THE LOPER - SUNBRINGER

[Amazee Dayzee]

Probably going off on a tangent here but I would LOVE to know what goes on in Hawle's mind and why he makes some of the decisions that he does. That way we can all get to know the "Mad Rabbit" much better.

[Welsh Halfwit]

It's always the little things you forget...

38

Salara looked up as Katara and Desty worked to put up something appropriating her species resting area between the walls with Katara using the stepladder and the Canine just standing on the floor. The Vixen (which was a female Ceelican?) was using an energy bonder to weld the bar to the wall between the two darkness boards that were on either side of the bar as she didn’t trust the gravity on this ship not to tip over and drop her as she rested. “Captain’s got us going to a lot of trouble for you, Feathers,” the silver fur complained. “I hope you appreciate it.”

“I do,” she admitted. “Almost as much as I appreciate the chances for advancement for females.”

“Oh, gawd,” Katara grumbled. “Another one.” She climbed back down to the ground and moved the steps across to where Desty moved aside. “She thinks you’re female, Desty. Nobody judges ME by my sex.”

“Not if they ever want to breathe again,” Desty agreed, in his light tone. Katara waved away an apology from Salara and stepped up to attach the bar. They were putting in a set of steps for her to walk up and a padded carpet section for just in case she fell off. “So, you running away,” he asked the avian.

“Um, flying away, don’t you mean,” she remarked, before realising this was probably a land walker term for the same thing. “Uh, sorry. Never mind. Well, I didn’t have a weapon so it seemed rather silly to be in the middle of an all assault. “

“They don’t, umph, trust you with a weapon in your military?”

“Not as an adjunct.” She chuckled and covered her beak with her hands. “Probably wise as I was an insurrectionist.”

“Knew there was something I didn’t hate about you,” Katara pronounced as she laid the final bolt into the wall. She got down and took the stepladder away to push the steps in and locked them down. “Want to try it,” she asked.

Salara inexpertly stepped up to the bar and tried it out. She pressed the stud button mounted on the wall to extend the boards and stepped onto the bar, feeling to grip it before moving along it. She tried to relax and thought she might get used to it. “It’s a good job, Chief,” she reported, her voice muted by the barrier. The barrier retracted at a touch of the button. And Salara hopped down, hoping – and failing – to have enough room to open her wings. She bent her knees on impact. “I’m going to miss flying though.”

“It’s only for a week,” Desty commented.

“Probably,” Katara added.


“So,” Jaqui asked again, “what IS your speciality in the clan? No-one’s ever just physical prowess. She’d decided that even prisoners in solitary had to be given exercise time now and again so she’d programmed the hologram projection room to create a gym (with a bar) for the pair of them to work out in. She was in a one piece suit and he was in shorts and a shirt, straining as she helped him with the weights. “Thought you… had the reports,” Marius demanded, trying not to bite his tongue.

“Sometimes you get more from the Canine’s mouth than’s in the reports. Ten, by the way.”

“You’re kidding,” Marius protested, “that was eleven!”

“That half didn’t count.”

“Oh, like… uff… heck it was a half! Twelve!”

“Eleven,” Jaqui replied. We go to fifteen.”

“Then you… take over. I was a specialist at… getting in places. Thirteen. You only… heard about… where I got caught.”

“Twelve.”


Donnika wheeled his way around what Caltaya was calling the ‘Sunbringer’ and made notes on his padd as Goole ran his eye over the readings. “You can follow all that stuff,” he asked as he checked the stresses on the carapace of the torpedo were still within levels. Caltaya had told him that one of the signs of something going wrong would be stress on the armour as it began to build up tp a power release so, if things started to build, they needed to launch as fast as possible. He hoped his legs were back if that ever happened. There wasn’t a turbo boost on this chair.

“Can you understand all that structural twaddle,” the Feline called back down, a broad smile slapped on his face as he looked down to the civilian from the raised platform. “If you can do that,” he added, “I can do this. Unless,” he added, frowning, “I just made a mistake and…” A growing look of panic on the felines face had the Raitchian getting ready to flee as fast as he could until Goole broke out into laughter. “I hadn’t.” He waved a finger at his ‘victim’. “Your face!” He closed off the panel, having completed the latest of the hourly checks, and put the system back into stasis before hopping down. “How’s your legs doing, by the way?”

“I’m… resistant to find out at times,” the Raitchian groused. “I think they’re improving.”

Goole nodded. “Let’s do an experiment.” He reached out a hand. “Lean on me and we’ll see if we can walk the room.”

Donnika shied away from the hand. “I don’t…” His ears flinched as he heard himself. Of course he wanted to but fear wasn’t listening to his heart. He was worried about being put back into a place where he might be killed this time. He was worried that his legs were never going to work properly again, that his lung-u-like implants, as brilliant as they were, weren’t going to work. He was afraid of fear. But, he decided, one fear at a time. He clasped the Feline’s hand and pulled himself upwards as Goole put an arm around his back and accepted Donnika’s arm over his shoulder. “Suppose I need to try,” he admitted.

“One step at a time,” Goole said gently, helping Donnika step off the chair and, carefully, put his feet on the floor. “How’s that feel,” he asked.

“Hard,” Donnika said, almost laughing.


Hawle looked over the latest crew reports as Raven delivered them and he sipped a zero percent Carrot liquor that tasted like it had been buried underground and had once touched roots with a Carrot. But he needed a clear head. It seemed Jaqui was having success with the prisoner and he’d told her enough to authorise a few exploratory investigations when they got back. Of course he’d have to make sure she wasn’t spending TOO much time in his company, hem hem. His policy of not assigning Sarafina to engineering had worked in the way she’d kind of attached herself to Engineering and was emerging from the large shadow cast by her mother. Barleycorn’s last few scans of the personnel carrier that was Sarah had revealed no anomalies and he knew the extent of the species mix even though they didn’t. Sarah had given permission for Night to tell him and, even in the report from Sarina, he’d needed to use his authorization code to unlock it. Harvey and Gilly had decoded most of the information the prisoner had given them and were still working on who’d sent the order. They’d sent back databolt messages and received a few back and…

Hawle slapped the comm. “Hawle to Winsome. Stop sending databolt communications!”

<“We need access to the main computers to do our...”> Harvey said, before he stopped. Hawle fancied Gilly was having a word, having heard him on the wall system. <“Of course. May I ask why, sir?”>

“We’re doing something that could do massive financial damage to major tech companies, Harvey. You REALLY think they can’t trace a databolt?”

[Amazee Dayzee]

So the little thing that was forgotten was that major tech companies can't trace databolts? That doesn't seem that little honestly and I hope it doesn't come back to bite them eventually.

[Welsh Halfwit]

39


A dark rock of immense proportions lay ahead of them right now. It was on the U.S.C. maps as Urikkila Delta and it had been one of the runners up in Caltaya’s initial plans for the test. The main thing he’d held against it was that the first one was closer and easier to spot via the high powered telescopes. But now they were closing on the target. And Hawle was sat boredly in his chair, his legs crossed and leaning on one of the armrests as they approached. “Anything going on out there, Match,” he asked.

“Nothing much today, sir,” the scientist remarked. “There are signs that someone passed by a few days ago. Velocity trails heading starward from the decay rate.”

“But nothing coming at us or about to drop by on a shopping trip to the local stellar nursery?”

“I can’t see any self service checkouts,” Match replied.

“Little bit of a shame about that,” Hawle admitted, sitting up and starting to look professional. “Seven-twenty ripped me off last time I used one of those things. Time to launch?”

“Thirty minutes, sir. We can launch it after.”

“I’ll do the jokes, Match. We don’t need two bad punners on the bridge.”

“One’s more’n enough,” Tillock commented from weapons, drawing a glare and a Mint Imperial to the Scottish Mican's head.

“Next time it’s a teacake,” Hawle warned.

“Ah’ll enjoy that, sir.”

“A diet one.”

Now Tillock looked scandalized.


Match watched at the Professor and David entered the bridge. “Ready for take two, Captain,” the Professor asked, eyes bright and enthused as he looked at his back up star.

“Always, Professor,” Hawle told him. “Sooner, rather than later. Just in case. What’s the time frame for this?”

“The reactions will take place below the surface at first, then ignite the surface. The initial reaction will take only minutes but we’ll need to be watching for a day or so to make sure things are going well.”

“So we can go look other places during that day? If we leave a probe to gather data?”

“I can’t adjust things if I’m not here!”

“Match, take the comm, would you? Professor, Detective? My office please?”


He showed them the recordings from the Fawren 14 and the attack of the Patreeve Dart. “Tragic,” the Professor agreed rhetorically, “but what does it have to do with leaving my experiment?”

“The world that our Avian friends believe they were kidnapped to is about six hours travel from here,” Hawle announced. “These darts are all over the place. There may be one or two around but our new weaponry appears to be able to handle them. I want to go to this planet and scan to see if there are any descendents of the original crew down there.”

“And rescue them,” David asked, resting his hands on the tabletop as he looked quizzically at the Lappinean.

Caltaya stepped around the office, arms crossed until he released one in a dismissive gesture. “Provided they even want to be released,” he remarked. “It’s been two centuries. They may well have acclimatised into the colony and become players in their own right. It is a fascinating prospect though. If they have survived, how different will they be from our own Micans? What will their attitudes be like?” He stopped pacing. “These Micans – or whatever they might be now – were taken before the prey wars ended. They may still be ready to fight it, based on the tales of the eeevil Celicans and Felines passed down by their ancestors.” He shrugged. “Or centuries of toil may have made them pacifistic, unwilling to lift a fist to protect themselves. This is sociology and history dressed up as science.” He demurred. “There’s some value in it. Remind me to hire a freighter next time I go on trips like this.”

“Hey,” Aldair replied, spreading his hands, “WE come free! AND I hear you’ve got a new assistant?”

“There… has been a benefit or two,” Caltaya agreed.


Night cleaned the latest dosage of gel off Sarah’s expanding womb and the Human sat up on the bed, putting her feet to the floor. “Has it started kicking yet,” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah replied. “There’s been a few. And the soccer joke’s come up a few times. Thought you said that’d not happen for another month?”

Night put the padd she’d been holding on the table, face down so Sarah couldn’t see the details on it as she’d requested complete ignorance. “You can’t quite tell for certain,” she admitted. “Hybrids grow at different rates every time.” She handed Sarah the nutrient drink that was helping the pregnancy go easier. For the first few months Sarah had blamed it for the sickness. “At least yours doesn’t have retractable claws like that IOC agent hybrid. Their Doctor had to do some fancy work, I can tell you.”

“Can you?”

“No,” Night told her honestly. “Doctor/patient and all that. But he published papers and, thirty years on, it’s kind of easy to guess. So many reports of having to repair the womb wall…” She shook her head. “Of course, it helped us develop techniques to deal with that… Anyhoo. You’re proceeding naturally. What,” she asked, noting the Human looked like she wanted to ask something. She wandered closer and Sarah whispered into her ear. “Ah,” she said, “that’s the drink you just drank. It’s taking a some of the unmatched Calcium derivatives from your systems and flushing it out. That’s why it’s purple.” She clapped the Human on the shoulder as she pulled her shirt back down. “But nothing to be worried about. Time for you to return to the helm.” A sly grin. “Want a hand?”

“Not yet, Doc,” Sarah said, kissing her friend on the cheek before stepping off and going, at best speed, to the bridge as Night mock complained about unprofessionalism.


“Welcome back, Sarah,” Hawle said as she returned to the bridge and relieved her replacement at the helm. “That ointment still smells, by the way.” He glanced around at the crew and the Professor. “Right. No ghost ships? No odd signals or anomalies? No religious zealots or ancient gods about to stamp on us for returning fire to the people?” He gave them a moment to reply. “No? OK. Professor… Would you care to get Tillock to show you how to launch a torpedo?”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I just love how casually Hawle wants to have the Professor learn to fire a torpedo. Almost like it normally comes up in conversations that he has all of the time and never misses a beat with it.

[Welsh Halfwit]

I tend to name the Micans after Northern England/Scotland towns or names. (Henry Postlethwaite, Harriet Thurso and so on.) I think I got away with Kirriemuir but I've reached peak name silliness with a Scotland born Mican called Kirkin Tilloch...

[Amazee Dayzee]

I am actually wondering about where you got the origins for your other characters names too. Not just a certain rabbit that plans to be hit in the face with desserts.

