport bay and Galway looked around in fear as the almost full room seemed to close in on him. A medical team came forward to look in on Pangal and Salara commed Sarina from the bridge to report they’d freed the extremely confused miners and…

“Grandfather,” Brae shouted from the doorway, where he was wearing a new tee-shirt that bore the Raicarra logo he’d seen the Raitchian newcomers wearing these last few rises. The boy released the Canine hand he’d been holding and ran to hug his elder, who held him tight and tried to work out why he was crying. “I show you where we are, Grandfather,” the youth asked plaintively. He looked up. “I like some of it,” he added. “Free but…” He cringed. “No fields to work!” He began pulling Galway behind him. “Come! I show!”

“There are Mican colonies growing in the area we normally patrol,” the Canine said, making Galway wonder if he’d ever met such a… He didn’t have a word for it. She seemed to breathe politeness and calm all around her. “They need farmers. I am sure we’ll be able to find you places where you can work the fields. But,” she added, “they will be your fields and you’ll be free to work them as you wish. And not confined to them. Brae tells me you lead?”

Galway nodded tightly. “This colony. Why does Brae have new coverings?”

“The old ones are being gently cleaned,” Colleen told him, leading him along a passage teeming with people her knew, some of whom cringed away from the strangers or reached out to touch him and he gripped their hands for a few seconds before moving on, wondering what they wanted to sh…

His thoughts almost stopped as they arrived at the window and she showed him the world below them. He heard Brae tell Colleen that he’d said Granddad would be impressed. He heard the amusement in Brae’s voice he’d not heard since the boys brothers vanished. He swallowed, feeling the dryness in his throat. “It… it’s a big universe,” he said, trying to sound positive.

“And you’re free to explore it,” she told them as the ship began to turn away from the planet. “As soon as we get out of here. You probably don’t want to watch the ship go to high speeds just yet…” She helped them towards where Cedar had set up a simple foods station.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Love how this chapter has come out here! It really is full of action!

[Welsh Halfwit]

67


Parkway looked up as Utraya, leaning on the shoulders of Marius and Raven, stepped onto the bridge and looked on the worlds with new eyes – well, new eye. He’d get used to it. Possibly. It clicked and whirred as the brain impulses fired. “I am not..” he said, his voice half paralysed by the effects of the ‘treatment’ to remove his weakness to the food by removing his need for it. “...staying. I juzzt… want to say ‘Thank… you…”

“He insisted on bridge first,” Raven declared as Utraya sagged forward, succumbing to the chemicals he’d been subjected to again. She didn’t tell them more. She knew it wouldn’t be long before they knew anyhow. The Medic who’d scanned him immediately identified the situation. The heart had been replaced. Sarina watched as Parkway saluted. She manipulated Utraya’s hand to replicate the gesture in a haphazard way and directed the criminal to take the Captain to the medical bay. She was staying here. She wanted to see the Loper – or what was left of her – as soon as possible. She shucked off several pieces of her worn and slightly battered armour and did her best to assert control without actually taking it. “Have we heard anything from the Loper or the Kestalan ship,” she asked, watching the low velocity streaks go by.

“Nothing as of yet, Commander,” Parkway replied. “But we’re only a few minutes out, even at this speed. A pity we weren’t able to repair most of our sensors after the… you know. I’d like to thank you for…”

“For doing my duty, Sub-Lieutenant.” Sarina sniffed. It was true. She wasn’t much of a fan of Raitchians as a race but there were some she’d go to the mat for, like Maze Hardy or Match. There were some she liked, like Bazil or even Solomon Utraya. But that was mainly because he was one of Commander Hawle’s friends. She’d met him a few times and she’d only ever wanted to punch him once, so that put him in the upper ranks of Raitchians she’d met civilly. But this youngster..? Ach, she considered, it wasn’t his fault. She gave him a half meant smile for a second. “Thanks, Parkway.”


After delivering the Captain, Marius sat opposite Jaqui in a small room, cut off from the smell by dint of a door. It was barely bigger than a cupboard, the thief reckoned, but it had two stools in it. And it was quiet. And dark. Sensory deprivation area, maybe? He heard her voice in the gloom and turned his ear towards the tone. “I’m not going to be able to sleep much tonight,” she told him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “we always think we’re used to it, don’t we? Those in our lines. Then.. we get to something next level like that.” He sighed, a deep, heavy, sound. “Of course, there’s a bright side for me on this one. One you might not even be able to see, considering the side you’re always on, Jaqui.”

“What’s that?”

He found her shoulder with a hand. She thought about swiping it off but… there was a feeling of reassurance there somehow. “For me,” he said, “this is the first time I’ve helped save hundreds of lives, yeah? And you were more a part of it than I was too!”

She gave a short, mirthless, choke of a laugh. “I suppose that helps, Marius. But it’s not going to drive away the bad images. They’ll fade,” she told him softly. “in time. Now, we better get back out there..” She stood and turned towards the door, only to be surprised by him turning her back towards him and enveloping her in a hug. Even through the armour, she felt his heart beating as the Alsan put his head against the side of hers. Hers rested against his and she remembered how to control her breathing over several seconds. She patted his back for him to let go.

