New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The code flashed by on the screen in great chunks, as Urle uploaded the data from his internal server to the ship.

“I am surprised you still remember all the code,” Decinus said, looking rather awed.

“It’s easy when you have a disk drive in your head,” he told the man with a chuckle.  “I wouldn’t say I remember it the way we remember names or paths we commonly walk.  It’s just . . . stored up there.”

He saw the look Decinus gave him, studying his head, wondering just what it might look like inside Urle’s mind.  Not everyone was prepared to accept giving up parts of their own bodies for self-improvement.

Urle had never really felt that attached to his meat.

“You are certain that this will not interfere with our proper emergence from zerospace?” Guona Daa asked, hovering around like a concerned mother.

Which, she might be a mother, Urle thought, having to force himself to look past the fact that she was around the same height as Hannah, with a smooth enough face to look young.  All Sepht had a youthfulness about them, especially Vem Em, even when they were well over a hundred.  And they had children almost as soon as they reached adulthood, their eggs only needing fertilization every three or four generations.

“It has no appreciable effect on any craft,” Urle assured her.  “I was deeply involved in this project, and it was only scrapped because the use-case is so uncommon.”  Well, and people tended to get a little concerned about messing with their zerodrive, much like Daa was right now.

“Now,” he continued, “I’m going to need a few minutes to adapt this to your system, Captain.  Shouldn’t be too hard.”

He plunged into the ship’s library code that dealt with heavy power switching and zero-drive core control loops.  The Sapient Union’s Information Security and Standardization Committee required all naval system code to be written in the Iota language and be available to all engineers onboard with proper clearance.  Urle knew Iota, but digging into Sepht code wasn’t easy – while they technically obeyed the requirements, their code was a mess of higher-level Iota mixed with chunks of opcodes specific to their processor cores that were yet to get included in the official compiler specifications.  All in the name of efficiency.  It seemed like squeezing just a couple more cycles from their CPUs was a kind of sport for them.

“What the . . . ?” Urle barely bit that one back.

Of course they invented a fancy macro name to replace all literals of the number three in the code – it was considered a very unlucky number, and four was considered even worse, making its references even more difficult.

Vem em programmers always took their work too seriously in his opinion.  This was just some virtual text that would get gobbled up by the compiler after all, but they still put just a little bit of their tradition into it anyway.

Urle fired the compiler up, observed the lack of any warnings or errors from the integration system, ran it five more times just to be safe, then took a deep breath and exhaled.  It was ready.

“All right,” he said, turning to N’Keeea.  “Whenever you are ready, Ambassador.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 19 | Ep 6 Part 21 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Leaving the command center, Urle moved down a dark, cramped hall, using handholds to grip and pull himself along.  The Bright Flower had no artificial gravity, and not even a single spin-section to simulate it; being semi-aquatic, Sepht could live a lifetime in microgravity with no ill effects.

Pulling himself to a wall, he let a group of officers pass him, all of them pointing their head tentacles as they passed.  It was their form of salute, and he returned it in the human fashion – they would understand that.

Two of them were Vem em and one a Nolem.  So far he’d not seen any of the ghostly and blind Pelan, but they were rather uncommon in the Voidfleet.  And he’d seen almost no males, who made up only a fraction of the population of all three species –  only around five percent of Sepht were born male.

The ship would have been horribly cramped without being in microgravity, he thought.  It helped if someone could pass over your head, though the halls were so short that the Nolem often had to stoop through doorways.

This was a ship grounded in classical physics – every gram of weight mattered.  Every gram of mass they could exclude was one less bit they had to expend energy and reaction mass pushing.  Even the moisture in the air was not mostly water vapor, but a chemical compound that fit the biological needs of Sepht, yet shaved off around 2% of the potential mass.  When you were talking tons of water vapor, it added up.

He caught some curious stares, but they mostly looked under the hood he wore over his head, trying to catch a glimpse of his hair.

Sepht quite liked the look of human hair; many he saw had styled their tentacles in imitation of it, pulled back into ponytails or swept to one side – an odd habit, in his opinion, as their head tentacles were quite practical.  He’d have loved to have that, and had even considered getting some mechanical tendrils for his head in the past.

He considered pulling off the hood for the crew’s benefit, but right now it was serving to wick a lot of the humidity away from the port-interfaces in his skull.  It was easier than switching out every one with a water-proof model.  Even the basic kind were rated for underwater use, but it was something that made him paranoid; he knew a man who had a short next to his brain, and they were still trying to piece his personality back together.

Best to keep the hood on.

Entering the office where N’Keeea and Decinus had been working, he was glad to find that it was far less humid.  Despite that, Decinus wore a mask to reduce his breathed humidity.

The two were sitting at a large plastic desk, several tablets on it with information that his system was not allowed to view, their images blurred for all but approved personnel.

“Ah, Urle, I am pleased you could join us again,” Decinus said.  “Ambassador N’Keeea and I have developed a communications plan to get through the jamming around Poqut’k.  The Bright Flower detected heavy interference while they were on the borders of the system.”

“And I suspect the P’G’Maig will not stop such interference for our benefit,” N’Keeea said stiffly.

Urle’s systems were noting the Hev ambassador’s stress levels as through the roof, and he was clearly rattled by it.  Urle could sympathize, but hoped he could hold himself together through this.  They needed him to talk to his people.