[Welsh Halfwit]

40


Donikka and Goole exited the launch bay quite quickly as the grapple system grasped hold of the torpedo in question and lowered it into a launch tube. The tube capsule sealed against the void and readied for launch but the pair were deciding that discretion was the best part of valour and, quite frankly, they weren’t totally sure the tube could take the extra pressures of the special missiles’ launch and they didn’t feel like being exposed to a vacuum today. They shut and locked the door behind them. “Think that’ll do it,” Donikka asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Goole said, not exactly sure about it. The other missiles couldn’t detonate as they weren’t primed but there was still the possibility of something… “I think we should go for lunch,” he added, heading off towards Cedars place.

“Fair enough,” Donikka remarked.

“We… should beat the lunch rush,” Goole said, speeding up. “Get the best seats.”

“I hear that,” Donikka said, accelerating as they heard the thrumm of pre-launch. Soon Goole had to run to keep up with him. “Last one there buys,” Donikka called, before coughing.


Match kept an eye on the readings as Tillock showed the Professor which button to push to enact stage two of launch and he adjusted the power flow as laid out in the notes the Professor had given him. He’d denied Match the opportunity to fire the thing with him but he’d stated he understood the joke and would make sure the Science Rat would have an important part in the events and this was it. The systems inside the torpedo had to be kept as close to the prescribed levels as possible before being mixed in the split second after the impact on the rock, where the force of the impact would crack through the shell and restart dormant processes and the Professor was saying something about this being a dawning light for all civilizations. If it worked, Match mused. The short alert blare brought everyone’s attention.


“Told’ya that’s work,” Tillock whispered to the old Celican, who’d had the disturbing feeling no-one was really listening to his speech. “Sorry, sirs,” the Scottish Mican said louder, “wrong button.” He didn’t fancy anyone believed him.

“As I was saying,” Caltaya repeated, deflecting a mint imperial that was flying at Tillock’s head with his tail, “with this act we look to bring new light to the future of our species. New chances for expansion and knowledge. New horizons for science and those bloody idiots who’ll use it for war if they ever get the chance. Which I’m not sure I’m going to allow. I have plans to stop those, believe me. Nevermind. The future awaits.” So he pressed the firing stud.


The torpedo was flung from the front of the ship before its engine powered up and threw itself towards the rock it had had chosen for it to die on. From the bridge it sounded like nothing, despite the ‘shumf’ sound effect Hawle put on under his breath. The glow of the engines lit the screen as it headed away before cutting out after twenty seconds, with enough thrust to continue on its way, unencumbered by friction as it vanished towards the edge of the magnification range. “Time until impact,” Hawle asked simply, talking to Match.

“Seventy seconds,” Match told him, not looking towards the screen as he kept his attention on the monitor.

“Uh, sir,” Sarah said uncertainly, turning from her console to adress the bridge. “I’m picking up something coming in on extreme long range…”

“We… we can’t stop now,” the Professor protested. “It’s not possible! I… I’ve only got the one delivery vessel!” He looked properly forlorn in Hawle’s eyes.

“Relax, Professor, It’s past the point of no return now, I agree. Too late for anyone to claim ownership.” He turned slightly to Sarah. “Where’s it coming from, Chappers?”

“I can’t be totally sure,” the Human admitted, “but, if I trace their direction back, it LOOKS to be coming from, uh, Dawnicca.”

“Coming from Council space,” the Commander mused, rubbing his chin. “And not sending ‘hello’s in advance. Anyone else not liking this?”

The Professor looked around as half a dozen hands went up. Figuring it wasn’t a rhetorical question, raised his own in solidarity. “How would they have found us?”

“Extrapolation from those Data burst transmissions, possibly,” Hawle remarked. “If they’re smart enough.”

“Oh, Monta and Fawren are smart enough,” Caltaya opined. “But the Micans are in enough trouble internally already – no offence, Kirkin.”

“An’ none tak’n,” the weapons officer replied. “nev’r been t’ Mica.”

“Figured that from your accent.”

“Parent’s were at Saxa Vord Space centre control f’r fifteen years.”

“Right. OK. I have no idea where that is.”

Tillock smiled. “N’r do most’ve th’ locals!”


The missile struck home with considerable force on the surface, burrowing into the rock with the mounted drill head digging further in until the pressure got too much and the shell fractured unleashing the sealed forces inside into the cuts, accelerated by the blast of the explosives behind it.

“I was expecting something more spectacular,” Goole said, watching the events from the vidscreens in Cedar’s restaurant as Donikka made their order of Kanterra Flans and Coffees. “Although I suppose the reactions will be going on under the surface.”

“I suppose a sun racking explosion would be something to see,” Donikka replied.

“For about five seconds until a chunk of rock the size of a city hits us,” Cedar put in. “Honestly, Goole, you work with Zowaix. I’m sure you have a death wish.”

“Can’t have, Little bud,” he replied, emphasising the ‘little’. “I’ve never eaten your Farikka Salad, have I?”

“You’re allergic to Dalla Beans,” Cedar pointed out, heading for his saucepans.

“As I said,” he finished, taking up a chair as Donikka slotted in under the table. “And your legs are definitely improving.”

“Thanks,” Donikka said, sending mental commands to see if his legs could still receive them.

“Ow,” Goole said as someone kicked him.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Its really positive that Donikka can still use his legs after what happened. I just want him to make sure he doesn't end up kicking anybody too hard. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

41


They released the science buoy Zowaix had been working on half an hour after launching the torpedo. According to Match and the Professor, the nuclear reactions were beginning inside the structure and heat radiation was steadily beginning to creep up from near zero. Match and the Professor made sure the device worked correctly and Hawle asked on the position of the incoming ship. “Can’t tell, sir,” Sarah replied, “trace is a bit intermittent at the moment. About six hours out, goin’ by extrapolation.”

“I like straps,” Hawle replied. “Like belts and braces they hold the universe together. I want to know who these people are.”

“They could be scientists,” Caltaya advised. “Sent out to observe the effects and take their reports back to Monta or Raicarra or whoever?”

Hawle nodded in consideration of this thought but it was clear from his face that he wasn’t sold on the idea. He took a Mint Imperial from his arm rest and crunched it carefully before coming to a decision. “The issue with the Patreeve Darts can wait. 200 years. What’s another day? But we’re not waiting here. They could, indeed, be a shipful of scientists, Professor, but that ship could be a battleship. Chappers, ex-strap-olate their approach to this location and put us on the directly opposite side of the rock. Where their sensors can’t detect us due to the radiation. Although,” he added rhetorically, “not TOO close, of course.”

“I will do the best I can not to kill us all,” she replied, dead pan. “No plans on bein’ Icarus.”

“Icarus,” Caltaya asked Match.

“Idiot Human from their myths,” The Raitchian explained. “Flew by gluing feathers to his arms. Escaped captivity because, y’know, an entire citadel wasn’t able to see him. He went to a thousand feet and the sun melted the glue. Fell to his death. Somehow they got ‘don’t aim too high’ from that and not ‘use stronger glue’.”

“Hey,” Sarah protested, “I don’t ridicule the Legend of Urekia, do I?”

“That is a classic, not a myth!”

Hawle coughed. “I like a loose bridge. But I’m not having an argument about legends and myths between senior officers when on duty at their stations. You want to argue?” He paused for effect. “Book a table at dinner.”

“Sir,” the Lieutenants agreed.

“Perhaps it isn’t too late to rule by fear,” Sarina opined quietly.

Hawle gnashed his teeth. A chip broke off, spoiling the effect.


“We appear to be moving,” Havakar told her bodyguard as she sat up in the bed where he’d been engaging in ‘close protection’ for a while. The sheets fell down as she propped herself up on an elbow and watched the vid of the ship heading around to the other side of the orb. She frowned. “But we’re not going very far.”

He joined her in her seated position and put an arm around her back. “Perhaps they just want to study the events from the other side of the star?”

She looked at his face and kissed his lips softly. “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but I don’t think this Commander works quite like that? Perhaps I should go and interfere?”

“I never get why you always have to do that, my President,” he said, stroking her side. “You retired. Why keep giving the high rankers a reason to hunt you?”

“If those with power don’t hold those with power to account when they do stupid things,” Havakar reminded him, “only those who can be bullied and disposed of without trouble will be trying.” She sighed and put a hand to his chest. “Have you thought about that other thing we mentioned?”

His ear quirked slightly as he spent the barest second trying to recall the conversations they’d had. “Oh, the Lappinean medicine? To see if we could..?”

She nodded, muzzling his chest. “Give Sarafina a brother or sister. I’d like to try.”

“But it would mean giving up my position. Can’t bodyguard your mate, after all.” He kissed her again and she pushed him back down onto the bed. She’d investigate the mystery later. In a half hour or so.


Katara sat on her desk as Jan talked to her about Sarafina and her courage beyond her tolerance for sweet talking. “OK, I get it,” she snapped, “I’ll find work for her to do!” Her tone softened now she’d gotten the Human to stop gushing. “I’ll pair her up with someone. But it can’t be you, Jan. You’re too smitten.” Now she grinned slightly, unable to hold a grudge with her best friend.

“I am not,” the Human replied indignantly. “I just think she…”

“...Shows promise,” Katara interrupted, throwing her hands up theatrically. “She’s brave. She’s considerate. She’s kind.” Katara shrugged. “She’s not bad looking either. Provided you’re not a Celican that amounts to a total catch.” She slid off the desk and turned her back to pick something off the shelf. “We need a certain bloodlust,” she added coyly, shifting her tail from side to side playfully.

“I don’t fancy her,” Jan replied, earning a shift of the head and a side eye from her boss. “OK, I do. A bit. But she’s only visiting. And she’s fifteen years younger than me. And…”

“...she’s into Males,” Sarafina put in, appearing in the doorway. She didn’t look upset or annoyed as Jan tripped over her own tongue in apologies. “Don’t worry, Jan,” she breezed. “I’m not offended. Nice to get a compliment from someone not paid to give them. It’s true though. Males only. But most of my best friends are girls and I can do this.” She stepped forward and kissed Jan on the mouth.

The human looked surprised but didn’t move until Sarafina did. “Um…” she said.

“Yeah. You wanted to see me, Chief Katara?”

The Greyfur stepped back towards her as Jan stayed in her pose. “Yeah. As I was trying to tell Jan before…” She looked at Jan and waved a hand in front of her face. “...before you broke her, I’m approving you working with Mark Raston. Human. Kinda dependable and I’m trying to get him to stop hitting on females. You come complete with your Mother’s bodyguard so the chance of being murdered might keep the sweet talking down. Or you can thump him yourself. Then report things to me.”

Sarafina was practically dancing now. “Yes, sir, uh, ma’am…”

“Chief.” She handed her the datapadd with Raston’s details on it. “Go find him. Whilst I repair the computer crash here,” she added, looking at Jan.


“And now we know,” Hawle said as the computer identified the incoming as a Raicarra industries cruiser.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I can just see Elena asking why Hawle has a chip missing from his tooth. Will probably be worried he was hit in the face with something.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Time to mention a few characters who aren't here.

And what was Night up to that she encountered HIM?

42


The fact it was a Raicarra cruiser put Hawle in two minds as to whether to ‘announce’ themselves to the incoming cruiser. On the one hand approaching openly seemed to promote the idea of friendliness as Raicarra were the masters of stealth ship technology and could easily have kept their ship secret until they were right on top of them. Perhaps approaching openly meant that they were no threat to the Loper. Against that he had the concerns that, far from them not being a threat to his ship, his ship might not be considered a threat to them. The company had bounced back from the scandals of years before, although the Raitchian government had quite a stake in them now. Which meant, of course, that the Government had an interest in the companies profits. Getting in at near base level on the Professor’s invention would be big bucks. They’d probably found someone willing to compromise the dream for cash but they’d want to see if it worked, wouldn’t they? According to Match and Sarah, they had two hours until it got there so he’d ordered all senior officers to take a quick break and sort out biological concerns and, he ordered as his hand scrabbled in an empty armrest, get someone to refill the mint drawer.


He flicked on the comm as Sarah waddled by, smelling like one of Night’s unusual concoctions and called Maze Hardy. “Maze,” he asked, “how’s the stealth on your fighter?”

<“Limited, sir. It’s probably not up to whatever you’re planning.”>

He heard her whisper to someone that the Captain was on the line so shut up and guessed that Sawyer was paying her bed a visit again. Officially he didn’t know. Officially he didn’t care. He laid the situation out for her.

<“Can I lay out for you all the reasons that might be pointless? Stop that!”>

“Stop what,” Hawle said, feigning innocence.

<“Oh sorry. Uh, telling the vid to stop playback. Uh, an educational vid. Sir, the differences in relativistic speeds mean I’d take an hour to get close and they’d be ten minutes out from from here at their best speed and I’D be an hour away!”>

“Yeah, s’pose so. OK. If they’re arriving in a couple of hours, you’ll need to be ready. I’ll give you half an hour, then you’ll have to ‘kiss off’ your lesson and get your people ready.”