“I needed that,” he told her. She half fancied he did.


Katara, for her part, also wanted a hug. But, far more than that, she wanted a break, a replacement engine, a gallon of coffee and six new engineers to replace the ones she’d just lost. She wanted Match and Jan back. Oh goddesses, did she want her best friend back. She didn’t even have Sarafina now, as the head Rabbit had decided he didn’t want people who weren’t useful wandering around and getting in the way of those who were useful until they were sure they didn’t need to send them to the secure zone again. Which was ironic as, with his insistence on touring the ship personally as he was, he was getting in the way. Although he had undertaken the Engineering extension course at Command, apparently, so she had him repairing the replication machine so she could get her coffee. Vital work, she’d told him. Keeping morale up. She also, in one of her softer moments towards him, reasoned that it gave him something to do, rather than just get others to do it. It also kept him in one place long enough for her to, metaphorically, chew his ear about the damage done to her ship.

“OUR ship, Katara,” he corrected, “Yours and mine.”

“If it were ours,” she told him straight, “you’d have sought my advice before plunging us into chaos like this. What WERE you thinking of?”

Aldair pulled his head out of the replication dispenser and turned it on. It sparked for a few seconds but remained powered up. “I was thinking, Chief,” he said, manners keeping his anger under control, “that potential war with those things is inevitable. I was thinking about dozens, maybe hundreds, of imprisoned people who are both nothing to do with us and absolutely our responsibility. I had to choose between the lives of everyone I know or the lives of hundreds.” Now he bared his teeth. His eyes flashed slightly. “And you’re absolutely right,” he told her. “I should have consulted you. I should have had a little get together, eh? You, Night, Sarina, Stikka, Pember, Zowaix… Because I have to be fair, hmm? If one division head gets to advise, they all do. Everyone getting to put their point across. Andthen what happens, hmm?”

Katara nodded. “The divisions get divided.”

“And I can risk that when it’s on ship decisions,” Hawle told her, putting a hand on her arm. She looked at it. She almost reacted. “When it’s how to do the impossible, brilliant, things with her that you all help with. But the military decisions? They’re mine alone, Katara. I carry them. I’m sorry for those you’ve lost today. But, according to Dawton in my ear, they didn’t die in vain. The Raicarran vessel has returned. It’s headed for the rendezvous point with over five hundred rescued people of Raichian, Mican, Avian and other races aboard. There’s even a Celican, apparently.” He put his hands on the table. “After we pick up Match and his group, we’ll join them. I suppose I’d better go tell Havakar about the Celican before I go collapse in my office.”

“Why there?”

“Hull breach in the senior officers quarters area,” he told her. “Your place is OK but I need to go bagsy my office before Stikka or Night does.” He wiggled his eye ridges in a way she hated because it was amusing and she didn’t want him to be. “I’ve got the comfy chair, after all.”

Katara grumbled to herself, screwed up her face and told him to let Stikka have the chair. She had a comfy sofa.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I wonder whether the sofa or the chair is more comfy? From how annoyed Katara seems to be, I am guessing the chair is a lot more cozy and the sofa isn't anything special.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Well, it's a gesture from the grumpy Vixen... Which she'll probably regret

[Amazee Dayzee]

Everybody ends up regretting something when the Loper is involved in some capacity. Even Hawle does even if he never admits it.

[Welsh Halfwit]

68


Captain Utraya forced himself to his feet as Aldair stepped into his conference room and tried not to look sorrowfully at him. Utraya could see it wasn’t easy for the Lappinean, seeing an old friend like this. An hour had passed, in which he’d gotten no sleep and the Loper had picked up the combined team they’d left on the asteroid. He’d had fears when he’d seen the dart but it was dead somehow. Stunned at least. He wondered what the first thing the Officer would say would be. “Permission to enter, Captain,” wasn’t quite what he expected. He demurred and waved a hand, almost throwing his arm off, if he was any judge. He wasn’t. He’d have to master this new strength. “What happened to your fingers,” Hawle asked, nodding towards the bandages.

“Super ztrength without invulnerability,” Utraya told him, sounding a little cracklier than normal. “I tore my restraintz off after your man released one hand.” He snorted. “now the painkillerz have worn off, it’s hella painful. All of me is.”

Hawle looked dismayed. He stepped forward to offer a hand to his friend. “You know if there was any way I could have got their quicker..?”

Utraya held a hand up. “I’ll not shake the hand,” he said, indicating a chair with an imprint of his fingers warping the metal. “Until I work out how to do it safely. As for the rest of it, Aldair..? I spoke to Parkway He let me in on the situation. If you’d have come earlier, you’d be dead and I’d be one of those silent guard thingzz. I mean things.” He tried to laugh but it didn’t come off well. “That girl on Raitche won’t go for me now, eh?”