“I’m more concerned about the Musk Field around the planet,” Urle told them.  “The amount of junk in orbit-“

“They were once habitat stations that held billions of my people,” N’Keeea said, his words now as sharp as his teeth.  “It is not junk.  It is a graveyard.”

“My deepest apologies,” Urle said earnestly.

“To use the word junk in this context is normal for our people, Ambassador,” Decinus said.  “Commander Urle meant no insult by it.”

N’Keeea seemed to dismiss it with a thrash of his tail.  “The debris may be a problem if it prevents our communications lasers from reaching a base.  We must be very cautious – I know of the locations of many hidden communications relays that will reach our high command, but I do not know which, if any, are still functional.”

“And if we get too close without them knowing we are friendlies, they may open fire,” Decinus continued.

“Surely they’ll recognize that we’re a Sepht ship and not a Hev,” Urle said.

N’Keeea snorted.  “They will think it a ruse.  It is not uncommon for the P’G’Maig to acquire ships from other species and press them into use.”

He got up and paced, agitated.  “But worse – by communicating with the secret relays, we may expose them to our enemies.  If only we could send a signal they could not miss, but that the P’G’Maig could not replicate or use against us.”

Urle sat down across from Decinus at the desk.  “I have a thought about that.  Do you know what Bower Radiation is?”

“I am afraid I do not,” Decinus replied.

“Light,” N’Keeea said.  “The scale of the P’G’Maig invasion made it an issue; so many of their ships would appear at once that it would light up the skies of our worlds.  We called it Deathglow.”

Urle was stunned into silence for a moment.  The strange nature of zerospace meant that emissions from it were often called pseudo-particles; every photon, every graviton that came from it rapidly decayed, sinking back into zerospace – in theory, at least.  In practice, all of it disappeared within about half an astronomical unit.

For a fleet to be so large it lit up the sky of a world implied so many ships appearing at once, and so close to the world, that it was terrifying.

“Ah, I . . . didn’t realize it was a sensitive issue,” Urle said.  “I hope I didn’t say anything offensive again.”

“You could not know,” N’Keeea said.  “What was your idea?”

“Well – the Bright Flower’s zerodrive is incredibly precise.  Moreso than almost any other ship in the dark, and so we could – I believe – make it so that when we surface we send a coded message in the flash.  Think of it like manually opening a panel on a light source to create a binary signal.  The only question is what the code will be.  If your people are watching – and I suspect they will be – then they’ll see it.  And since the pseudo-photons will decay before going that far, the P’G’Maig are unlikely to see it.”

Decinus looked skeptical; he was no neo-physicist and it likely sounded like technobabble to him.

But Urle knew the science was sound.  It was an idea he’d worked on in R&D at the Praxis Shipyards around Mars, years ago.  The application was limited, but they’d made it work.

N’Keeea seemed intrigued.  “Do you honestly believe you can do that?”

“Yes,” Urle said.  “I have experience with it.”

“I have a code you can use . . . how complex can the signal be?”

“We can encode in up to six or so kilobytes of information.  Will that be sufficient?”

N’Keeea’s eyes widened.  “Oh, yes,” he said, his tail lashing, but this time in excitement.  “That will be sufficient.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 18 | Ep 6 Part 20 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Acting-Captain Urle, the zerodrive is fully charged.  We may make the jump whenever you order it.”

Urle had, naturally, already been informed by his system, but it was still a good habit for the first officer to relay such important status updates.

His scanners swept the command center of the Eyes Gazing Upon the Bright Flower.

The Sepht ship was a marvel of engineering, by any measure.

While the Craton could break physics rather easily with merely seven fusion reactors to power her jumps, for ships whose hull was not made of tenkionic matter, it was an incredible feat to pierce the veil and sink into zerospace.

This ship was only eight hundred meters, pencil thin in contrast to the Craton’s spherical shape,

 yet contained twenty-one massive fusion reactors that could generate staggering amounts of energy.  Nothing less could have powered their zerodrive.

Where the Craton was gifted, the Bright Flower had to do the same through just hard engineering.  And as much as he loved the Craton, he had to admire that.

While the fore section of the ship was covered in the sensors that allowed the Bright Flower to fulfill its job as a scout ship, the latter half was covered in carefully-arranged radiators.  They extended far out from the hull, taking away the deadly thermal waste generated by their reactors – heated up until they glowed white.

And they were glowing now.  The ship was nearly at its maximum heat capacity, running perilously close to the red line, but that couldn’t be helped if they wanted to make a jump.

Her crew of eight thousand were, by bulk, mostly sensor operators and fusion generator technicians – masters of their craft, all.  For a ship like this, that pushed the boundaries of what was possible, they had to be.

“Order all crew to strap in,” Urle told his acting-Executive Officer, the original Captain of the ship.  Her name was Guono Daa, and she had offered Urle command as soon as he’d come aboard.

It was slightly odd, but she’d told him that he was well-known and respected for being the first officer of the Craton – a ship famous throughout the Sapient Union – and it only made sense for him to take at least an honorary command.

He did know that was an element of Sepht space tradition, and he had accepted the offer, however much it made him uncomfortable.  Sepht technology was not fundamentally different from humanity’s, through technological convergence and sharing between their species, but in some ways it was still alien to him.

“All crew ordered, Acting-Captain,” Guono told him.  “Entering zerospace in fifteen seconds.”