<“Understood, boss.”> She cut the link and Hawle imagined her going back to the kissing.part.

“You knew all that,” Stikka said, a little surprised he’d asked.

“Of course I do,” Hawle replied. “It never hurts to ask a second opinion, though. Especially if they’re more of an expert than you are. It’d be like… Elena asking you about events in ‘Our IX lives’, you see?”

Stikka nodded. He often binge watched the soap when he was off duty. Occasionally when he was ON duty and, on one occasion, in his sleep as he could load it direct to his memory. “I… have to catch the most recent episodes when we get back,” he said awkwardly.

“Not that I’m interested,” Hawle said blithely, “but do you think Ralway got revenge on Felas yet? Elena wants to know…” He grinned slightly. It was true. She’d mentioned it once or twice.


Zowaix and the Professor ran through the readings the ship was taking of the action currently going on under the mantle of the sun and Caltaya was complaining amicably that his system back on Micanna was better than the systems here, mainly so he could draw the recalcitrant Brockian into talking sharply with him. He’d seen the difference in how he talked to Goole and his other associates and how he talked with him. “I mean…”

“Yes, well,” Zowaix snapped, “the U.S.C. doesn’t have the money to focus on a minor speciality, Professor,” he thundered. “The budget has to go to a dozen different departments, meaning that we can’t always get what we want, can we?”

Caltaya gave a slight smile at the outburst. “I just did, You don’t talk to me like you do to others. And they’re as close as you get to friends.”

“I…”

“You’re also used to being the smartest person in the room.” For a Celican, Caltaya gave an impressive, Wolfish, grin. “Believe me, I know how that feels. Get it all the time. But you are a very intelligent person. Almost my equal in non-academic terms. And you know these systems better than I do. Now, shall we examine the Nuclear fusion ratios?”

Zowaix had to agree.


David Brunton lay back on the bed as Night stepped around him, picking things up and putting them away whilst chatting about everything that had happened to both of them since the last time they’d been able to get ten minutes alone like this. A small scale bank robbery and an assault for him, a small fight between two colonies militias and a run in with some Lappinean called Balbury for her. He put his hands behind his head and opined that they didn’t do this often enough.

“Well, I usually have patients lying on that bed,” Night protested, putting out a hand to help him up. “Come on, up you get.”

He accepted the hand and deliberately pulled her down as much as he did himself up so they met in a kiss at an awkward angle. She helped him upright without breaking the lock and she put him down to the floor, eventually releasing him although, he noticed, she still had a hand on the base of his tail. “We don’t talk enough, love,” he told her, almost breathily.

“Didn’t notice you trying last night,” she reminded him, tapping his nose. “You were all business then.”

“Well, I was distracted. Where’s your Raitchian friend anyhow?”

“Hmm? Oh, Bazil? He’s out to lunch. And having a meal.” She sat on the bed’s edge. “So what are we going to do, David? We don’t get enough moments together, do we?”

“Well,” he admitted, “no. I had thought about going the IOC route and applying to be ‘agent aboard’ here but…”

“..you couldn’t ‘fraternise’ with the crew to that extent. You’d probably get fired.”

“You could always come to Micanna,” he reminded her. “There’s a Council base there. And the hospitals always need good Doctors like you. I could go in for my P.I. licence and…”

She laughed and double taked. “Your P.I. Licence? I can’t see you leaving the Police, David. But, if you did? You’d be great. With a Doctor Wife as a sidekick, of course.”

“Yeah, I…” His brain clicked. “Doctor… wife? Oh, I accept.”


“So,” Hawle remarked, taking a mint from the fresh supply as the ship appeared on extreme long range cameras, “it’s a cruiser all right. A battle cruiser...”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Hawle sure does like his mints now doesn't he? I hope it isn't because he has perpetual bad breath. That would be a deal breaker. XD

[Welsh Halfwit]

Mint Imperials. Good for eating. Good for throwing.

43


Harvey Winsome, feeling his head being considerably less abuzz than it was yesterday, had decided to try and make up for his lamentable lack of intelligence that had, seemingly, gotten them into the trouble they were in now. The probe they’d left behind had told them it was a Raicarra 2V91 ‘Buccaneer’ class cruiser and there were only a handful of them either on the construction list or in active service and he had a fair idea which one this one was after running his cybereye over the engine output and filling in the gaps. He was thankful that the explosion in his room – that had incinerated a far few paper ‘records’ (all pictures that Gilly had wanted destroyed) – had only damaged his terminals in here, not the central bank. He’d been able to glean the information from an insider in Raicarra and official files on their ships. He commed the Captain.


“Understood, Harvey,” Hawle told him, watching the ship’s approach on screen. “You have an ‘in’?” He nodded after Harvey replied. “Right. Ready ‘Scorpion’ protocol. Just in case we need it.” He closed the line as Sarina took her first officer’s seat,

“Scorpion protocol,” she asked. “We’re about to do something stupid, aren’t we?”

Hawle reached over and brushed flan crumbs off her tunic. “When do I do anything stupid,” he asked rhetorically. He knew the ans…

“The incident on Rigellius IV,” Sarina replied.

“The encounter with the pirates over High Town,” Stikka added.

“Walk’d into a door on Calderon,” Sarah put in.

Hawle spread his arms wide, not taking offence. “Stupid for a Lappinean is something that’ll get you killed. I am not dead, so there was nothing stupid about any of those things. Now,” he added, “if Sarah could think of a way to get us behind that Buccaneer when it gets here and Kirkin could run through the schematics to find out where to pop it’s rivets..?”

“Aye, sir. In case we need it,” the Mican said as Salara clattered onto the bridge, distracting his attention for a second.

“Hoping we won’t,” he remarked, before indicating the Avian. “This is Salara, military adjunct to a regeime that may or may not exist right now. She’s an honoured guest but how come you’re here, Salara?”

The black and gold feathered individual inclined her head. “Good evening,” she said graciously. “I was looking to see if there was any way I could help? Are they coming to see the sun ignite too?”

“Yes,” Hawle admitted, they are. We just don’t know if they want to be the only ones to take details back.” He sighed. “As for your helping, I don’t…” He paused, his finger in the air as his brain whirled through ideas.

“He’s thinking of something,” Dawton told her. She twisted her head to the side almost ninety degrees and blinked at him.

“There IS a possibility. And it doesn’t involve any deception. Never try to deceive a Raitchian. They’re schooled in lies and deceit – no offence, Match.”

“None taken. I was schooled in science, sir. Did you have salad for lunch again?”

“Point taken and you’re an exemplar for your people.” He shook his head and got back to the point. “Sorry. ‘Military adjunct’ is such a wonderful phrase. Because no-one knows quite what it means. To one military, an adjunct is pretty much a filing clerk. In others they’re the eyes, ears and feet of Generals and presidents. They’ve never met a Kestalan before.”

“You’re hoping they won’t shoot someone they don’t know?”

“I’m hoping they understand the value of the unique.”


An hour passed, in which Sarah moved the ship in an natural looking course to hide behind the first planet as the Raicarran went past and the Loper started around behind them before Hawle asked Dawton to open hailing frequencies as soon as they came out of ellipse. They could see the ship in the distance now, ‘ahead’ of them. “Dawton,” Hawle said as the Human gave him a ‘thumbs up’, “i’m sat in front of you, I can’t SEE a thumbs up.” He waited until Dawton confirmed he was on for real before speaking. “This is Commander Aldair Hawle of the United Security Council Frigate ‘Loper’ to the Raicarran ship ahead of me. You’ve travelled quite a long way for a picnic. Care to share what you’re here for?”

Silence. Match confirmed that the ship wasn’t raising shields or charging anything. It didn’t appear as though they’d been heard.

“Sir,” Tillock said. She’s showing signs of fights. The electromagnetic traces are a lot higher. She’s had her shields up recently.”

“Match. Scan for lifesigns. Patch into the probe and let’s see her front. Raicarra like to put their bridge near the hull and I don’t like where this is headed… Sarina…”

“Registering seventy five life forms aboard,” Match told them. Then he spoke again, a little confused. “All in the lower decks. I can’t detect any one on the bridge or engineering.” He looked at the main trio as they looked at him. “Could they be shielded,” he asked.

“What’s the difference between those decks,” Hawle asked. He didn’t expect an answer.

“Sir,” Sarah said urgently, taking his attention back to the main viewer.

“Good grief,” Hawle breathed.


There was just a jagged hole where the bridge should have been, the section open to space, as was the linkway between the two sections of the ship. It could have cut the ship in half, whatever had done this, if it had continued much longer. “Match,” Hawle breathed. “Those life signs. Are they Raitchian?”

“I…” Match threw his hands up. “I can’t tell. Something in the hull’s throwing off the scans.”

“Find out what it is, Match. Do it from over there. Sarina, take a squad and suit up. Guards and Engineers. And Gilly. In case you need to route controls elsewhere. Quickly. Stop that ship!”


Sarina grabbed Match as she ran past and carried him under her arm like a rugby ball as she ran for the teleport command, organising her team via comm on the way. Match just held on.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Looks like Hawle has been involved in a LOT more issues than we even can count. Hope we get some explanations of some soon.

[Welsh Halfwit]

44

Sarina Raven and her squad arrived in the primary teleport control room of the Raitchian craft and signalled for Chief Pangal to open the door and was a little nonplussed when the Lappinean simply stepped towards the door and it opened. There was pressure here, it seemed. No bodies though. The cruiser had an optimal crew of seventy-five, she knew, and there were signs in the lower decks that someone was there. They needed to find them. But, first, they needed to get to engineering and stop the ship. Maze Hardy took the lead and spoke simply. <“The new automatic systems must have cut in,”> she told them, <“Hence it transitioning to normal speeds since it’s in a system.”>

“So it’ll stop itself,” Sarina asked.

<“Probably in the next update,”> the pilot replied, <“I don’t think we want to find out.”>

<“I’d rather not,”> Match agreed, scanning to see if he could get better readings from in here.

<“Engineering’s this way,”> Katara told them, taking over the lead from Hardy. She kept going, past doorways and offices, break rooms and lifts, until she reached her destination. Gilly took over a computer interface and started work as Katara started trying to work out how to put the brakes on. <“I’m gonna need to disconnect the main drive,”> she guessed, <“then engage the reversal thrust rockets to stop our forward motion. Suggest someone try the internal comm and see if there’s any engineers still aboard. Because I’ll need someone who knows this engine to get it done before the nick of time.”>

Raven knew the truth of that so she interfaced her suit with the ship comm system and put herself on shipwide. “This is Commander Raven of the U.S.C. Frigate ‘Loper’ to anyone who can hear me. I would speak with a senior Officer. We are in engineering, attempting to shut the drive off. Assistance would be useful.”


Seconds passed, almost a moment, before a hesitating male voice came over the rooms comm system. <“Th...this is sub-lieutenant Patchway,”> it said. <“Have...have they really gone? The, uh… Dart things?”>

Sarina rolled her eyes and imagined the others in her group doing the same. “Yes, Sub-Lieutenant, they are. Are you trapped down there or can you open the door? We need to stop this ship.”

This time the voice had a tone of horror about it. <“Is there no-one left up there?”>

Gilly advised that the hatchway bulkheads were sealed. She entered several codes to unlock a couple of the safe ones.


Two minutes later, a small handful of Raitchians edged their way into engineering, Pangal and her guard covering the others with an energy barrier in case until one saluted Raven. She turned her suit’s speaker on, as did Katara. “So, you’re Patchway,” she asked as Katara began dominating the Raitchians to her will and sending them to accomplish things.


Patchway explained that, not long after leaving Dawnnica on the new route they’d been given by Raicarra local, they’d seen one of the dart things and the Captain had changed course to follow it. Patchway had been off duty and resting when the alarm had sounded and people had, apparently, started vanishing from the upper decks. The Captain had put the shields up but there were still people vanishing. He could hear all about it over the comms and a look on the monitor had shown two of the dart things, taking fire and firing. Science Officer Taylor had shouted something about no-one being lost from the lower decks and the Captain ordering the lower decks sealed below where the new alloy had been used. Then communications had been lost with the bridge. Sarina wasn’t sure she believed this Raitchian’s tale. By his own admission, he’d made no attempt to get to stations and assist but she had room in her for doubt. He could have been scared. But she decided she needed to get to the bridge and see what was working up there.

<“Depends if we can close off the access passage,”> Match reminded her. <“You might want to update the Loper?”>

“Best with ship to ship,” Sarina stated, only lying a little as ship to ship could be established from here. She turned back to Patchway. “How long were you down there,” she asked, ‘Afraid to move’, she thought.