“Well,” Aldair replied, taking a drink from the replication machine, “it depends which one you mean. I mean , the one from Raina, no.” The look in his eye gave Solomon the hint as to where this was going. “The one in Caltaxia, however..?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Solomon said, waving his hand, “boy did she like appliances! But these aren’t exactly something you can order off galnet!”

“True. Have your engineers and scientists been pestering for a look?”

Solomon put his muzzle atop his closed fists and relaxed his shoulders in exasperation. “Ten requests so far. They all want to examine the Cyborg Captain whilst he’s still in station. They’ll probably relieve me of the pozition as soon as they can. What do I do then, Aldair?”

Hawle’s ear drooped. “Who says they’ll relieve you, Solomon? Your augmentations aren’t mental. Possibly…”

Solomon almost smiled as he pointed a finger. “Don’t say it, Aldair.”

“Good job they didn’t upgrade you with a finger laser.”

“Who says they didn’t,” Solomon asked, blowing on the clawtip.

Aldair nodded. “I was going to say cyborg rights in the services are in flux. I have one, you know? Lieutenant Commander Greyson Stikka.”

“A Racon, from the name?”

“You still got it,” Aldair replied, taking a drink from his mug. “I think your systems do Vulparra Cholan better than ours do.”

“Should do. We put the finance in.”

“True. Anyhow, Greyson’s got enough mental implants that he can run checks on the computer for viruses, record anything he witnesses and store five hundred hours of vidshows that he can watch back. And he does. Mostly when he thinks no-one’s watching. Mostly soaps.”

“Our nine lives?”

“That’s the one. You too?”

He nodded. “I’m going to have plenty of time to catch up in the ‘rezearch’ department.”

Hawle crossed his feet. “Ah, you’d have the nurses in no time. You never had much trouble in that regard.”

“Then I wasn’t as I am now.” Solomon told him drily. “I hear you’re having no troubles in that regards these days? How’s Elena?”

Hawle’s ear straightened up as he went into wistful memory. “Still perfect and slumming it with me, Solomon. She has a position on the colonial cabinet now, you know?”

Solomon tasted his drink and was pleased that he still had his taste buds, even if they were a bit muted by the pain. “And you keep down-selling yourself when you’re being serious,” he told Aldair. You’ve done well for yourself. AND you’re the third highest ranking U.S.C. Officer in this sector of space. I took the short cut to what I wanted.” He raised his arms wide. “Look at what happened to me.” He went quiet for a moment. “How many did you lose in the fight?”

“Twelve,” Aldair replied. “Three more in critical. Thanks for sending a few medics. Even if you did need the space. It’s two days back to Council space. Are you going to be able to cope with so many running the corridors? Databolt transmission’s out. When we get to Dawnikka we can ask the Bellaphron come help.”

“Dawnikka? Are you sure that’s safe?”

Hawle mused on that a moment. “Absolutely not,” he remarked. “No offence but, if that local spy had been working for Monta or one of the others, we’d probably only see ships of that companies colours but… well, many Raitchians will do anything for money, hmm?”

“I’ll ignore that slur, grasschomper. Because it’s more or less accurate. I should point out I get a better wage than a U.S.C. Captain, by the by. But I DON’T do it for the money!”

“You never did, Solomon,” Aldair allowed. “You did it for the prestige.” He leaned forward slightly on the table. “And the fact the word ‘Captain’ made the girls swoon more than ‘Lieutenant’? Not to mention the holidays.”

Now the laugh sounded more natural “You never had troubles with that either, as I recall. The gambling on Mica when the zenior training officerz weren’t about? And the holiday we had with the money you won? You didn’t have the same girl in your room two nights running. And, zimply because you had that little, run about, shuttle, you used to call yourself cadet-Captain!”

“Ah, the Hopper. You borrowed it several times the next trip,” Aldair reminded him, pointing an ear at him. “Can’t tell me you didn’t do the same. AND you did the ‘my shuttle’s out of fuel’ routine.”

“It waz! You never repaired that battery problem!” He face palmed with as much gentleness as he could. “Having to be rescued by the ‘great’ Lieutenant Postain on the ‘Sidway’… He still a ztick in the butt?”

“Not… that I’d ever call him such. To his face. He’s lightened. A little. He’s getting married, you know? To the Mican president on Cora II.”

Solomon coughed. “Not… the one whozze… who’s got Elena in her cabinet?”

Hawle nodded with approval. “It looks like we’ll both be plus ones at each others weddings! Oh, and you’re invited to mine, of course.”

“If they’ll let me.”

“Oh, I have plans on that. You won’t like them much but it’s your best way of staying visible.”

“What is?”

Hawle spread his hands. “Talk shows!”


And the trio of ships kept on, at best manageable speed, towards Dawnicca. Velocity three.

[Amazee Dayzee]

This was a very pleasant and sort of mellow chapter that you have put up! Always nice to see more Hawle! But I really want to know when Hawle will get his A) Just desserts and B) Muddy retribution.