The command center crew had all strapped themselves in, bracing for the jump with the majority of their tentacles; the three they used as legs, while also those on their head that gripped onto grooves on the backrest of their seats.  Some of the chairs were much bigger than others, their occupants of the larger sub-species of Sepht, the Nolem.  They were tall enough to tower over him, and tended to be paler shades of blue or green.  The Vem em, including the captain, averaged only four or five feet tall, with much brighter colors.

Guono had sat down herself, leaning back in her seat.  She was a vivid shade of yellow and only a little over five feet tall – which was rather on the tall side for a Vem em.

Urle’s seat leaned back slightly too far for his comfort, but it was secure; they had constructed a handful of human-style chairs on board for him and Ambassador Decinus, while approximating a Hev seat as best they could.

N’Keeea had not complained, being oddly silent during the boarding, the reason for which Urle could only guess at.  Nervousness, perhaps?

“Energy levels crossing threshold for succesful irising,” the jump officer called out.

The Bright Flower ran a tight line every time she made a jump; there was always variation in how much energy you needed to open a portal to zerospace, and so any jump was a nervous moment for anyone on board.

The pseudo-gravity of zerospace would pull them forward, imparting great momentum, but if the aperture was not properly and fully opened and the ship passed through it . . . the results would be disastrous.

“Portal open!” Guona Daa called.

They made the jump.  The ship rattled a lot more than the Craton, with shimmies and jerks that would have been alarming if he hadn’t known what they were; for a small ship like this, her mass was low enough for the Pavlona Shivers, a strange sensation of movement that was entirely a hallucination.

He studied the crew as they went, seeing eyes jump and tentacles twitch as they felt their own shivers, but none seemed bothered.  He continued to be impressed.

“We have successfully submerged in zerospace,” Guono said, and rose from her seat.  “All may swim freely.”

The rest of the crew began to get up from their seats, not displaying the excitement he’d often seen in crews during a jump.  Perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps another effect on the mind, but  after a zerospace entry some felt elated – submersion euphoria, he’d heard it called.

He just thought it was excitement.  They had, after all, just broken the laws of the universe.

“Anything to report?” he asked.

“Negative, Captain,” Guono said.  “Estimated time of arrival at the third planet; two hours.”

After nearly three hours of charging the zerodrive.  If the ship hadn’t already been charging for such a jump, they’d have had to wait twice as long.

He undid the straps on his seat and sat up.  “The bridge is yours, Captain Guono,” he said, giving her a salute.

She began to give orders in the guttural command language of Sepht, one which did not rely on color signals.

---

< Ep 6 Part 17 | Ep 6 Part 19 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The cafeteria felt different to him.

Iago sat alone, in a corner booth, watching the other volunteers mingle and talk to each other.  They were laughing, telling stories, one was clearly mimicking the act of carrying someone, and Iago knew exactly what training exercise it was related to.

And he knew most of these people; not the freshest volunteers, but anyone who’d had much time in Response had spent time under him.

Yet now they all were strangers.

They left him alone, which was good.  Probably the newer initiates were hesitant to talk to him, and the officers . . . well, they probably pitied him or felt too awkward to talk to him since he had fallen so low.

And he had.  He could recognize it; he should have realized it sooner, but he was not going to regain his old position.  At least, he’d come to feel that he was never going to be fit for it.  What had happened to him had changed him, permanently.

Pirra was doing well in the role, he thought.  From his vantage, at least, it seemed that way.  He’d seen far worse transitions under far better circumstances.

Meanwhile, he had broken.  Cracked apart, and even though he’d pulled his disparate pieces back together again – it wasn’t the same.  He wasn’t the same.

He’d made the mistake of seeing something that he wasn’t meant to see.

Just a moment of weakness, looking too deeply.  Just as he wasn’t supposed to look too deeply now.  Because whatever had made him look too long at that data, at those unnatural shapes and geometries out in the Terris system, was making him do it again.

He couldn’t unsee any of it.  Not those hideous, unnatural thoughts, nor his insights into the world he’d known his whole life.

He sipped his drink.  It took all his composure to look normal, to eat his food without gagging.

His system informed him of a new message.  It was Alexander again, asking to talk to him.  For the last while he’d been messaging asking how training had been going, how he felt, all kinds of questions.

Alexander . . .

He felt a pang of regret.  They’d been friends since they were young men and Alexander had first left his home station, and Iago had always looked out for him.  But he couldn’t talk to him now.

Even if Alexander had seen that truth, that glimpse of actual reality, he’d not understand it.  He was too naive, too pure . . . a good person.

He found that his hand was shaking.

It was getting hard again to keep up the facade, to act normal.  He’d been doing it all day, and by god it had been tiring.  Over these last few days he’d been trying to let it all go.  Just go back to how he’d been before.

He could work back up to his old position.  He just had to get used to it again.  He could gain back the respect he could see that he’d lost in everyone’s eyes.  At first he’d thought it was for the weakness of his breakdown, but no.

That was normal.  The mistake, the weakness that no one could forgive, had been that he’d looked in the first place.

Perhaps on some level, everyone knew the truth, but they did not want to think about it, to actually understand and accept it.  His mere presence was a constant reminder.

God it was hard.  It was only him and Elliot, and he couldn’t let his son know just how bad things were.  They were stuck here until after this current madness was over.

Someone walked by his table, smiling, and he forced his own smile with herculean effort.