“It seemed like a day,” he admitted. “No-one knew how to access the command codes.” He sighed. “I.T. is near the bridge,” he continued. What… what’s happened up there?”


Gilly showed him, having tapped into the camera feed for the deck. Padds and cups floated on the back wall of the bridge, held in place by the forward inertia of the bridge after the atmosphere had escaped through the shattered hull. Sarina was, once again, thankful that the Monta and Kayston constructed ‘Loper’ and the other ships in her class had been built with multiple cameras transmitting images to the bridge that was three decks down and well back from the forward hull. Raicarra still insisted on the old, naval, way and they’d paid for it. Patchway looked on in dismay. “Chapwick,” he said softly. “Packer. Utraya. Swiddin…” He closed his eyes. “All gone?”

Raven clamped a suited hand on his shoulder. “Yea, I’m sorry. I…” She paused. “Utraya?”

“Yeah,” he said sadly. “Our Captain. He was the one who engaged the lockdown.”

<“I see it now,”> Match said over the comms so the Raitchian crew couldn’t hear. He was looking over schematics. <“It’s a variation of their stealth technology. It’s been incorporated into some of the hull, possibly to reduce costs somehow. It’s nowhere near as thick as the normal plates and… Why didn’t they coat the whole ship?”>

Gilly put in the answer to that. <“They were running science tests on it,”> she said. <“They wanted to know if it was efficient so they had senior members of their science teams on board and only half coated the ship so they could find out if it worked or not. Then they got the message about the Professor’s tests – according to the communiques, anyhow, so came out to the patch straight away.”> She shrugged. <“They had the scientists.”>

It made sense, Sarina thought. It wasn’t what she said though, as Patchway cried. “Solomon Utraya?”

Patchway nodded.

Sarina set her face to grim. Hawle wasn’t going to like this.

[Amazee Dayzee]

You know I don't think I have ever seen Hawle annoyed or angry. Or maybe I have and he does a very good job at covering it up.

[Welsh Halfwit]

45

Hawle had his feet on the floor in his office and was keeping quiet as he turned a message chit over in his hand and tapped it on the table with each turn. It was something he’d hoped never to need, an emergency message that was sealed to outside sources. An ultra priority package that could only be sent from certain locations, mainly U.S.C. bases. He’d never wanted to send one because it meant he wasn’t in a position to send the message himself. In the last hour, he’d thought up his own plans and revised them after Salara had advised him that she recognised the element Match had identified. Apparently they called it Carridia and her people used it in their shipmaking as it was reliable and durable and one of the shipyards was roughly two days flight away. They used it to coat the hull, apparently. Which had got Match exclaiming ‘it’s LIQUID’ at such an extreme volume that everyone bar Dawton winced. He’d noticed Sarah wincing. That was intriguing. She’d given him something of an idea. And it did explain why their ship hadn’t been of interest to the Patreeve. They’d asked about how they could scan properly through the material on the Avian ship and she’d replied that they’d made theirs so it could be scanned through. Match had gotten back to work then, with Professor Caltaya joining him and they’d quickly come up with an unproven theory, based on Match’s scans of a few days ago, that they would have had trouble teleporting through. Salara joined them and they pointed to the protonic feed. It was way too high and would interfere with the targetting scanners unless there was a teleport pad sending and receiving. Hawle had understood about half of it so Match had put it simply. “The beams wont get through. They can’t hit the target.”

“Right,” he’d said before allowing Stikka the bridge and retreating to his room to plot.


First he’d called Salara in and asked her to get him all the information she could about where they were storing the Carrida liquid. She’d asked what it was about and he’d replied that she really didn’t want to know just yet. After she’d left, he’d consulted with Katara over the comm over just how long it would take her teams, including maintenance, to do a special artistic order and paint the outer hull. Her verbal response was three days. The physical response he could hear through the comm as she hit something was exactly why he’d used the comm. Now he was waiting on the Raitchian.


The figure knocked hesitantly on the door and he replied that the door should open to allow the guest in. The door opened to reveal Patchway with a guard. The Raitchian stepped in with utmost care and thanked him for the rescue.

“Think nothing of it,” Hawle replied, meaning every word. “Couldn’t have you crashing into our science experiment, could we?”

“I, er…” the Raitchian clearly looked confused at this response.

“Sorry,” Hawle cut in. “I’m not in the best of moods right now. I went to Command college with Solomon Utraya. He’s a good friend, even after he left the Council to work for Raicarra. Now I find this. I’m annoyed.”

“Sir, I understand. What are you going to do?”

Hawle replied simply. “I’m going to go after them. I think we know where they’re based. Our weapons and shields are upgraded to deal with these things. We’ve met them once or twice before.” He noted the confused look on the Sub-Lieutenant’s face. “I’m not surprised the seniors in your organisation didn’t tell you. We encountered one on the way back from Varkonia a few years back. The Loper, the Fallir and the Bellaphron barely stopped the thing. It seemed to be more interested in the minerals we were attempting to mine than in us. Probably the reason it let us go after chasing it off. A year later, one was caught on the edge of U.S.C. territory. It took FOUR ships, including a pirate ship, to drive the thing off. Now there’s this. Not to mention the fact that we’ve already done active fire ‘testing’ in battle and there’s a historical case we came across. These things have become an intolerable threat now. The U.S.C. HAS to respond.”

Parkway clipped his heels together. “We stand ready to assist!”

“But I don’t want you to,” Hawle told him. Patchway sagged and looked ready to protest but Hawle held a hand up. “Your ship’s lost half it’s crew and it’s badly damaged, Parkway. You’re simply in no condition to fight. When they set up the bridge links in Engineering, I need you to head straight to Micanna. Get this,” he said, holding up the chit, “to the U.S.C. there. It has everything we know on these things and the fact that we may need every ship we have available. After we leave here, we’re going to an Avian planet some two days away. We’re after something they have. Then we’ll come back here, where the burgeoning radiation from the reborn star will, hopefully, keep us off the Patreeve’s ‘must visit’ list. A few days after, we’ll be ready to head for the Patreeve planet we know about. These things also kidnap people, Parkway. Your crew could well still be alive.”


“No,” Havakar said simply, “there are reasons, Captain, that state I am not setting foot on that ship.”

“I cannot guarantee your safety if you…”

“I have never asked for that assurance, Commander,” she snapped. “And, if I had, I would never accept it in this situation. You know there are legends of Ghost Ships in all cultures?”

“I am aware. Space often brings such things up. Legends and fears.”

“Twelve years ago, a Monta cruiser turned up as part of a Canine colonial militia. No-one quite knew how or why and the files had been deleted but it was suspected it was the Krakken. I knew people aboard that ship. I now have a possibility I might see them alive. Now, if you’re keeping that THIEF on board – I notice you’ve not ordered the street thug off – then I’m staying on board too. There may be Celicans at risk.”

“Well,” Hawle replied, knowing he had no authority to order her anyhow, “that’s me told. Had to try, you understand?”

“Perfectly, Commander,” she glared, arms crossed.


“So,” Raven asked as the battered ship moved off, back the way she’d came from, with her tail between her legs, “why HAVE you kept the criminal?”

“Well, when we reach this planet,” Hawle advised, “we’re going to ask if we can use this special paint. They say yes? Great. They say no? We’re going to nick it.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I honestly would just rather have Hawle nick it because it would be funny. But I know that isn't gonna happen as he has to try the diplomatic route first.

Also, check your PMs. I got an important question for you.

[Welsh Halfwit]

The Jondahl crystal thing was something from waaaaaayyy back in the stories, back when I only had a word processor. That's how far back.

46


She remembered visiting the location once, a year or so back. She’d been acting as the adjunct for Solbrea back then, his associate as he examined the process, flew the halls and passages. Seen the Emerald green head of the staff manager for the first time. She swallowed at the memory and found she could even remember the scent of the dust in his wings as he wheeled around her, sometimes following her and sometimes letting her follow him in a courtship dance that she would have reciprocated if she’d not been secretly plotting against them and… “I’d rather not relive this memory,” she told Harvey as he held the back of her head.

“You and me both,” Harvey told her, using his limited telepathy to help her remember as much detail about the place as she could, helping her make as close to an accurate drawing of the installation. “It’s weird being in here. But I can only help you remember what happened. A few others might be able to remove ‘characters’ but I only have limited powers.”

“I’d thought Mind Walkers were a total myth,” she said, pencilling in the facility details as best as her enhanced memory could.

“Well, not total,” Harvey said, licking his teeth as he kept his eyes closed in concentration. “My people have always been a bit ‘receptive’ to mental abilities. Which was a problem until a ship called the Fauntleroy destroyed a controlling crystal that was mentally conditioning everyone. No-one else got telepathic abilities so mine are probably connected with what I did that day.”

Salara cackled her chuckle as her arm feathers rustled and pushed the pencil around the paper, almost automatically. “What did you do?”

“Well,” he confessed, “I was a mere babe in the walker back then and we were close enough to the crystal that pieces of it landed close by. Very close by. The thing wasn’t primed for the infant brain so, whilst my mother was stunned, confused and reeling from being freed from years of subtle control? I found a tiny sliver of the thing on the floor and, apparently, reckoned it would fit up my left nostril.” He chuckled softly. “Two days later extremely befuddled Doctors removed it.”

“I can’t fit anything much up my nostril,” Salara replied, indicating the tiny holes to the back of her beak.

“You also can’t get your mind of that male,” Harvey reminded her, “you’ve drawn his perch room.”

“Aviary,” she commented, removing the diagram and getting back on with the drawing.


Jaqui wanted to clean her ears out but had neither the tools nor the time to do it so she just stared at Commander Hawle, her left ear flopping at the halfway point, as she silently implored him to repeat what he’d just said. For the record. “You want him to what?”

“I want Marius to be ready to assist in affecting an entry so we can steal some magical paint that will protect this ship from the Patreeve beaming technology,” Hawle repeated.

“I DID hear you correctly,” Jaqui said sharply. “Have you given up all pretence of diplomacy? Do you kno how many laws you’d probably be breaking by doing any of this?”

“The internal politics of this species is currently up in the air, Jaqui,” Hawle replied evenly. “And I get your objections, I really do. That’s why I plan to ask them for it first. I plan to tell them the truth about why we need it and what we plan to do with it. It could open up a whole new avenue of revenue for them, selling a paint that can make a ship near teleport proof without the expensive plates Raicarra are using. But we’re going to be heading after the Patreeve, Jaqui. We can’t not respond any more. It’s them we need to deal with. Either to wage peace or show we can hurt them if they need to be shown. In short?” He sighed. “We need that paint and fast. So we have to take it if they won’t give. Harvey’s helping Salara recall what she knows of the lay out so Marius will need to consult on the fundamentals of getting in and out.”

“I don’t like it. It’s a step in the wrong direction,” Jaqui grumbled.


“I’m not that happy about it myself,” Hawle admitted, “but, if I have to misstep to save people then I’ll happily trip over my own feet. How’s about you?”

“The good of the many,” she agreed, with some reluctance.

“Don’t I get some say in this,” Marius asked from his bedroom as the pair talked in his living room.

“Depends which one of us you’re agreeing with,” Hawle told him.

“I don’t like the idea of you lot compromising your principles,” he said, sitting opposite Hawle on the sofa and crossing his legs so Hawle could see one of the ankle monitors clearly. “That ain’t what cops do. Not the good ones anyhow. But I’m also seein’ why yer doin’ it. You think these things have been catching people? Keeping them trapped?” Hawle nodded. “Then I need t’assist with a prison break.” A sly grin spread across his face. “Gotta put my hand in, don’t I? Dunno if’n I can go on the trip,” he added, indicating the ankle tag, “but I can help do quick training for your team, Jaqui. Run ‘em through their paces?”

“It won’t just be security on the operation,” Hawle remarked. Marius held up a finger and Hawle wondered why he never got on well with Canines called Marius. “What?”

“Unless the room’s sealed against teleport you’re just going to need fighters going in. That ain’t sciences or Medical and Command needs to keep a step back. It’ll primarily be holding the room whilst someone tags the paint and teleports it. For that you need thugs and fighters.”

“I’m pretty sure I object to the description,” Jaqui contended, “but I get the idea. Soon as Harvey gets the details and programs the simulation room, we’ll run through the scenarios.”

“Speaking of,” Hawle said as his comm beeped. He listened to the audio message the still youthful Squirrel had sent. “He’s programming now. Sketches are available. He says don’t look at page three. Salara got distracted.”