[Welsh Halfwit]

69

The day limped by until they’d returned to the new ball of stellar gases and radiation and stopped for repairs and science evaluations, which Zowaix and Caltaya were running in the science department, now that Harvey had gotten the division scanners and computers back online. They were also running checks on the third planet in the system whilst Katara’s people, accompanied by the Raitchians and watched over by the Kestalans, made repairs to the ship. “What’s the chance of life on the third planet any time soon, you reckon,” Hawle asked, looking a little dishevelled in the same uniform he’d been wearing yesterday and trimmed with long, grey, Celican fur.

“Not fast enough to get you back into your rooms by tonight, Commander,” Caltaya remarked as Donnika stepped in, supported by Goole “The radiation should act as a catalyst for growth and terraformers should be able to get to work on the world in the next few decades. It’s going to be long work.”

“That you… plan to leave to lesser hands,” Donnika added, lowering himself into the chair Goole had pulled out.

“Ah, wouldn’t that be something,” Caltaya asked. “Leaving my work to lesser hands? No,” the older Celican remarked, leaning over the console whilst he watched the sensor readings etrapolating the surface readings over several years, “I’ll be putting in my unhelpful comments whilst training the next generation. And you, Donnika.” Now he stood up and turned to face the Raitchian. “I keep having to rely on engineers I don’t know to build my things. I could do with my own specialist.”

“What’s the pay?”

“Two hundred and fifty credits a week.”

“How can you afford that on an academic’s salary,” Hawle asked.

“You think I saved nothing from forty years in the business, Commander? I’m not exactly a churchmouse. And where is Brunton anyhow?”


Detective Brunton felt like he hadn’t slept in a day and a half. Which was fairly accurate, now he came to think of it as he had been awake about that time. With the entire medical staff in play – except for the wounded nurses – the Detective had been playing porter. He’d been fetching medications (but not dosing it), blankets, people and moving the walking wounded off the beds after treatment, ripping the hyperthin, sterilized, surfaces off the beds when needed and holding patients down when required as the Doctors kept themselves awake with stimulants of Coffee, Caffeine and other emergency measures that he wasn’t going to touch. He’d also helped wheel five people to the drawers at the back of the medical bay and one to the isolation bay. Now it was his time to sag. They’d finally run out of patients. “Gives me a new idea of what you go through,” he told Fuze sadly, the Raitchian taking off his blood spattered coat for incineration.

“Only on our worst days, David,” Fuze replied. “On our best days we get a lot of filing done.” He sat heavily on the chair. “You did well,” he admitted. “It was almost like you knew where everything was.”

“Well,” David admitted, looking into Night’s office and seeing she was dozing at her desk, “I have been in here once or twice before?”

Fuze looked amused. “You know, I’d noticed that?” He nosed towards Night. “Get her to bed, would you? I’ll flake out on the table here. And it needs to be your room.” Bazil swung himself up onto the table and put several towels behind his head. He closed his eyes. “Her habitat has a hole In it,” he confided, before turning on his side to indicate to any that came in that he wasn’t dead.

The detective pulled himself up on slovenly feet and woke Night by picking her up in his arms. “Putting you to bed,” he said, nodding to Bazil. “His orders.”

“But I outrank him,” Night drawled, before putting her arms around David’s neck and holding on as she slipped back into slumber.


Jan had been surprised by the hug Katara had greeted her with when she’d returned from the mission and, indeed, how relieved she’d been to see the feisty Chief. She’d been allocated five hours off and ordered to take them as Engineering had work to do after that so she’d spent most of the next day thinking about something and how to go about doing it. Now she was finally there… And so was Sarafina, checking on Gilly as she lay in bed with a concussion. But it wasn’t Gilly she wanted, it was Harvey and she’d been thinking of how to convince him to…

“I’ll do it,” he said as she opened her mouth to ask him. She gaped at the Jondahl for a moment. “The words ‘zombie’ and ‘remote control’ were about to come out of your mouth and you figured I wouldn’t do it? We were stupid enough to let that happen to us once, years ago. None of my people would EVER stand by and watch it happen again, Jadwiga.” He waved a hand. “I know, I know. You don’t use your first name for whatever reason. And I won’t tell on your friend over there either.”

Jan stopped herself from saying what she was going to say. In fact she stopped herself from thinking it too. “You’re a more powerful telepath than you claim, aren’t you?”

He scowled. “Emotions boost the gain,” he explained. “Negative emotions, of course. Like fear. Plus you were broadcasting your arguments as you walked down the passageway. Beacon called out to beacon… Jan.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t want that information getting out.”

“Name or the data?”

“Both.” She moved over to Gilly. “And how’s the patient doing?”

Gilly sat up. “Got a bump the size of a basketball on my head,” she complained.

“She’s fibbing,” Sarafina interjected. She stared down the offended look from the Raitchian. “What? It’s more the size of a ping-pong ball.”

Gilly looked at her with mock hostility. “And how would you know?”

Jan spoke up. “I’m more wondering how she knows what a ping pong ball is.”

“I play,” Sarafina said, smoothing down the side of her unruffled shirt with a hand. “My nanny said I was rather good at it.”

“You,” Jan repeated, “play ping-pong?”