If only there was someone to talk to about this.  To probe for a like mindedness.  Someone equally out of place-

Kessissiin walked in, carrying a tray and looking around.  He seemed to be searching for someone, but evidently didn’t see them.  His crest fell in a way that was too subtle for most humans to catch, but Iago had been around Pirra enough to recognize the disappointment.

Dessei were a very gregarious people, and being away from their circle and thrown into another was very hard for them.

Which . . . was something he could empathize with right now.

The Dessei’s eyes wandered his way, and Iago found himself waving to the being.

Surprise went over his face – or rather his crest lifted in a way that indicated it – but he did head over.

“May I sit?” he asked, his tone formal.

“Please,” Iago said.

Kessissiin sat down.  “It seems I still need to make more friends outside of training,” he said.

“It can be tough,” Iago said genuinely.

Unlike the others, he had this feeling he could trust Kessissiin.  The being was an outsider, unknown to him, but that’s what made him perfect.

He didn’t seem to look judgmental when he looked at him, there was no prior history that had been upset.

“You do well out there in training, though,” Iago said.  “I’m frankly surprised you aren’t assigned to a combat unit.”

“I wished for that,” Kessissiin said, the passion in his voice that Iago recognized, could empathize with.  “But Commander Pirra determined that since I had only just come here for detachment training it was best if I was in a non-combat unit.”

Which was a completely normal procedure, Iago knew.  He might have made the same call.  But it still seemed an injustice from this side.

“Well, we probably won’t face any combat, anyway,” Iago muttered.

“I’m not sure I believe that,” Kessissiin said.  “It is foolish to trust any being not to act in their own self-interest, and . . .”

He cut himself off.  “I am out of line,” he said quickly.  “I shouldn’t have spoken.”

“No, it’s okay,” Iago said, curious.

Kessissiin frowned.  “You are Iago Caraval, yes?  Former head of Response Team One?”

“Yes,” Iago replied.  So Kessissiin knew – but he still didn’t seem to judge.  Iago found himself fearing that, suddenly, but nothing in the Dessei’s face or body language changed.

“I’m speaking poorly about your friend and former subordinate, and-“

“Really,” Iago said.  “Words among friends.  We get to grouse.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kessissiin added quickly.  “I have a very high regard for Commander Pirra!  She is something of a hero among our people, the first Dessei of rank to serve on a cratonic ship.  She is well known!”

“I’ve heard,” Iago said.  “But anyone can make mistakes.  What were you going to say?”

Kessissiin still hesitated, but then leaned closer.  “The Craton is a mighty prize.  It is the most advanced technology humanity – even much of the Union – has.  And here it is, alone, in a fleet of aggressive Hev.  They would have so much to gain from taking this ship.”

“You really think they’d try?  They’d have a war on their hands if they did.” Iago asked.  The thought was one he’d had – probably many had had.  It was audacious of Kessissiin to say it to him, but he respected that.

“It is short-sighted, yes, but many beings are.  They simply see a gem dangled in front of them-“

“It’s also a warning,” Iago said.  “And frankly, I think they’d find the Craton a lot harder to take than they’d think.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Kessissiin said quickly, as if to cover saying something insulting.  “But they could take the ship eventually.”

“If we didn’t just jump away.  We probably could, before they could overwhelm us,” Iago said.

“Yes,” Kessissiin agreed.  “If.”  He shook his head.  “But tactically-“

Iago held up a hand, and Kessissiin dropped silent.  “Your instincts are good.  I understand your concerns, of course.  They’re not unfounded.  But we are Response – not Operations.  We don’t train to make those decisions.”

Kessissiin nodded, reluctantly.  “Surely your words must carry some weight with the Captain, however.  I am not afraid to fight, of course – I have taken part in rescue operations during and after combat in the outer sectors.  But I feel part of our job is to anticipate, not simply react.”

“Your willingness to do the right thing is a credit to you,” Iago told him.  “I don’t know if anyone will listen to me right now.  But why don’t we make a report on this and see if we can get Pirra to listen?”

Kessissiin’s crest rose in surprise, but then he nodded.  “Thank you for taking my concerns seriously, Commander.”

“Of course.  You’re talking sense.”

It felt good to be called Commander again, Iago thought.

---

< Ep 6 Part 16 | Ep 6 Part 18 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Brooks’s eyes were fixed at the main bridge screen, his features caught in an expression halfway between focused determination and awe.  The screen was feeding a magnified view of a patch of space in the general direction of Mopu Prime, a slight shimmering of the starry backdrop was visible there accompanied by ghostly flashes of bluish light.  It seemed as if space itself was boiling and bouncing off speculars of an unseen disembodied light source. No matter how many times Brooks had seen a fleet surfacing from zerospace, it was still wondrous to witness every time.  In an instant he snapped out of his reverie.

“Over five hundred ships,” Cenz said.  His face was flat; emotionless with the gravity of the situation.  “Sensors indicate no fleet tenders, troopships, or supply ships.”

“It is a pure combat fleet,” Jaya noted.  “From the quality of ships I believe this to be the personal honor guard fleet for Overlord Ks’Kull.”  Her eyes went to Brooks.

“I use the term ‘quality’ loosely, Captain.  These ships are junkers by our standards.”  She looked to the magnified view of them.  They were still five light minutes out, close to ninety million kilometers in distance, and so were tiny dots on their screen.

But for all they knew, the fleet had launched missiles three minutes ago, and they’d just not be seeing it.  It would take time for any object to travel that distance, longer than light – but the point remained that they did not have current information.