He left the pair making their plans and decided to drop in on Una and Havakar as they engaged in their daily conversation. He needed to get them ready for their part in this. The part he’d laid out for Jaqui. The diplomatic half, of course. He’d keep them out of the other half.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Something tells me if things go wrong Jaqui is gonna shove something in Hawle's face or make sure he trips and face plants in a mud. Either way I think it will be very enjoyable.

[Welsh Halfwit]

47


The Kestalan world lay below them, a shining grey and blue orb around a yellowing sun and the light glinted off the shuttle as it arced towards the surface, where the colonial flight and their leader were waiting for the strangers from outer space to walk beneath them. Hawle wondered if he should have brought an umbrella. He had Havakar, her guard, Colleen, Chadwick as his slighty barmy pilot (and he wondered if that was a prerequisite for the job) and a pair of guards Jaqui had assigned who’d carry firearms but holstered. He was keeping Salara on the ship for now, being as how they might want to arrest her if the Government on her homeworld had prevailed.


With unboring efficiency, Chadwick twisted the shuttle around a satellite and down towards the planet as Hawle chastised him for it. He accepted it magnanimously as he knew he was only doing it because there was a president on board and he probably shouldn’t have done it on the way to a first contact mission. He’d remember that on the way back up as they arrowed through the outer atmosphere. The computer locked onto the co-ordinates that’d been given for a landing and assisted Chadwick in zeroing in on the landing zone. He had to slow for the last several thousand feet as there were quite a lot of people flying around, something the Mican was a bit jealous about, having broken several bones trying to fly off the roof when he was younger. Getting into piloting was a step towards rocket packs and anti-gravity belts, he hoped as he tried to avoid the extra-terrestrial pigeon in the intake scenario and slid in on the landing pad.


Hawle looked out and wondered if this was what Postain had gone through the first time on Karrin. An entire flock was there, Kestalets and all. He chuckled to himself as he realised he owed Colleen fifty credits as she put the toy version of the Loper into his hands. There were guards here but most of them seemed to be workers and he noticed there were females with them. A positive step. He couldn’t help but notice how wide-eyed everyone was as they walked the hard ground towards the leader. He offered a hand in friendship and almost dropped the toy. Havakar glared at the back of his head. He was sure of that. “I am Commander Hawle of the United Security Council ship ‘Loper’,” he said grandly. “Uh, Commander is roughly equivalent to.. Hrakar?”

The Avian inclined his head. “Thank you,” he said lightly. “I am Hrona Turval. Hrona basically translates as ‘he who is in total charge?”

Hawle laughed. “Point taken. Behind me are Junior Ambassador Colleen Una, permanently attached to my ship and Hannabelle Havakar, retired President – Hrona, if you will – of one of our colonial worlds.”

“Honoured,” he replied, having noted whom Hawle meant by the fact he’d pointed to them in turn before introducing the guards. He stepped over to Havakar and bowed before her, a gesture Salara had told her was to indicate respect in a formal setting. At Hawle’s instigation she returned the bow. “You are not part of his crew,” the Hrona asked.

“I am not,” she replied tightly. “At the start of this voyage they happened to be in place to save me when someone attempted to kill me.”

“Why is he carrying a toy,” the Hrona asked coyly. Havakar explained the tradition and he blinked at her in surprise but then twisted his head slightly and stepped to one of his guards. The guard thrust himself into the air and landed next to a trio of Avians of all ages a little distance away. He offered his hand to one and the youngster took it and walked with him, back to where Hawle was waiting. Hawle knelt and offered the toy to the child as Hawle spoke of the gesture of friendship, trying to overcome the waves of uncertainty he could feel radiating from her. With a little prompting from the guard, who Hawle took to be the father of the girl, the girl took the toy and, haltingly, thanked Hawle for the gift before the pair headed back for the others in the family. “Well,” Turval said, “that appears to be the official part out of the way. Welcome to Dirvonal. I can understand the need for the guards, considering events when you left Schimaka.” He stepped towards Hawle again. “It was something that was going to happen sooner or later,” he told the crowd grandly. “the homeworld had much to learn from colonies like ours but they chose to learn things the hard way.” Hawle noted that he’d not said which side had won. Nor had he shown there was true equanimity here. Proceed with caution, he told himself before they moved inside, off the hot street, to the cooly built offices.


“This isn’t much of a world to visit, Hrakar Hawle,” the Hrora told him, sipping from a drinking bowl. “So, how come you are here?”

“You have something I need,” Hawle confided and he laid out all that had gone on and what they had discovered.” Hawle noticed the Hrora clench his talons at the mention of the Patreeve and the smile of acknowledgement as he worked out what Hawle was after. “I need some of the paint,” Hawle concluded.

“Then you shall have it,” he replied. “It’s quite a way to test it...”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Despite everything that goes on, you can always count on Hawle to try to be friendly and open with people.

It makes me worried that he only dated Elena because she kissed him and he was too polite to say he wasn't interested. O_O

Also once again, check your notes and message me please.

[Welsh Halfwit]

And things continue. An upcoming episode is more of a 'touchbase' as characters from another story pop in for a quick visit. But I'll leave it as a surprise as to who...

48

Jaqui looked at her comm in annoyance as her team worked on the plan drawn up by Salara and Marius, with Teplar sealing the door as Palliker dealt with the security cameras and Tallow and Sidley took the locals in hand. It had been simple. It had been bloodless. It had been two days of training and now there was this. It was, if she was being honest, one outcome she’d never expected. She sighed. And reached out for the microphone so she could tell them to stop but then she hesitated. This was still educational. Of course the simulation was now educational in that she was getting an inkling into how the other side operated here. She’d get clues on how to counteract such an operation, perhaps? So she pulled her hand back before looking over to Salara, in the corner of the observation deck. “Good news,” she told her. “We don’t need to go through with any of this. They asked the colony President if they could have the paint and he said yes.”

Salara cocked her head. “This surprises you, hmm?”

“A little, yes.”

“Why so?” Salara spread an arm wide, stretching out her wing by instinct. “If you controlled the production of a material that you just found out MIGHT help defeat one of your worst enemies but you don’t really know..?”

Jaqui nodded, getting it. “You’d want to test it. Then someone from a nearby sector of space pops up and says ‘we’ll test it’…”

“Gets you a no harm sale which, if it’s successful, will get you a whole new market to sell to. So why should they object?” Jaqui was sure she could see the edge of the beak twitch upwards as Salara folded her arm back down.

“You OK, being confined on the ship?”

“It’s… difficult,” Salara confessed. “But I can handle it. I once spent an entire month on one of our smaller ships. Can’t fly in those. The gravity plates don’t work if you’re not on or next to the floor and the ship IS travelling at speed…”

“Ah,” Jaqui said, jumping. “We use a different system but I still don’t think you should fly down the passages.”

“My wings wouldn’t fit. So gravity’s the word?”

“Well, when translated into standard it is,” Jaqui watched the Kestalan practice hopping in the ships gravity.


The first cargo shuttle containing the shining liquid arrived on Jarra’s deck and he grabbed his mechanics to offload the stuff using the gravity trolleys so Match and Pangal could inspect them. The Feline was in his element, directing people where to take things for safe storage and, generally, helping out. He even operated one of the trolleys himself as he knew he couldn’t order them to do something he hadn’t done himself. They weren’t using the teleporter to bring the stuff up as they didn’t want to show too much new tech to the Birdies – why did he want to try and catch one of them – and then there was the far more practical reason. That they didn’t know if the fluid would react well to teleporting. They might need to do a point to point with one of the containers later. Both points being outside the ship. “This lot confirmed,” he asked Match. The Rodentian checked the scan analysis he’d just carried out and assented for him to take it to storage bay one. Otherwise known as next door.


Katara and the new Celican were waiting in there and the Silver Vixen directed him to offload the stock in the corner, next to the rest of the stuff and directed Sarafina to assist him. “I can move tins of paint, miss,” he said as Sarafina added her strength to his to move the barrel off the landed loader.

“Then why,” Sarafina asked as she pulled next to the smelly older cat, “are we both struggling?”

“Watch your feet,” he replied testily as they managed to get the barrel over the edge and it landed with a clunk. “We’re making it… think it’s a sport.” Between the two of them they got it into place and started moving the next one off as other deckhands cleared other lifters. They’d been given a hundred of these things and each lifter could take ten at maximum so there were twelve loads being lifted as Jarra wasn’t willing to push them. “You’re the… President’s daughter,” he asked breathlessly.

Sarafina grimaced and showed off her slight muscles as they pulled, her lip pulling back to show her back teeth as they strained. “That’s… not all I am,” she declared through her teeth as the barrel moved.


For her part Katara and the Maintenance sub chief, a Corgan called Pember, were discussing the painting of the ship and how many coats it would need. “It should dry quickly on the hull,” the multi coloured Canine told her before putting a finger to his muzzle. “Although I don’t know what we’ll do if it doesn’t.”

“Rub Hawle’s face in it,” Katara joked. “Muck never seems to stick to him so it should be an interesting sight. Right,” she declared, “it’s our turn. Come on.” So saying, she led the sub head out to the shuttle bay, hoping they’d loaded up the next lifter.


Hawle lay on his bed. It had been a day or so. And he had to think on what to tell Salara. The colony had heard nothing from her world. Not a peep. Or squawk. Whoever was winning, they’d not managed to restore communications yet. When it came to interplanetary empires and colonies, a loss of communications over several days really didn’t bode well. But he’d wait until she asked.
Now he had the next thing to work out. Even with the new weapons and shields and the paint, could he really take the ship up against an unknown number of the Patreeve ships? Would he be better off calling it off and abandoning the people they’d captured so he could save his own crew and his own ship? Perhaps the time had come to get the knowledge back to the Council. To take what they had and test it under… He had to answer that comm. Chappers was calling. Chappers, the questioned mentally. She never commed… “Chappers,” he asked. “What’s up?”

<“Nothing much, sir,”> the Human replied brightly. <“Just thought you’d like to know I had to plot a minor course correction on our way back to the rendezvous point.”>

“Why?”

<“Because the radiation from the reborn star would kill us in half an hour if we parked there, sir. Not to mention the heat.”>

Hawle found his despondency gone now, in the thrill of success. “Thanks, Chappers,” he told her. “Someone go tell Caltaya.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

So Hawle was desperate when it looked like the mission wouldn't go through but now feels better as he knows if they don't leave the reborn Sun in a half-hour the radiation will kill them. Yeah that kind of tracks.

[Welsh Halfwit]

She's reminding him that they've been successful.

[Welsh Halfwit]

49


They were parked some three million kilometres further out from the reignited star, angled towards home rather than where they were planning to go. Dawton was keeping his ears out for signals from home as the maintenance teams and engineers did their best to repaint the hull of the ship. Or, as Edelmar Polva thought of it as he led maintenance squad four in painting the officers quarters, slapping a finish on. He had the Micans Chidders and Abernethy along with Rayseed the Lappinean. They were decked out in zero G suits with paint tanks and brush sprayers that squirted the paint onto the hull before the brush spread it. It was hard work. Patient and long work. Muscles were straining as they worked, trying to stop themselves stepping on areas they’d just painted. “You’ll never catch command doing things like this,” Edelmar told his crew. “They don’t like doing the hard work. They much prefer sitting in chairs and pushing buttons; getting us all into trouble whenever they do anything.”

<“Yeah,”> Chidders remarked, his tone light and laughing as he sprayed more paint, <“they’d be afraid of chipping their claws and getting dirt on their suits.”>

<“Oh, come on,”> Abernethy countered, <“we need command. Who else is going to make the easy choices, tell us where we need to go and organise rebellions when we get there?”>

“Mind you, Stikka’s great. You can talk to him about anything.”

<“Particularly ‘Our IX lives’”> Chidders added.

“What do you think, Rayseed,” Polva asked straight.


There was no response from the Lappinean at first as he worked on applying the covering to an officer’s quarters. Then Polva and the others heard him chuckle and it didn’t sound like Rawle Rayseed. <“I think he commed you immediately I left him in Cedars, yes,”> Hawle asked. <“I did ask him not to. I’ll have to have a word with him about that.”>

“Hah,” Edelmar told him. “We would have guessed anyway, sir,”

<“You’re not whistling,”> Abernethy put in, stepping over a digital window monitor. He knelt and attached a clear sheet to it, covering the lens before he stood up and sprayed, covering the sheet with paint before brushing it over a large area. <“He was whistling for about an hour straight before lunch. Not a peep after.”>

<“So you’re saying I’m not… irritating enough,”> Hawle asked.