“Small table. Two players. Each has a little padded bat and they smack a hollow ball around, trying to get it past the other player.” She did a few air moves to demonstrate.

“Holoroom,” Jan declared. “Eight tonight. We play.”

“You’re on,” Sarafina replied, shaking the Human’s hand.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Fascinating piece of information about Caltaya saving his money and not spending it all the first chance that he gets. I would like to think Elena also does the same thing and has enough saved up to live comfortably.

[Welsh Halfwit]

When too serious...

70

Caltaya stood on the bridge, looking at his accomplishment on the screen through the sun filters that protected his eyes from the glare of a newborn star as Dawton looked on. Stikka was in the Commander’s Office, dozing whilst the Commander wasn’t here. He was still on the Vixen’s couch as she’d not finished repairing the hull yet. Raven was also sleeping off the events on the planet and Chadwick was standing in for Sarah on the helm so, technically, he was the senior officer on the bridge during what they were taking as the night shift. Not that they actually knew as the ships internal chronometers were offline and no-one was bothering to ask Stikka whilst they could make it up. But, for now, the Human was the highest ranking officer on the bridge so he put the comm system on speaker, pushed down his thinning hair into order and stepped over to the Celican. “What does it look like to you,” he asked.

The Professor turned to look at the Human with kindness. “It looks like the apex of my career, David,” he admitted. “A spectacular prelude to retirement.”

“Why retire,” Dawton asked, putting a hand on the closest shoulder as Brunton arrived on the bridge, complaining that he’d looked everywhere for the Professor. Dawton didn’t believe him as he’d heard Brunton call in his request five minutes ago. “There’s still a lot of worlds needing terraforming around the Council systems and even the ones that HAVE been terraformed still need the greatest scientist in the field to watch over things. Plus I heard you were talking about going on just a little while ago?”

Caltaya chuckled, shaking his hand off the shoulder. “Thank you for saying so,” he said, “but a smart predator knows when his apex days are behind him. It’s retirement hunting zones for me. It’s not so bad though. I’ll be able to freely consult with the up and coming professionals. The ‘replacements’, so to speak.” He leaned in so he could whisper in the Human’s ear and Dawton felt the wet, hot, breath in his canal. “And I won’t be doing it for free,” the Professor added, wiggling his eyeridges. “As for the ‘giving up’ bit, I am mercurial, boy. At my age I’m allowed to be.”

“Well,” Brunton put in, “I’m pretty sure the University will still want you as a lecturer. Professor,”

He hmmed slightly. “And I’ll be glad of the small paycheck, David.” He looked left to the Mican, then right, to the Human. “Should have expected that sooner or later.”

“Yeah, we’ve never played with that on Cora II with our dates.” David told him.

“It helps that our dates are different colours,” David replied.

“And so are we,” David finished, before they both fell into laughter.

“Oh, I love the interactions of children,” Caltaya mused. “I might give consideration to having my own soon.” He stepped around the bridge to Chadwick. “How soon until we’re able to leave for Dawnikka,” he asked.

“It’s about two days at best speed,” Stikka replied from the doorway to the Commanders office. He stepped down, towards the central zone of the bridge. “And at least one more day before Katara sanctifies us as safe to go. So you have that long to watch your experiment. And I imagine you’ll be back.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Caltaya remarked.


Katara rolled her eyes as she practically staggered into her rooms at the end of a loooong day. She’d been masterminding repairs with the chiefs of three ships, one of whom she’d never even met before, resisting the urge to yap at several rescued Micans who couldn’t stop looking at her and calling her dangerous and working hard on the engines to get them as close to fully operational as possible and she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten she had a houseguest until she saw him laid out in his uniform across her sofa, unbooted size fourteens flexing and feeling the air at one end, hanging over the arm rest, and his ears drooping over the other end, with his eyes closed and his mouth open, tongue hanging out. “Every inch the professional,” she told herself. “Reminder to self,” she added, finding a towel from the bathroom being used as a blanket of insignificant proportions and sniffing the faintly disgusting scent of Lavarna Salad in the air, “repair the hull tomorrow. Command cabins.” She pulled her jacket off and, carefully, draped it over Hawle’s face before getting herself some bludsoup from the machines. She wafted her tail around her and flumped into her chair to relax, shucking her boots off and flipping them away as though she didn’t care if she woke him up or not. “Did you put Groal through this much punishment,” she asked rhetorically, “or did he just leave a lot out of his reports?” She pulled on her drink. “’Our’ ship’s going to need a lot of work, Rabbit. It’ll take a fair piece of the budget for this year and the next.” She half laughed, covering her mouth with her cup. “And I’ll have to remind Groal that I’m in charge. Again. So many hours of straight work … The Raicarran Chief’s being obstructionist now he’s back from that planet. The Kestalan’s saying we should fix his first as we’re to blame for it getting damaged in the first place…”

“I told you,” the figure under the jacket said, its tone muffled by the fabric, “I can always help out in Engineering.”

“And I’ve told you,” Katara replied, “that, if you even think of coming down to ‘help’, I’ll belt you with a socket wrench.” She paused, her drink halfway up to her mouth. “And how long have you been awake, you sod?”