“Those numbers make up a hell of a lot of difference,” Urle noted dryly.  “Run tactical simulations for different scenarios – just to be sure.  Should we prepare to jump out when the zerodrive is charged, Captain?”

“No,” Brooks said.  “We wanted to see Ks’Kull, and he’s come to us rather than us having to go in to meet him.  If anything this works to our advantage.  Have the Bright Flower move into our shadow at a decent distance – just to be safe.  But we’ll all begin moving deeper into the system.  In the meantime, learn everything you can about their fleet, starting with Ks’Kull’s flagship.”

“Aye, Captain,” the officers replied, getting to work.

Brooks leaned forward, steepling his fingers.

Ambassador Decinus leaned closer.  “What do you make of it, Captain?  Normally I’d consider this a good sign, but I would like to know what your experience tells you.”

“It’s a surprisingly bold move.  Most Hev warlords are constantly worried about assassination attempts, and coming to meet us technically puts him at more risk – that is, if he’s even aboard.”

“You think he’d hide?”

“Absolutely, if he felt he was in danger.  Still, a fleet of five hundred ships is no small force.  He may just feel confident enough, even against the potential threat of an enemy fleet jumping in.”

Decinus considered that and leaned away.

“Have we received any signal from them?” Brooks asked.

“No, Captain,” Eboh said.  “I am monitoring all frequencies and keeping all comm sensors active to catch a tight-beam, but I am getting nothing save for some inter-fleet chatter – very broken up and weak due to distance.  They are communicating via lasers and though they’re spilling a lot of that heat we can only decipher a little.”

Urle turned to face Brooks.  “Preliminary scans missed their heat vanes – they’re actually melting some on the flagship.  She powered up her zerodrive in one hell of a hurry – must have used a fewother big ships to help him charge faster.  They’re pointed away from us, but the residual heat makes us very confident in the assessment.”

“Have we put together a better image of the flagship?”

“Yes, sir.”  Urle put it up, zooming in.

Ks’Kull’s flagship was not a sleek, thin combat ship like most, but a monstrous hulking command ship.  She had clearly been several ships in the past, crudely attached together.

It reminded Brooks of the haphazard construction of the trade ship from another Hev clan that N’Keeea had been on, but amplified a hundred times.

The nose cones of half a dozen big ships were fused next to each other, and estimates on her proper width and length were sketchy at best; when so many gantries and random parts came off a ship, it became somewhat arbitrary.  It was enough to know she was very large, much larger than the Craton.  Probably a dozen kilometers long, length enough that she would handle terribly.  But packing enough weapons that she could probably overwhelm even a Sapient Union battleship through sheer weight of fire.

“That is one ugly ship,” Urle said.

Brooks said nothing, but simply watched.  “We’ll wait for him to make the first move.”

“They are accelerating towards us – not using much delta-v, but they are approaching, sir,” Cenz noted.

“But still no- ah, sir, we are receiving an FTL communication,” Eboh said.

Brooks composed himself and stood.  “Show it.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 14 | Ep 6 Part 16 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Cover left, cover left!” Pirra yelled.

The next target rose in front of her from behind a barricade, his rifle taking aim for her-

And a dozen rounds ripped through him from behind her.  Her team had her back.

Their drones were down; all power was down, except in their suits, which had a backup.  How the drone control systems had been disabled was something they were still not clear on, but there were a few possibilities running through her mind.

The Hev boarding party didn’t have theirs, either, which suggested some kind of electromagnetic bomb that killed everything in the area.  Their suits were much better shielded than the drones.

“Check the rooms,” she said.  “Look for improvised doors – and check your damn corners!” she barked, taking up a position next to a door.

The Hev vanguard had stormed deep into the ship.  They were near Reactor Three, and couldn’t risk leaving any enemies active in this area.

Her HUD had no mini-map, all those sensors were down with their drones.  That meant old-fashioned room clearing.

Across from her, Lorissa Kiseleva took up position.  Her face was set in determination.

“Now!” Pirra said, hitting the manual release.  The door opened a dozen centimeters, and Kiseleva threw in the grenades.

The room could contain civilians, but the grenades were smart; they were set for Hev, and not only would refrain from exploding if so, but sent a live feed of their sensor array to their helmets.

But they were limited.  Every piece of tech had to strike a balance between cost, disposability, and hardiness.  A sensor that could instantly sweep the whole room was not a sensor that would survive the kind of action an espatier might face.

The grenades went off; that meant there were or had been Hev.  She kicked the door, sending it sliding back into the wall, and went in.

She covered the right, and Kiseleva was behind her, hand on her shoulder.

Even with sensors, she couldn’t see much.  Still too much ambient particles and heat, but the room seemed clear.  She took a step forward-

And felt a sharp pull knock her back.

“Down!” she heard Kiseleva say.  The woman fell on top of her.

And a moment later a boom shook the room.

It was a trap, she realized.

Her system popped up; INJURED it said, then ran through the various types.  A shattered lower right leg, her left mildly harmed.  Only a few minor shrapnel wounds on her torso, and a broken rib.

She let out a curse.

“Kiseleva, are you all right?”

“I’m alive, Commander,” the woman said.  “But it’s a good thing I looked down, or you would be dead.”

Running back the simulation – for of course there were no enemies on board the ship, and this had only been an exercise – she examined the sequence of events.

A medical drone arrived, and her system now informed her that her odds of survival at this point were 98.5%.  Which was good, but not good enough.