“What are you doing out here, sir,” Polva asked, being polite now. “Not that we don’t appreciate it…”

<“A Command Officer should never order someone to do something without being willing to do it themselves. Chipped claws or no, eh, Abernethy?”>

<“That was Chidders said that,”> Abernethy complained, leading to a complaint of his own from Chidders, mentioning being dropped in it.

Hawle took a breath. <“There is,”> he added, <“another reason for all of this. A decision needs to be made. This one I can’t just ask for opinions from the Command deck. It’s probably the biggest choice of my career. I need front line opinions on it.”>

“And you’ll have it, Commander,” Polva assured, before the others contributed any possible rebuttal. So he laid it out for them. How this paint was, seemingly, resistant to the Darts teleport beam and they all muttered that they knew about the darts. Well, of course they did. They’d encountered one a week or so back. Hawle told them about the piracy and attacks over hundreds of years and the possibility of survivors and how they could rescue them because they knew where they were – probably – being held but, of course, it would be difficult. It would be dangerous. They could easily be killed if they gave up this chance but these things were encroaching more and more on Council space and, if Havakar was to be believed, had taken crew from inside Council space.

“You’re testing the weapons this time, yeah?”

<“Absolutely,”> Hawle replied vehemently. <“We couldn’t before because we were on a timeframe set by the President of the Council. We were supposed to test the weapons on the way back. Now,”> he added, moving to the next section to be painted, <“we’ll be picking target asteroids as soon as we’re done here and whilst we’re waiting for our back up.”>

“Are they going to have paint? And weapons and shields?”

<“Not the weapons, no. Shields work as normal and we’ll have enough paint for the back up numbers I think we’ll be getting.”>

They consulted. Abernethy wanted to run and no-one could blame him. Running made sense although Chidders contradicted him when he said that it wasn’t their fight. They knew about it. These things could come for colonies or ships. Loved ones, even. Chidders stated he hated it but they needed to know if the weapons could ever be used without blowing holes in the ship AND if they could damage the enemy. You didn’t fight a war with toy weapons, he’d said. Hawle supposed he had something at that although he hoped war wasn’t coming. Sometimes you needed to show you could fight to get an enemy to back down. Polva pointed out Hawle had missed a bit and the Captain moved carefully to cover it. Polva kept his thoughts to himself as they discussed things. He needed to keep his mind on the job. If he let his thoughts drift, they’d come to Sarah and how he didn’t want her or their pup in danger if he could at all avoid it. He wanted her safe. He wanted her not to be here. But he also knew that he could never make that choice for her. He never had the right. And she’d never ask to leave the ship. She’d never ask to leave her best friends, he knew. So he said little. “It’s not a choice you want to make, is it,” he asked.

<“It’s not a choice I can afford to get wrong,”> Hawle told them. <“Even getting it right could easily mean getting it wrong.”>

<“I apologise for insinuating you made easy choices,”> Abernethy said, peeling the sheet from the window feed lens so it was cleared up. <“Run, hide, confront. There’s good reasons for all of them. And I wouldn’t want to choose. Personally, I want to live but I’m not sure I’d be happy to do it if we leave people trapped but do we help them by dying?”>

<“No,”> Chidders said firmly. <“It benefits no-one if we fail to get the information back to people who can make use of it! My thoughts? We test the weapons and move for allies if no-one turns up in… a week? Perhaps the Avians?”>

“I think they’re too busy fighting themselves,” Polva remarked. “If no-one turns up, we’ll be on our own. I suggest we approach carefully. We don’t give up. We don’t abandon people to incarceration where it’s not deserved. Even if the Council can’t assist, we don’t turn our back. Do we?”

The others agreed, slightly reluctantly.

“Now, Captain, that we’ve seen you ‘pitch in’, can you do us a favour?”

<“Name it, Polva.”>

“Change back to Rayseed as soon as you can? Your painting’s horrible.”

Hawle chuckled and agreed it was fair enough.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Sorry about misinterpreting what Hawle's nervousness was about int he previous chapter as I kind of sped through it since I was going to work and running late at the time. That is what I get for trying to cram it all in before I left. But still you do have to admit Hawle probably salivates at the thought of jumping into dangerous situations.

Also leave it to Hawle to try to impersonate someone else while doing manual labor. I guess he wants to show that he is someone who doesn't sit around all day leaving others to do the work. I can buy that his painting SUCKS though.

[Welsh Halfwit]

50


A day out and drying paint saw the Loper close on a small field of asteroids hanging it the deepest part of space and Caltaya on the science console on the bridge, having replaced a somewhat knackered Match after a twenty hour shift he’d insisted on pulling. The Professor had asked if he could fill in so he could actually be doing something. Hawle hadn’t seen the problem as, from his point of view, this whole mission was so far off the reservation of what they’d actually been told it was, having a civilian take position on the bridge was a nothing burger. Plus Match had managed to drop a coffee on the carpet, which a maintenance operative was currently trying to dry out now. It was a difficult job, it seemed and Hawle had put Raven on alert as it was known this non-commissioned had a cousin on Micanna. He doubted it but why was it taking so long to save a carpet?


“Cannons at ten percent,” Gunnery Officer Tillock reported, watching a display of an asteroid on his targetting screen. The visual tracked it as it moved slowly across the screen, keeping it front and centre, adjusting the angle of the front mounted weapons automatically. Katara was monitoring from down in Engineering, he knew. Whereas he was dealing mostly with the targetting and shooting and making sure the visual sensors were tied in accurately as all the other sensors linked up with them, Katara was watching the power feeds and the flow to make sure he didn’t overload the systems again.

“And we’ve made sure there’s no ancient civilisation remnants on that asteroid,” Hawle asked. “No precious minerals? No ruins? No ancient gods using their powers to live like Humans on an impossible garden who could wipe us from existence with a thought?” He sensed everyone looking at him as he finished the line. “What,” he asked. “I’ve seen it in Science Fiction, which often leads to Science fact.”

“There’s not even a hint of any of that nonsense,” Caltaya contributed. He knew what Hawle was up to. It was something he sometimes did himself, in lectures. Keep things light and people learned more at times. When possible, use a bad joke to lighten tense situations. The only thing he was questioning was if Hawle was using that technique or if all his jokes were bad. It amounted to nothing. At least the Rabbit didn’t think he was the smartest person in the room, like many Commanding Officers did. This one had made trips to engineering and sciences during the build up, asking questions and taking advice from the department heads who knew more than he did. “I believe you are clear to fire your guns.”

“I shall take that under advisement, Professor,” Hawle replied, twisting in his chair, “and my advice to you, Kirkin Tillock, is to fire.”

“Aye sir, Cap’n Profess’r,” the Mican replied, pressing the firing stud.

“Energy output spiking,” Caltaya reported. “Well within operating tolerances.”


The twin charges of energy, tinted green on the viewers, sparkled across space towards their target and Hawle thought on the past. In a way, these cannons were based on a magnetic plasma cannon weapon of decades past that had several unfortunate drawbacks. Like needing special systems for the power flow and needing enough charge that they could only be used once every two minutes or so or there’d be no power left for things like shields, weapons, gravity plating and life support. So Monta, Fawren, Raicarra and a dozen other weapons component manufacturers had spent decades working on streamlining, miniaturizing and refining the system. They’d been getting close but then things like recessions happened and things had gone on the back foot until this Dart thing, the Star Council out past Karrin and a dozen other things had happened to show the U.S.C. needed to up the firepower capability of its’ ships in the name of peace. As in a Canine wouldn’t want to start a fight with anything that can one punch an Equinna so it might find it easier to just sit down and talk about how nice the other guy looks and appreciate it’s muscles and the fact it didn’t just punch you in the face. Peace through $&!^kicking, Sarah had called it. She wasn’t wrong.


Caltaya watched as the two bolts hit home and did with one hit what the plasma cannons would need three to do. The asteroid cracked across its’ mantle, an earthquake in miniature. The systems showed that the Silver Vixen’s distribution of the power flow was minimizing the stress on the systems quite well. She was an intelligent one, this Vixen. Like the President. He’d gotten on well with her at the dinner but he’d kind of wished her bodyguard hadn’t been there as it was patently obvious that the two of them were tangling tails in the night. It wasn’t often the guest of honour felt like a… what was it Dawton had called that green, hairy, fruit earlier… a Strawberry? No, a Gooseberry. A Gooseberry at his own ‘party’. Food was good and Sarafina had been charming. Had he been a lot younger he might have contemplated dating her but he was far too old. Shaking his head, he returned to the present and read off the damage statistics.


Hawle listened and advised Tillock to raise to thirty percent power. He knew Katara could hear him on the open line and was adjusting things down there as the power flow altered, the light flickering for a split second as the Mican fired his second shot. The feel was different this time. He felt the charge running through the ship, under the deckplates and carpeting as the system strained and flowedto compensate for the power surge. The bolts shot out again, striving for their targets. Tillock advised putting up the shields and Caltaya agreed, considering what a shot of one third the power had done to the asteroid. Hawle had to agree the idea had merit and authorised the energy barrier raised as soon as the shot was clear. That was another thing he’d not been fond of. As the shots used electromagnetic energy the shields, which used similar energy to deflect and absorb energy, had to be off for two seconds either side of each shot. It had been three but Katara had clearly been doing some tinkering following the disastrous first firings during the battle. He’d not engaged the shields this time because it was only a test firing of the weapons. Right now, though, he might well be about to… Yup. There it went. The asteroid cracked in two, each half repelling the other and exposing the core which they’d not been able to scan before. Well, not properly anyhow. They’d known it had a chemical compound that detonated. Propelling solid rock in all directions, including straight at the Loper, where it shimmered and shattered on the shields. Hawle asked Katara about the conduits. Strained, she said, but holding. She recommended not pushing the power past fifty percent. So, he’d replied, you think we can take fifty percent? He’d heard her groan as he asked Tillock and Caltaya to find a bigger rock...

[Amazee Dayzee]

Of course Hawle is going to push the limits of everything that he can to get maximum results. How have they not realized this by now?

[Welsh Halfwit]

Yes, that IS a Titan A.E. reference.

And now you know who's popping infor a quick visit.

51

“Do you think anyone’s coming, sir,” Jaqui asked as the Loper waited at the rendezvous point for back up. He wanted to get underway. To deal these things that occasionally interrupted his night’s sleep a thump on the nose. But he saw behind that. There was a challenge incoming from these things. It couldn’t be ignored any more. Especially as it seemed they’d been ignoring it for two hundred years. So they waited as arranged, in roughly the location they’d arranged, Caltaya monitoring his new sun. He’d already decided to call it Caltron, having rejected the suggestions of Match, Havakar and Dawton, the last of which had wanted to call it ‘Bob’. Hawle had managed to convince the Human sending the data burst to use the Professor’s idea and not his in the burst back to Talvary. He’d also sent his information on the paint and where to get it and the Patreeve ships with it. Just in case.

“Well, it’s still within the time frame, Jaqui,” he told her as she leaned on the back of his chair, her head between his ears, looking at the same view Hawle was. “But I doubt it.”

“Why not,” she asked. Hawle noted the others turning towards them. Sarah at the helm, Tillock at weapons. Match at sciences and Dawton on the comms.

“Well, we’ll probably get ONE ship,” Hawle admitted, steepling his fingers an concentration. “The Raicarra vessel. I’m gambling on them.”

Jaqui pulled back, Hawle shifting his ears back to the fully upright as he wondered ho Jaqui was still flexible enough to have done that when there was a small console behind him. But it mattered little. “Why,” she asked.

“Because anything like this will get caught in committee,” Hawle reminded her. “hat we’re actually talking about here is a pre-emptive strike against a race we’ve never actually attempted first contact with, without a declaration of war or an actual attack on a colony. Even if he wants to back us up, Henry Postlethwaite will need to get the backing of the full council for something like that. Then he’d need to pull the group together and designate a leader – which would be him or Postain – and then send them this way. It’ll take weeks if not months. I am firmly of the belief that, as soon as they delivered the message, the Raicarrans turned around.”

“Why,” Sarah asked.

“Sarah,” Hawle replied, “what would you do – when you’re not carrying – if someone punched Edelmar in the face?”

“I’d defend him, of course.”

“You’d hit the guy or girl that hit him. You’d seek immediate revenge. I spoke to Sub-Lieutenant Patchway before sending him to Micanna and I could see it in his face. He’s annoyed. He’s angry. He’s also too stupid to know he shouldn’t come back and, as soon as he works the fact that he’s all the back up we’re getting, he’ll return. How much of that paint do we have left anyhow,” he asked Match.

“I’d suggest we travel about thirty thousand kilometres to starboard,” Caltaya advised, still watching the screen in front of him. “Unless you want us to be hit by a solar flare.”