He pushed the jacket off and swung around to sit up, his eyes as bleary as her mood. “Since someone dropped clothing on my face. I’ll never get the smell off, you know?”

“If you tried, I’d be insulted.”

“I’ve mostly been trying to deal with other parts of the fallout today. Meetings up the ying-yang. Trying to mediate as Havakar practically interrogated the Colonial leader over Celicans missing from a dozen years ago whilst finding them places they might be able to build their own farmsteads whilst making sure they got checked out medically…” He snorted. “Thankfully, my medical crew and the Raicarrans are mainly Rodentine in origin. Nurse Lancaster was incredibly popular. Several of the females are, apparently, interested in tours of the ship if he’ll give them. And They all had to be fed but nothing too spiced or interesting as, as Cedar put it, their stomachs might not be able to take it and we’d be up to our armpits in vomit and… other stuff…”

“I’m eating here, Aldair,”

“I know. That’s why I never said the word. Five hundred people,” he repeated. “Mostly Micans. Some Kestalans, some Raitchians, A Canine and a Lappinean from a pleasure yacht that vanished three years back. And their kits. There’s a Celican under deep sedation whilst we find out if the brain implants installed can be safely removed and I’ve not told Havakar about him yet as we need access to U.S.C. systems to ID him and I don’t want her hopes raised. We have a LOT of new information on the Patreeve and we’ve made an alliance – of sorts – with the Kestalans and we actually carried out the purpose of the mission and re-ignited a sun, beckoning in a whole new area of colonisation. That’s a lot of success. They’ll probably put us all in for medals again. So why do I feel it wasn’t worth it?”

“Because you’re an arrogant twit who thinks it’s all about you,” Katara told him straight, stepping back to the replication machine. “I command,” she said, tapping in her order, “I make the decisions. It’s my ship and I’m responsible for her. Truth is, Rabbit, we all want to be here. Of all the ships I’ve served on, this is the only one that gets barely any transfer requests. You’re maddening, it’s true. You’re infuriating. You’re a lunatic at times.”

“Bit harsh…”

“You’re also the sort who’ll put on a spacesuit and paint the hull to talk to people. You took extension courses in Medical studies to act as a field medic where needed and Engineering courses to do the same when I’m not leading engineering. You pitch in and the crew knows you will. You’re not just a Commander, you’re a father of the crew. But, on occasions, you have to be more. You’re a Military Commander and you have to order people into the fight. Of course, right now, you’re having to be a Military Governor too and that’s too serious a role for you. You need the humour. So, before I go to bed…” She turned around and he saw the slice of cold Bakkaberry pie on the plate in her hand before she pushed it into his face. “You know where the shower is,” she reminded him as crust fell from his purple stained fur.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Finally the moment that I have been waiting for and it didn't disappoint.

Though when is he gonna be hit with a WHOLE dessert instead of just a piece? Whole desserts are messier.

[Welsh Halfwit]

71


Jarra, Salara and Hawle watched from the observation deck as the shuttle bay opened itself to the void and kept its atmosphere in by dint of a protective field that could give way at any minute, hence them being up here. A sleek, sweeping, shuttle appeared in the star spotted black and made itself larger until it broke through the field and wavered before extending feet towards the ground and coming to rest. “She’s quite elegant,” the Feline deck chief admitted.

“We like to think so,” Salara replied proudly. “It looks like my new perch is here, Commander,” she added, turning to Hawle “Might I have permission to depart?”

“Well, it’s always hard to leave a friend,” Hawle admitted, keeping his hands behind his back,”especially one who you met trying to save your life. But I suppose our loss is Hrakar Yakkuk’s gain. Has he discussed the situation on Schimaka with you?”

She shrugged, the light glistening across her gold and black feathers. “The situation’s still an unknown,” she said, “but Hodal says he won’t mention me until he’s checked things out.”

“Hodal, hmm,” Hawle mused, putting a hand to his chin. “On a first name basis, hmm?”

She laughed and gently clipped him around the head. “Friends, Aldair. You know the idea.”

“Well, if you trust him...”

“I do.”

“...Then you have permission to depart.” Before doing so, she enveloped him in a hug, spreading her wings around him like a cloak. He did his best to hug her back before she uncoupled and put her taloned fingers around the handle of a small suitcase of souvenirs of her time on board, including a couple of waitcoats from Match (given as he never wore them and they were a gift from his sister), a bottle of Osiran Brandy Muir had picked up gawd knows where when she was drunk (She’d quickly become sober enough not to risk drinking it) and some tea towels Cedar had going spare. Hawle supposed it was the thought that counted, especially when trapped on a starship, unable to shop and having things you didn’t mind getting rid of. He walked behind her and alongside Jarra, as they headed down to the bay. “Scanning the shuttle for any intel,” Hawle asked Jarra quietly.

“As though I’d do that,” the Chief replied, having left the automated systems doing just that.

“Good job,” Salara cooed, “that could have been taken as espionage on a friend. If it were ever to be admitted.”