She should never have gotten hurt.  She should have been looking down, not Kiseleva.

The other woman rose, and offered her a hand.  Pirra took it, and was hauled to her feet.

“Are you out as well?” Pirra asked.

“Yes, Commander.  We should head to the medical kiosk to help them with practice.”  A lopsided grin went across her face.  “I never enjoyed acting, but I am apparently a good patient.”

Probably because of her personality, Pirra thought.  The woman was difficult, but only because she always demanded the best of everyone around her.

She’d been a fine pick for Pirra’s new right-hand officer.

“I suppose I can pass.  Just funnel my disappointment at myself into it.”

“It was a cunningly hidden bomb,” Kiseleva said with a shrug.  “If I wasn’t an engineer, I’d not have seen it.  I can forgive you for getting us knocked out of the fight.”

Pirra chuckled.  The two began back towards the medical station, where others who had been mock-wounded were lying about.  Many were acting the part quite well, thrashing and yelling as the drones and volunteer medics rushed to treat their fictional wounds.

She noticed that Corporal Lal was playing it up just a bit too much, loudly saying a prayer and interspersing it with cries for his mother.  Her system assured her that he was, in fact, unhurt, suffering only from a severe case of ham.

Remembering that she was supposed to be injured, and seeing that Kiseleva’s injuries would let her be the walking one, Pirra leaned onto her.  The woman took the cue.

“The Commander is injured!” Kiseleva barked.  “Medic!  She’s bleeding badly!”

Pirra tried to act the part, hopping on one leg, but her mind was elsewhere as the drones and medics laid her back.

“You’re going to be all right, Pirra!” the medic said, flushed and slapping a wound cover onto her leg.

“That’s good to know,” she said half-heartedly.  Her screen was showing her the feed for other squads, on other exercises.

“It would help if you played the part, Commander,” the medic whispered.  “I’ve seen combat on Echose, but a lot of these others haven’t.  It’ll help if you cry out.  You should be in a lot of pain.”

“Oh god the pain is unbearable!” she yelled.  “But the pain of failure stings so much worse!  By the Sky, just get me a new leg, I have to get back out there for bloody revenge!”

“You should join the theater troupe,” the medic said flatly, finishing his work.  “And you’ll get the chance, since I stopped the bleeding.  Should be just three months before your leg is regrown.”

“Good work, medic,” she said honestly.

The man saluted and ran off to take a look at Lal, who was now pleading with any god who would listen to let him see just one more day.

She let her system bring back up the view of the other teams.

All of them seemed to be doing at least passably, for their current level of training.

Her eyes focused on the team that she’d put Iago in.  They were currently sealing a fake breach in the hull that was leaking water.  A dozen civilians had been taken out with it, and others were trapped.

The team was doing quite well, she thought.  Actually far above what was expected of them.  She brought up more data.

Iago was, at that moment, affixing an emergency tent around a room with trapped civilians.  It was something he’d done a thousand times under far more pressure, and he was handling it . . . well, just fine.

Kessissiin was also in his unit, and she jumped to him.  He was actually outside the ship; a risky move, but it was the right move for the scenario.  He had to seal the leaking water valve, or the ice would complicate the hull fix.  He was working swiftly, and she found herself grudgingly impressed.

He got it sealed in half the time she’d have expected from a volunteer team . . .  That was good even for a professional Response officer.

As he came back in, he even caught simulated damage to the suit of another team member, sealing the leak before the woman even knew she was losing air.

He was talking to her, and she considered listening in on their frequency, but the words were not as important as the effect; clearly, he was giving her a pep talk, as she looked frightened.  They were truly facing a hole in the ship, even if one that was in a section reserved just for that sort of exercise.  It was stressful for anyone, even experienced hands.  Everyone feared the possibility of drift-off – being lost to the void.  It was unlikely, they had numerous safety drones to catch someone if they did get loose, but it was a possibility anytime you were out in the dark.

The woman seemed to be rallied by his words, and he slapped her on the helmet and she moved off to begin the next part of the sealing operation.

It was all very good.

She cut off her feed and lay back, appreciating a moment of just relaxing.  She’d been working hard for days now, barely seeing Alexander, running her teams through every possible scenario.  Even a counter-boarding action.

This was one of their last test runs, now that they were in the system.  Some of the secondary teams would do others, but her team would have to be ready for instant action from here forward.

She’d been concerned about Iago, how he’d handle himself.  He’d had such a hard time since Terris.  But this work was second-nature to him.

It had to be good for his mental state in a lot of ways.  A great sense of relief flooded her-

Her helmet alarm went off.  It was not her suit, but a general alarm for the whole ship.

“Unknown ships surfacing from zerospace,” the system blared at her.  “All crew to action stations.  This is not a drill.  Repeat, this is not a drill.”

Jumping up, she began to bark orders.

“Drop the simulation!  All crew to stations!”

“What’s going on, Commander?” the medic who had helped her asked.

“A Hev fleet has appeared,” she told him.  “It seems that the Hev Overlord didn’t want to wait for us to come to him.  He’s here.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 13 | Ep 6 Part 15 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Urle rounded as soon as the door to Brooks’s study was closed.  “I’m not sure we should have left the ambassador out of this,” he said.

“I understand your concern,” Brooks said, walking over to his desk.  He punched a few buttons on the console before looking back up.  “But I cannot do that on the matter of Commodore Siilon.”