Sarah complied as Match answered that they had way more than enough for half a Raitchian cruiser and a Council frigate. He was getting it ready for dispersal when anyone arrived.

“Ahead of me again, Match,” Hawle asked amusedly.

“Aye,” he replied, “and watching out for headlights coming up behind me,” he said, in anticipation of Hawle’s rejoinder that that just enabled him to run him down in his car.

“It’ll be daytime,” Hawle warned.

“Good job Match’ll be on the pavement then, isn’t it,” Caltaya observed, before raising his eyes to the heaves. “I’m doing it now!”

“Fun is infectious, Professor,” Sarina contributed as Jaqui looked at a monitor. “Sooner or later we all have it.”

“You realise, of course, that all this new radiation is throwing our sensors out of whack? Long range is spotty at best.”

“I know, Jaqui,” Hawle advised her. “The Patreeve are roving all around. But there’s no sign they’ve been here. We know some places they’ve been and some places they’re not and, if we have trouble scanning out…”

“They might have trouble scanning in.” Jaqui finished. “But what if they come looking?”

Hawle stood up and turned to look at his friend and subordinate. “Then we perform a test on our new capabilities under battle conditions.”


Cedar Kirkwall could feel the tension in the room. Things were quiet, few people talking to each other over their food, just bolting it and getting back to work. Some had forgotten to even thank him as they’d left and he’d told his part time aide that it was the quiet before battle. Colleen had to agree as she inexpertly did the washing up of the re-usable plates and cutlery. “It’s not often they know combat’s inevitable without it being immediate, Cedar,” she said, putting a plate on the drainer. “There’s no immediate outlet for them. Or me. Which is why I’m here, doing this.”

“Hmm,” Cedar challenged, “I thought it was because you wanted to add to your Ph.D’s with one in kitchen work. You missed a bit on that plate, by the way.”

She took the plate back in hand and checked it over closely. She couldn’t see anything on the plate. She’d been so careful and… “You’re having me on, aren’t you,” she challenged.

“Yup,” Cedar replied, flipping a Okarrian Omelette for a Mican who was about ready to either burst into an outburst of anger or cry at the unfairness of life. He really didn’t want to find out which. “It’ll be there in two minutes, Kirrie,” he told the engineer. She was the last of the current swarm to descend on him and he felt he was going to need to take a hand in things.

“You’re a swine,” Colleen told him as he began plating the food up and got a selection of the toppings he knew she quite liked or had, at least, ordered twice in the past and put them on the side.

“Certainly,” he replied. “No, someone needs superchef. I’ll be back.”


He crossed the room to the table and placed the tray in front of her. “I didn’t ask for the toppings,” she challenged.

Cedar shrugged. “On the house.”

“Do I look like I need charity,” she challenged.

“No. Much like everyone else here, you look like you need cheering up. I’m a chef. I best know how to cheer people up through food. And being an ear to chat with. May I sit?”

“Free room,” she grumped, clearly wanting him to. So he did.


“That can’t be right,” Jaqui said, looking up from the scanner console. “I’m picking up two intermittent signals heading our way.”

“Two,” Hawle said with concern.

“One’s the Raicarran as you predicted. But the other..? It can’t be right.”

“Why?”

“It’s… the U.S.C. Savval?”

“Hawthorne,” Hawle queried, talking of his cousin.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I was wondering when we were gonna see Hawthorne again. I can't remember but did Hawle introduce his fiancee yet?

[Welsh Halfwit]

Oh, yeah. Hawthorne's been to dinner there several times.

52


“Hawthorne,” Aldair asked, stepping forward to hug his cousin as she arrived on the teleport pad. The pair embraced and enjoyed the feeling for the moment. “Is everything OK at home? Dale alright?”

He let Hawthorne go and she stepped back. “No, no, Dale’s fine,” she stated. “Everyone’s fine and safe. I even checked in on Elena. She says the date’s booked, by the way. You have a month… We’re out here because Sector Commander Postlethwaite told us to look into this paint you said you were going to get? Honestly, the Raitchians turning up was a bit of a surprise to me. We tried to persuade them to turn around but their Lieutenant Patchway refused to listen.”

“Figured he wouldn’t,” Hawle told her, walking to Cedars place for some real food for Hawthorne in place of replicated supplies. “He’s on a mission to rescue his Captain now,” he continued. “Captain Solomon Utraya,” he finished, opening the door for her.


“Hawthorne Plebar, as I live and breathe,” Cedar called, alerting Colleen to her presence. “My day has suddenly gotten brighter! Saybry Salad?”

“If you could,” Hawthorne commented with a slight smile. “How come you’re always here,” she asked. “Don’t you ever take time off?”

“Oh,” he replied, “all the time. I do have back up now. A trainee who handles most of the nighttime stuff that goes into the chillers.” He tapped a wall console and it pulled aside to reveal a glass fronted, revolving, chiller. “But I like being here for my customers. And I have a washer-upper.”

The ‘kitchen help’ flicked a towel at him before finishing drying her hands and stepping out. “Hello, Hawthorne.”

“Endangering the manicure,” Hawthorne asked cheekily.


“Herr,” Durness, Mican Chief Science Officer of the of the Savval said, after hearing Caltaya talk for a full half an hour on the torpedo they’d used and the chemical compounds he’d spent a dozen years perfecting. “So all you needed to complete that protein bath you were working on was adjust the neutrino flow and alter the chromosome match, heh?”

Zowaix looked between the pair of them and blinked as they sat at the conference table. “You realise, of course, that a protein bath is used for repairing bone and not..?”

Caltaya took a sip from the Wolven Brandy he’d brought along for such a meeting and coughed as he remembered how fiery it was. It felt like it was burning his tongue off. Zowaix, however, didn’t seem to be that affected by it, which had Caltaya envying him for his Brockian physiology. But, for now… “We know,” he said. “People get annoyed when we use language we have to explain – not you, by the way – so we find similes that roughly describe the situation.”

“And you’ve worked with..,” the Brockian asked, indicating the Mican as she chugged the Brandy back and asked for a refill.

“Herr, I may not look it, my dear,” Durness replied, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, “but I used to be a big mover and shaker in the science community. I know most of the ones who’re famous today. Taught a few of them, heh. Herr, I understand you’re a smart one, heh?”

“How do you drink that like that,” Zowaix asked of the Brandy.

“Herr, I once spent a year on Wolva,” she explained, putting a hand on his and shaking it slightly. “helping Wogar with some troubles he was having stabilizing enzymes, heh.”

Wogar, Zowaix knew, had been one of the Wolven main geneticists about two decades ago; one of the main scientists solving a genetic contagion affecting Wolven who’d mated with Celicans over the last hundred years or so. “Are you s#*ting me right now?”

“She never jokes about the people she name-drops,” Caltaya told him. “It should be noted that half the people she’s worked with are famous, like me,” he added, wiggling his eyeridges. “The other half are INFamous. And most of them are wanted.”


“I understand the orders you’ve been given, Colin,” Sarina told the Malamute Canine she could see on the screen, “but I also know that MY orders come from the Captain of THIS ship and, frankly, he outranks any of us here.

The Canine sighed and pushed Cheel down in her seat as she stood and waved to Sarah, who meekly fingerwaved and facepalmed at the effect. <“Sarina,”> he said, <“We were told to bring this back for analysis, not slather it all over the ship. I know they can still analyse it but...”>

“You have to get back for them to do that, Colin. Look at the Raicarran ship. Count their crew. Everyone who wasn’t in the protected areas was beamed off and captured and they came in on exactly the same route you took. It’s luck that the two of you didn’t encounter another, Lieutenant Dale. Besides,” she shrugged, “you’ll still be having a few barrels of the stuff to take for analysis. Grapevine says you’re getting quite good at that.”

<“Good at what,”> he challenged.

“Getting barrels of hoojar we don’t want to know about to places you can’t tell us about?”

<“You’re really saying this over an open channel?”>

“When Council ships fire on each other, rumours spread faster than cover ups,” Sarina told him, trying not to implicate Sarah in where she’d heard the rumour. Especially now she was pretty sure who’d told the Human.

<“I can neither confirm nor deny any such rumours, Commander,” Colin told her. <“And nor can any helm officers I might know.”> Sarina could hear the Raichian protest that she’d never said anything to the Commander. Which, she supposed, was true. <“I can say that, if the situation involving the item we can’t talk about ever came up again, we might be better prepared for it.”>

“Hmm,” Sarina mused. “we always react well to situations, don’t we? Pity we can never be prepared the first time. Our people will be done painting your ship soon.”

<“Hmm,”> Colin demurred. <“Suspicious that they suddenly turned up when Hawthorne was invited over to your ship for lunch.”> He cocked his head charmingly. <“Almost like he wanted her out of the way before they began?”>

“I can neither confirm nor deny that rumour, Colin. And you could have commed her?”

Colin looked shocked at the idea. <“And interrupt her lunch?”>


And Katara allowed Sarafina to help with the delegation of paint teams as the Raicarran ship accepted their help along with the Council.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Looks like being good with puns is a trait that all members of Hawle's family has. That is actually really interesting. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

53


Raven and Hawle watched from the bridge as the Savval headed back towards home, turning languidly so Cheel could, as she’d once said, show Sarah the most perfect butt in the sector. To the starboard side the Raicarran ship, which Parkway had called the ‘Silkway’, was being patched up by an extremely stressed Katara and her crews to a position where the bridge was serviceable at least so they could move the main operations from Engineering. Or, at least, some of them. Raven suspected that Patchway was fed up of dealing with the engineers. They’d certainly been a bit… fractious when she’d been over there. Behind them, Stikka walked onto the bridge, yawning after his eight hours of downloading and sleeping. The Racon looked out of the viewer and moaned after yawning. “Is that the Savval,” he moaned. “What’s she doing out here?”

“She came for a paint job, sleepyhead,” Hawle told him, half turning to ‘inspect’ the second officer, who was about to take the bridge for the late shift. Sarah pushed herself aside for her replacement, a Raitchian who inspected the seat and sat down, only to adjust the height and pull it under the console. “See you in the morning, Sarah,” he added. The slightly drowsy human held her back and shuffled past. Hawle gave Sarina a subtle elbow. “She’ll take about half an hour to get home if she’s not helped,” he whispered, getting the Burman’s ears twitching for a second before she worked it out.

“Permission to leave the bridge, sir,” Sarina asked, heading off as Stikka complained that they should have told him the clipper had been here.

“Granted. And I got them to download the last three weeks, Greyson. Gilly and Harvey are checking the recordings for infections now.”

Stikka looked crestfallen at that revelation. “They’ll know what happens before I do,” he wailed.


“Are you… helping me out… of pity, Commander,” Sarah asked as Raven walked with her arm around the Human’s back, helping her keep a decent pace through the hallways.

“Nope,” Raven fibbed. “I’m going the same way as you and I don’t see the point in walking alone.”

“You’re an… awful liar,” Sarah protested, “but thanks any’ow.”

Raven’s ears flicked back as she glared down at her friend. “I am an awesome liar,” she protested, “and that’s an order! How’s your passenger?”

“Developing fast’r than Night thought,” Sarah confessed. She Reck’ns it’ll need t’be a Caesarian… uh, a zip and rip…”

“That,” Sarina exclaimed as they travelled down in the lift, “is a hideous expression! Never use it again! A surgical removal’s the correct term! Honestly, why you Humans named a procedure after a salad I don’t know.”

“That’s…” Sarah pondered her response, “somethin’ I’ve not figur’d out either.” They got off at the correct floor and walked past Sarafina and Januvitski, working on some of the lighting circuits.


“Sorry for the kiss,” Sarafina apologised, keeping the panel open for the Human as Jan tinkered and replaced blown out circuits.”I’m hoping we’re, uh, still friends?”

Jan looked out at the drooping tail and up to the eyes of her companion. “Friendships can end over misunderstandings, Sara,” she told her before a grin spread over her face. “But not ours, eh?” She stood straight. “Besides,” she added, “I enjoyed it. If you ever want to do it again..?”

Sarafina’s tail started swinging. She pointed a finger. “I will keep that in mind.” She paused. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Seems like it,” Jan replied, shutting the panel.

“Ever since I’ve come on board,” the Vixen started, “I’ve had the feeling I’ve seen Commander Hawle before but I don’t know where. You wouldn’t know..?”

“Galaxy’s funniest vids 12,” Jan interrupted. “Bakk…”

“...aberry pie,” Sarafina finished in concert. Of course!” She laughed sweetly as the memory of Lappinean face hitting pie came back into her mind. “That was one of my favourites. You know, apart from the Canine in the wind tunnel?”