“Which it never would be,” Hawle finished as Jarra tried to work out where the slight hint of pie scent was coming from.


Katara watched the Kestalan shuttle leave from inside the remnants of Hawle’s blown out quarters. The Commander would need to replace most of the soft furnishings in here but there were things still fixed to the floor or the desk. Like one old fashioned picture of Elena that had been screwed to the desk. His ‘bucking for godhood’ mug had gone though. Something she kind of appreciated as she’d wanted the thing destroyed for a while was the absence of the portrait of a cartoon Duck from the Human animation studios. She’d seen the ones where he was against the Rabbit and she loathed him because she wanted the Rabbit to win and she still didn’t like that feeling. The ‘Lesser god of exasperation’, Hawle had once called him. A ‘stomach ache in training’ was how Katara preferred to put it. She watched as Muir and Jan, in their own environment suits again after both had been decontaminated, moved the last plate into place on the outside hull and started working it into place. Once they were done, she’d be able to recompress the area and work on connecting the few severed cables and circuits in the wall before applying the inside hull plates to get the room habitable again. Anything to avoid the snoring… “Did all that work on her room,” the Vixen groused, “and she’s barely here a week.”

<“We know how to do it quicker and better next time, Kat,”> Jan reminded her, not interrupting her magnetic welding to talk. <“And she didn’t complain.”>

The vixen thought on the softly spoken Avian and her interactions with the crew in the passageways, Cedar’s place, the bar and the holoroom. “She didn’t know how to complain, I think,” she opined. “Probably desperate to get on with everyone to fit in.”

<“Is there any other way to do it,”> Jan asked, in a tone that had Kirrie laughing before she remembered to ‘mute’ herself as it was patently obvious what the Human was referring to.

“Mind on the work, Jan,” Katara reminded her. Perversely, she reckoned, her reputation as a grouch didn’t upset her. She’d decided that, if Hawle was the ‘father’ of this ship, she was the governess. Stern and unbending to pressure. Authoritarian and stoic. Of course she’d never consider herself the Mother. That was Raven’s job.


Raven stood on the command deck of the Raicarran ship that obviously had a name, even though she hadn’t bothered to learn it. Patchway was asleep at his desk so, in absence of anyone else she knew was competent to run this ship, she’d stepped in and on the toes of a Sub-Lieutenant who’d really wanted to take charge. She’d simply stared at him as he’d pointed out that, as she wasn’t a Raicarran officer she had no legal rights aboard thi… She’d almost smiled as he’d seen the claws extend on her crossed arms and reasoned that continuing that line of dialogue wouldn’t work out well for him. He’d said something about ‘in the circumstances’ and gone back to his station. “The ship’s half full of wounded and those getting over being captives,” she told them. “Until they’re cleared to return we still have a skeleton crew.”

“Commander Raven means that well,” Una said, appearing at the back of the bridge with Galway, Brae and a small contingent of refugees. “She understands that you are best suited for the stations you’re at and, as a Commander, she’s best suited to Command for now.”

Still looking uncertain and unsure, Galway made his way around, in front of Sarina. “I have…” he said, swallowing as he readied to adress the crew. Brae chose to stand by Raven and, even though he flinched as she put a hand on his shoulder, he managed to smile up at her before listening to his grandfather’s words. “There are not the words to th...thank you,” the elder said hesitantly. “If there is, I do not know them well enough to say.”

To Sarina’s surprise, it was the same sub-officer she’d almost clawed earlier that spoke in response. “We don’t need the thanks,” he said politely. “It was our duty and our honour to help you, sir.”

Galway inclined his head towards the Raitchian but spoke his next words to Raven. “To you I apologise for harsh words said to you on meeting.”

“Accepted,” she replied, putting her other hand across her chest and bowing formally. “Wars between our peoples have been a long time past,” she said, taking her hand off Brae’s shoulder and offering it to the elder. After a quick glance to Colleen, who was simulating what he needed to do in response, Galway shook the hand.

“New stars,” Brae said, looking from the screen up to Colleen. “So big.”

“The universe is about to get so much bigger for you,” she replied, before making him laugh by tickling his chest.

[Amazee Dayzee]

It would be funny if Hawle could never get the scent of pie off of him. Though I have a feeling Elena would like it if he still has the remains of whatever he was pelted with stuck to him.

[Welsh Halfwit]

72


Solomon Utraya stood in the doorway to Aldair’s office and looked around, his enhanced eye whirring as his head turned. His hands were still bandaged and the now enhanced Raitchian was keeping them behind his back as he still wasn’t sure of his fine control. He’d already dentedthe wall in his quarters and needed rescuing as the door wouldn’t open after that. He finished looking around and made himself look at Aldair as he sat in the Commander’s chair, his feet up on the desk. “Mine’s bigger,” he said simply. “But thiszz one’z more you.”

He stepped in and Aldair didn’t get up. Two nights in Katara’s had helped him find out he quite liked relaxing with his feet up. “It’s not the size, Solomon,” he said as his friend found the way to the chair opposite, “but what you do with it.”