“With respects, Ian, why?  Decinus is the diplomatic lead here, shouldn’t he have all the information?”

Brooks sat down, steepling his fingers.  “Because his job is to do the negotiating.  Mine is to make sure my ship and Siilon’s ship stay intact.  I am not at liberty to discuss this any further, Executive Commander.”

Urle’s face was hidden, but his body language showed his surprise.  “I understand, Captain.”

Sometimes, Brooks thought, Urle was too naive.  He was his friend, but the flaw was there.

“Now, give me your further thoughts on the Fesha.  How does this change our mission?”

“We have to be a lot more cautious.  I did a basic scan of historical encounters with Fesha, both by us and with other SU member species – and most likely they’re an independent faction selling arms to one side or both.”

“And if they were, they’d never say that.  What quality weaponry can we expect they might be selling?”

“Low,” Urle said.  “Better than what the Maig are producing themselves, but still several generations behind our own.”

“Make a report on this, figure out every possible angle.  Do you think their ship has much offensive capability?”

“Could always have covered missile ports, but we can’t tell from this range.  It’s highly unlikely they have a coilgun from the design, at least not anything substantial.  Point-defense cannons and navigation lasers, surely.  I’m not too concerned about them attacking us, but the Bright Flower would be at their mercy.  She only has a very low complement of missiles, a few PDCs and nav lasers.  A sitting duck.”

“Can the Fesha make their own zerojumps?”

“From her power output, I’d say it’s possible.  Can’t be sure without getting closer, though.”

“So we can’t leave the Bright Flower alone.  They could jump in and take them.”

“I find it hard to believe they would make such a bold move.”

“It’s not likely, but it’s always possible-“

A beep went off on his desk.

“Decinus just sent an FTL message back home,” Brooks said, frowning.

“Is that odd?”

“No.  But I wanted to know if he did.”

“You’re not going to pry into it, are you, Ian?”

Brooks’s face went from dead serious to a smile in an instant.  “Even I know better than to do that.  But the fact that he raced off to send one . . .”

“Well, a lot of unexpected things have happened.  Do you think they’ll recall us?”

“If so, we’ll find out soon,” Brooks said.  “But I doubt it.  We haven’t even talked to Ks’Kull yet.”

“I’m looking forward to that . . .” Urle said without enthusiasm.

“You won’t be there.  I want you on the bridge – ready to take command.”

“Of course, Captain.  If I may ask – who will be there?”

“Just myself, Decinus, Logus, and Kell.”

“Kell?!  Seriously, Captain?  He may be an Ambassador, but he’s got no idea how to-“

“He’s just going to be there to observe.  But he requested to come, and Decinus agreed.  I am not glad to have this many eggs in one basket – which is why I want you here.”

“You really expect this to go badly, don’t you?” Urle asked.

“I hope not,” Brooks replied.  “But I will be ready for it to all go to hell.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 12 | Ep 6 Part 14 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Captain, how did you know the Hev would bow before your threat?” Decinus asked.  “Surely you can understand that that was entirely against diplomatic protocol.”

The ship would take some time to gather enough power to make the next jump into zerospace.  Much of the time in space, there was nothing to do but wait.

The Ambassador’s words sparked a question in Brooks’s mind, and before he answered he scanned the bridge for a sign of Kell.  But that ambassador was not present.

His eyes went back to the man.  “I was a junior shipman on a smuggling ship on its way into the Dekkar system-“

“A smuggling ship?” Decinus asked, his voice quite disapproving.

“Yes,” Brooks replied, without hesitation.

“What were you smuggling?”

“Data and constructors,” Brooks replied.  “To allow the mining colony in the asteroid belt to produce high-end equipment on-site.  It helped get them out from under the thumb of the colonial government.”

“I see,” Decinus said, his disapproval flickering to uncertainty.

“That’s not important,” Brooks said.  “The Hev also had a colony in the system – it was a sticky situation that still hasn’t been resolved, but at that time we were avoiding the colonial authorities by traveling through Hev-controlled space.  The Captain has worked out a deal with them, but when we were going through, we encountered a picket that threatened us.”

“Were they P’G’Maig?” Decinus asked.

“No, they were another Red Hev clan called the Y’K’Mog.  When they threatened us, I was on the conn, and I had never encountered Hev before, so I was concerned.  But the Captain did as I did here, and then told me about how these challenges were just that – tests.  Sometimes by the Hev hierarchy, sometimes by the individual captain who thinks he can pull off a theft and get away with it.  The only way to react to it when you’re in the right and they know it is by holding your ground and threatening back.”

“I see,” Decinus said.  “This is nothing at all like what I am familiar with from reading on the Blue and Yellow Hev clans.”

“Different cultures,” Brooks said with a shrug.  “I can’t say it wasn’t a risk here, but I had a strong feeling that it would work.”

Decinus considered that, and Brooks looked back around, wondering just where Kell had gone.  He often seemed to enjoy being in the command center, especially when things were occurring.

“Captain,” Cenz said suddenly, his face screen showing alarm.  “I am detecting a new ship – I believe they are Fesha.”

“Fesha?” Brooks repeated.  “What on Earth is a Fesha ship doing here?”

Decinus leaned forward.  “Is it a long-range bulk carrier?”

“We are still resolving the image – they are almost two light hours distant, orbiting the seventh planet, and just came into view.”

“So they wouldn’t have seen us yet,” Brooks said.  “At their current orbital rate, do we still have line of sight?”