Solomon sat himself down, “Calvin Rodal used to say that, I remember. I wonder what he would have made of all thizz?”

“You could have my Doctors take a look at that throat processor for you,” Aldair offered. “Sort out the burr?”

“I don’t think yourz are as specialised as I need to sort this out,” Solomon told his friend, turning away in embarrassment. “Raicarra will sort it out.” He sighed slightly. “For a price, of courze.”

“I suppose you’d need a specialist medical facility,” Aldair commented, sweeping his feet off the table and dislodging an empty cup onto the carpet. “Good job that’s empty. Or a ship that can act as a top class medical facility, with not just skilled Doctors but skilled researchers and scientists and equipment. And I happen to know there’s one in the patch. Indeed your ship met her earlier. I reckon we’ll be meeting her again in a few days.”

Solomon regarded him quietly, trying to figure out why he was thinking that when they were travelling with transponders off and the reason for that was the first thing he asked.

“You remember that time you were sent out to ambush us and steal our findings,” Aldair noted, humour belying the seriousness.

“They didn’t tell me who had been zent,” Solomon confessed. “And I only would have crippled the ship.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” Aldair mooted. “We’ve not heard a peep from the other big companies yet. They have one last chance to get the information.” He shrugged his slight shoulders, making the epaulettes dance. “Why advertise where we’re going to be?”

“But then how do you know this…” he waved his hands and Aldair imagined the desk breaking if he hit it. “...magical frigate will still be in the area? They’ll have been ordered elsewhere by now!”

Aldair shifted forward, putting his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands as a grin Solomon remembered all too well spread across his muzzle. “Oh, I doubt her Commanding Officer will obey instructions to go too far away, Solomon. Not Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne Plebar.”

Solomon realised he knew the name from somewhere. It tingled at his memory and, for a second, he wished the Patreeve things had enhanced his memory. Perhaps, if he associated it with Aldair, it… His eyes widened. “Your cousin? Entering the college a year before we left? The one who went into sciencez and took half the year to talk to you then…”

“We never mention the trip to Cardiff,” Aldair said, flicking a finger towards him. “You know that. Anyhow, that’s the one. She’s the C.O. of the Savval. But shall we get to it? What you came to me about?”

“Hmm.” Solomon sat back and crossed his arms. “I’ve had a complaint from one of my senior Officers? Doctor Faverly is complaining that all his recordings suddenly… vanished?”

“Oh,” Aldair asked sweetly, “what had he recorded?”

“Lots of things I wasn’t exactly pleazed by,” Solomon remarked, gritting his teeth. “He wanted to copy the controlling brain implants! I made him patently aware of my feelings towards that but I have to make you aware of it.”

“Tell him I know about it. Just like I know about everything that happens on this ship. So I knew exactly what would happen when the fact that someone had taken such control data became known… To a Jondahl.”

Solomon smirked. “Ah.”


“Is it morning yet,” Robon asked of his partner for the night, having arranged to beam directly to her quarters in secret so only half the crew of the Loper knew about it.

Jan propped herself up on an elbow and checked the clock. “Not a clue,” she admitted, “the ship’s internal clock’s broken.

The Raitchian checked his comm. “Well, it’s two thirty in the afternoon on my ship.”

Jan pushed him back down onto the bed and ran a hand up his side, feeling the fur between her fingers. “That doesn’t matter much when were on MY ship,” she told him, rolling onto the top of him.

“I wonder if Faverly’s noted all his records are gone yet,” he asked, before kissing her on the lips.

“I wonder if he’ll ever figure out you were the one moral enough to provide the codes?” She laughed as he looked horrified and kissed him before nuzzling his neck as he held her to him.


Polva laughed as Sarah did her best to move from the sofa he was occupying. He hustled forward and helped as she was about to blame him for being unable to move. She groaned and complained that there was two more months scheduled for this. “We’ll get through it, love,” he commented, “even if you do have to come through the door sideways(!)”

“It’s <huff> going to take more than that at this rate,” she breathed, holding her expanding womb.

“We have to stay here,” Polva put in, almost surpriseing Sarah with the twist in the topic. “We’re going to need all the help we can get and… We don’t know anyone who isn’t here. Plus we want people who’d go to bat for us and I think they’ve proven they’ll do that. There’s great medical facilities three minutes from the door and you hear of accidents on and off base all the time. They’re not much safer than here, all in…”

“So...sold,” Sarah admitted. “What’s the gestation period for… for Canines,” she asked as he wandered over to the kitchen to put the dishes away.

“Roughly five months,” he replied, “why?”

“For... for Humans it’s nine months.”

“An extra four months. Yeah. Why?”

“Split… Split the difference.”

He dropped a plate.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Uh-oh. Looks like someone is pregnant and didn't plan on it. That is gonna make a few things difficult. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

She's been pregnant throughout this story. She just thought she still had a couple of months to go...

[Amazee Dayzee]

That still will make things difficult if she thought she had more time. Especially since she isn't in a position right now to give birth in an ideal setting.