“Yes, sir, we-“

“Captain!” Shomari Eboh said.  “We are receiving an FTL transmission.  It is the Fesha ship.”

Brooks scowled.

“The Hev must have told them that we arrived,” Urle said.

“Or our operational security was sloppy,” Brooks noted.  “But I think your thought is more likely to be true.  Any thoughts on why they’re here?”

“I can offer a theory for that, Captain,” Decinus said.  “I was instructed not to speak on this unless it became relevant, but we have reason to believe that the Fesha are conducting some sort of trade with the P’G’Maig.”

“If they’re trading with the Fesha, then it really means the Aeena,” Urle said with distaste.

And it was true.  The Fesha were a client species to the xenophobic and isolationist Aeena.  No human had ever even met one of the shadowy puppet masters in the flesh, as far as was known, with the Fesha handling all external contact so as to keep their masters ‘untainted’ by outsiders.

“Shall we accept their message, Captain?” Eboh asked.

“Yes,” Brooks decided.  “Put them on broad-view.”

An image appeared, projected for all in the seeming midst of space.

The being that was looking at them could not be further from a Hev in looks; while Hev were furred and hunched, with small eyes and snout-like faces, the Fesha looked like something from a fairy tale.

The Captain stood at the fore, but behind him stood others of his kind on the bridge of his vessel.

The lithe species appeared to be carved from crystal, their bodies almost entirely clear, save for when scintillating lights crossed the surface, created by small internal organs, and the glow spread by their silica skin.

Little was known about their evolutionary origins, but the lights were a part of their communication system, with the slack taken up by the hair-like blades atop their heads.

This was where their true mouth was hiding; the hair-like structures waved above their heads at all times, scratching and rubbing together to create their verbal language.  Unlike the rest of their bodies, those blades were red, appearing dark and dull until they caught the light and turned bright.

It was those sounds that greeted Brooks, along with a spreading bluish glow across its face that his system speculated was a sign of cordiality.

“This is most unexpected.  You are the Ian Brooks, I understand,” the Fesha said.

Its eyes were pale white orbs, embedded fully in its skull, able to rotate to see almost any direction even through its own body.

“Fesha ship, what is your purpose in this system?” Brooks asked.

“The same might be asked from where I stand,” the Fesha replied.  “This one is Tii Keh Sheh.”

“Captain Tii Keh Sheh, this is an active warzone,” Brooks said.  “I ask again what you are doing here.  For your own safety, you should leave.”

A ripple of a color that seemed to wane between orange and violet now spread across his face in several splotches.  Brooks’s system could not identify the meaning.

“This one feels in no danger.  But are you, Ian Brooks?”

“Your presence may jeopardize attempts at creating a peace between the warring factions,” Brooks said, ignoring it.

“We, too, attempt to bring peace,” Tii Keh Sheh replied.  “How do you propose to do such?  If we speak together, perhaps our voices will pierce the veil of violence.”

“I am afraid that is not possible,” Brooks said curtly.  “But if you are seeking to prevent the extermination of the T’H’Tul, then we are of a like mind and I wish you success.”

The being was quiet for a long moment.  A chill blue spread down from its face.

“Perhaps,” it replied cryptically.

The communication ended.

Brooks sat back down.

“That was less fruitful than could be hoped,” Decinus said.  “Have we identified the ship?  Does it have any weapons?”

“Its IFF says it’s the Klejket, but that name is not in any of our databases,” Urle said.

“I find myself skeptical of his claim about wanting to bring peace,” Brooks said sourly.

“I do not enjoy being pessimistic – but I agree,” Decinus said.

Urle took a breath, considering.  “On the one hand, Fesha getting involved isn’t usually a good thing for us.  But they don’t frequently take on direct encounters, so I’m not too concerned about them attacking.  The question is just why they’re here – what would they benefit from peace here?  Or anything here, for that matter?”

“We cannot assume they are here for selfish purposes,” Decinus said thoughtfully.  “We are right to be cautious in our dealings with them, but we cannot let our judgments be clouded until we know more.”

“It is true,” Brooks agreed, “That there are Fesha factions not under the control of the Aeena – at least not directly.  But given the situation we cannot let our guard down.  If they can communicate with us faster-than-light, then they can speak to someone else outside the system and call in reinforcements.”

“Given that this is a mission of humanity,” Decinus said, “And there is a Sepht ship here, it becomes our responsibility to ensure their safety first.  They, after all, rejected the T’H’Tul call for help.  If they were to be harmed while aiding us it would be a diplomatic disaster at a very inopportune moment, and would make us appear weak and ineffectual.”

“As well as leave Sepht dead,” Urle said.

“Of course,” Decinus replied.  “But we must keep the larger picture in mind.  I recommend, Captain, that we have the Bright Flower stay close – or request them to leave.”

“Commodore Siilon sent me the specifics of their mission – they will not leave,” Brooks said.

“Really?  I was not informed of these details,” Decinus said, frowning.

“Need to know basis.  It’s a naval matter,” Brooks said, not wishing to go down this path right now.

He rose.  “Yaepanaya, you have the bridge.  Urle, with me.”

Decinus looked surprised.  “Shall I come?”

“No,” Brooks said.  “Ship matters.”

The Ambassador clearly knew he was being excluded from something, but accepted it without comment.  “I have preparations of my own to make.”

---

< Ep 6 Part 11 | Ep 6 Part 13 >