Jan chuckled. “Yeah, that one was fun. Who knew Chuans could fly?” She opened the next panel for checking. “So, which guy has
your eye?”

“Of, I dunno yet, Jan. If I were a bit older the Professor might be interesting…” She paused as Jan pulled her tool from where she’d dropped it. “If I were older, I said!”


Katara held her breath symbolically. Using pretty much all the spares she had, the crews had managed to patch up all the holes in the bridge and had re-established teleport controls to the nearest booth so she didn’t have to repair the passageways between the two sections. Some of them were still exposed to space but, now, the two teleport stations could beam crew between the two, thus connecting the two halves. Now she was doing the test run at repressurising the bridge to see if the repairs held. She worked slowly, from ten percent atmosphere, towards the norm as Parkway, trying not to nurse the bruised eye she’d given him when he’d ignored her instructions to stop watching over her shoulder and let her do her work, watched from several feet away. “Is it holding,” he asked carefully.

“We’ll know in a moment, sub-commander,” she told him, her voice tight. “Twenty percent. I wouldn’t advise more than four on the bridge at any one time. We’ve done a patch job that should hold but the more people, the more stress. Thirty percent and holding.”

“So that’s me, the helm, communications and…”

“Your first Officer,” Katara finished after Patchway had stopped for a handful of seconds, clearly unable to think of a fourth. Fifty percent.” Her hand stayed on the console as she turned towards him. “You NEED a first officer, Rat. Someone to hold the fort if you’re not on the bridge and deal with the crew. And, trust me, YOU need someone who can deal with the crew!”

Patchway cringed as she made a fist at him. She was right.


On the Loper, Hawle managed to get his jacket and shirt off before falling onto his bed, still wearing trousers and boots. He dreamed of Hawthorne and Elena. Which turned into a dream of a shopping trip.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Glad that they got to talk about the pie incident that Hawle was involved in as I was waiting for that.

Although I do have one correction. It should be "pie hitting the Lappinean's face" as it was shoved into his face. Lappinean face was hit with the carrot cake when he got his face shoved into it during one of the other stories.

[Welsh Halfwit]

54


The Loper waited at the edge of sensor range, waiting for the probe they’d sent to report back on the situation on the fourth planet in the system. It seemed to be the only planet in the system that could support life any more and Caltaya was already analysing the scans of the first planets it had taken on its pass by. They’d shown planets devoid of life now, decay rampant across several continents. He enthused on the chances of discovering what had happened to them but guessed that that wasn’t going to be in the timeline. The Raicarran ship hung close to them, waiting on the same information the Loper was after. Of course Hawle was having Winsome and Dawton subtly alter the information that was being relayed to them as there was no way he was letting Raicarra have all the information, just in case they decided to blast and run with the information. Sometimes it paid to be paranoid.


The probe approached the inhabited planet, pretending to be a rock in its new paint job, and the Loper crew could see two moons, one of which was putting out a high power output and the other acting just like a stone. The energy moon appeared to be locked in geostationary orbit and beaming energy down to a station on the planet. Three darts seemed to be in patrol around the planet and Hawle took them into consideration. Three versus one and three quarters weren’t great odds and he knew it. He also knew there were more darts around somewhere. Probably close. The probe had skirted past warning scanners in the outer system and Hawle wondered if that simply alerted the trio or if it summoned others. It amounted to the same thing. Trip those and trouble comes to play. He noted Sarah plotting a course to avoid the scanners and told her not to bother. Without a more complete map, dodging a warning scanner might well just simply lead them slap into another one. They’d go through the same way the probe had, running silent and travelling at low speed. Two rocks, just ambling through the star system together.


The probe closed to within scanning range of the planet and cast a passive eye over the northern hemisphere. There was no way to differentiate between the races from here so it was set to identify Raitchians as they knew it had recently ‘borrowed’ some. The scan came back positive and the scans continued.

“One of the Portreeve ships is moving towards the drone,” Match advised, dragging the bridge’s attention to him and his console. Hawle acknowledged and brought up a visual of the hooked vehicle as it closed on the probe. “Should I cut the probe’s transmission, sir,” Match asked.

Hawle assented and the Raitchian terminated the datalink between them and the automated ship as he didn’t feel much like letting them backtrack it to the Loper. As his grandfather had said, once, ‘you can only hide until you’re found. Then it’s run or fight’. He needed to think on this. He needed a plan. To be frank, he needed more ships. But it wasn’t likely he was going to get that out here, was it?

As if on cue, Dawton called his attention. “Sir,” he said, “you’re not going to believe this…”


Salara kept her wings folded and walked the halls, wondering when she’d next get a chance to stretch her wings and feel the breezes in her feathers. These land walkers were nice enough, she knew, but there was nothing like her Kestalan counterparts. She hoped they’d be making landfall sooner, rather than later. She was getting stir crazy. They’d told her about the hologram recreation room and, although the technology had been breathtaking and the use of forced perspective outstanding, it was still a tight, enclosed, space in reality. There were some interesting places in here, too. The Security long ears… Lapinyam? Well, she’d assigned guards to some spots she wasn’t allowed in but there were things like the star maps room and the flight deck where the old Feelyne had showed her around. She’d decided she wanted to spend more time down there. It was large enough that she’d been able to take flight in tight turns, to the amusement of the Chief and his people. It hadn’t felt right but she could see it had brought what she took for smiles to their strange, fur covered, faces. She’d asked if she could come down here and do that again. The chief… Jarra, she thought his name was, had said fine but to do it when there were less people about. She’d looked at him strangely but had agreed. Now she’d been called up to the bridge and… almost walked into a large Canine with pointed ears and two mechanical appendages on his ankles, being escorted by an armed Feline. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m still not quite used to this walking,” she joked.

“Ah, you’re better on your feet than I’d be in the air,” the Canine rejoined, stepping to one side as the Feline kept himself ready to intercede if needed. “I’m just, uh, excited to meet an Avian,” the Canine gushed. Salara wasn’t quite sure she trusted the smile on this one.

“Kestalan,” she corrected before mirroring his slight head turn to the left. “And you’re a...Canine?”

“I am,” the shirtless creature said proudly. “Sub species Alsan.”

A blink of the eyes. Another. “There are SUB species,” she asked. “Your races are very strange.”

“Agreed,” the Canine replied, before the Feline got him moving again. He took Salara’s hand and kissed it gallantly before being moved away. Perplexed by what he’d just done, Salara wiped the back of her wrinkled hand on her singlet and continued on her way up to the bridge.


She stepped out onto the bridge and was thankful not to be in the cramped elevator thing any more. Although she knew she’d need to use them to get off this level, three floors down from the hull. She looked out at the planet on the long range scans. “Their homeworld,” she breathed.

“It seems so,” Hawle told her casually. “But that’s not why I called you up here, Salara.” He crossed his legs. “We’re getting another ship coming to join us. They say they’re coming to help and not with the permission of the government. It’s the Scholl,” he warned. “Hrakar Yakkuk is about to arrive.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Hawle's grandfather sounds like such a smart and level-headed man. Wonder why it didn't pass down to Hawle?

[Welsh Halfwit]

55

It was almost a council of war in the meeting room, with Hawle, Stikka, Havakar and Patchway sat at the table with Salara and Yakkuk conspicuously in opposite corners of the room. The Hrakar had tried assuring her that she wasn’t in trouble but she wasn’t certain she could trust him. His report on the situation back home was that he’d made the decision to take the Scholl away from the situation as he didn’t want to fire on his own people. It was a noble line, she’d considered; worthy of the most truthful of people. The only trouble was it was also a line that a fully qualified liar would use. He’d apologised for the… excitable nature of his fighter pilots and expressed his gratitude that they’d been dealt with so… gently. Now, it seemed, he’d been able to rescue a few of the scientists Caltaya had left details of the new weaponry with (a fact that would have annoyed Hawle if he hadn’t told Caltaya to do just that as a result of his previous deal with Yakkuk) and they’d been realigning the weapons systems so it was more like the Lopers. They’d increased the power by about ten percent in their terms.

“Makes you all the more powerful against Females and discontents, doesn’t it,” Salara asked, her arms crossed so her wings covered her like a protective blanket.

“Salara,” Yakkuk said, his head twitching, “I have no wish to hunt ANY of my own. The situation has to stabilize again. And it will.”

“We can hope,” Havakar put in, “I have no interest in people I like falling into war. Many of my people, including my husband were lost in the last war in the patch. War takes a toll.”

Hawle didn’t look at her. It wouldn’t do to show the surprise in his eyes at a Celican saying such a thing. Plus he was pretty sure she was working the room, as she’d stated she could. She was getting the readings on the Kestalans and their body language in the way she’d stated she had trouble with hybrids.

“It’s worthwhile discussing plans for peace,” Patchway answered, “but it doesn’t help us now, does it? We’re working on an assault.”


He indicated the satellite picture that spread over the surface of the table. It laid out valleys and villages and hills and mines and hints of people making others work down there, if they could believe the people standing to either side of a line of people walking a path from the buildings to the mine. Or the other way around. The probe had detected several Raitchian signals in the chain gang and Hawle wondered if his old friend was part of the listings or if he was still trying to fight. Lieutenant Utraya had been just the sort to fight the impossible as he fought his way up the ranks. But that had always been his biggest drawback too, the need to progress. To never be content with what he had. Hawle had been a Lieutenant Commander on the Christa when he’d heard Utraya had signed off from the Council and gone for the Raitche Militia to try and advance his career. They’d worked to keep in contact but secrets at the official level had restricted half the things they could say and the digi-cards at birthdays and Sanctamas didn’t really cover it. He tried not to think on Solomon’s face when they met. Just in case he never saw him. “First thing we need to do is deal with the sentry points,” he said. “We don’t know precisely what they’re set up to detect but they’re definitely going to warn the darts if we get detected. Or, what’s worse, they could close the door on us if we need to escape.”

“That’s a thought.” Patchway mused. “but attacking them might well signal the darts so…”

“One of the shuttles has been painted,” Hawle told them. “As have several of my fighter craft. Which was awkward as they had to paint over the canopies too. They’ll be reliant on sensors in any firefight. I was thinking that a small team in environment suits could go down to one and affect an entry after we’ve passed by.” Hawle looked to Patchway. “Can you supply some people?”

Patchway nodded. “A couple of Engineers and computer techs and a medic, in case.”

“And I will supply a scientist,” Yakkuk offered. “I have a linguistic specialist amongst those available to me. You may need one.”

Hawle nodded. “There are Kestalans in those chain gangs too,” he pointed out, indicating at least one that had his wings spread as the guards pointed their weapons at him. They only had a snapshot so they didn’t know what had happened straight after. A moment frozen in time.

“Well, you knew we’d met these things from time to time, Commander,” Salara said, putting a clawed hand on his shoulder in a way that wasn’t totally threatening, no. It didn’t have him remembering that Earth Rabbit at all.. “We did enough damage that they leave us alone but we’ve lost a fair few flights.”

“I’m suggesting Kestalans need to be part of the beam down squad. And I’d like you to be part of the group, Salara.” He looked to Yakkuk. “I presume you have some armour or the like?”

“When you say ‘beam down…’” Yakkuk ventured, his tone concerned. “Do you mean by that energy conversion thing?” His one finger pointed in the vague direction of the teleport station.

“I’d never want anyone’s first experience of one of those to be in combat but they’re a good ‘deep strike’ tactic. And they are safe. Most of us here have been beamed on hundreds of occasions.”

“It’ll be even more effective for you,” Stikka said, his mouth taking a break from silence as he recorded the meeting. “Our people will need to be teleported in at ground level for obvious reasons. Your people can be brought in two hundred feet or so above the surface.”

“It’s more of a spiritual thing,” Yakkuk protested.

“We’ve all had that same discussion, believe me, Hrakar,” Havakar put in. “We’ve had it for over a century and a half and the concerns remain but the Racon is right. It’s the most effective way to surprise the enemy. Which may save lives on our side. I am a little confused as to why he wants Salara in the team, though.”

“Because we’re promoting unity,” Hawle protested. “All of us working together. Aliens and Kestalans. How could we be more united than Male Kestalans fighting alongside a Female?” He felt her claws on his shoulder flex. “Plus Salara wants to fight, I think. And I KNOW she wants to stretch her wings.”

“This is true,” the black and gold told him.

“Then you’ll have your chance,” Yakkuk told her. “Are you trained in the hands free weapon system?”

Salara straightened up. “I have training in it,” she told the room, her tongue licking the inside of her beak as she failed to divulge she’d only just passed said training.

“Then you’ll fly with me. I appreciate the idea of the leader controlling from high above, Aldair, but I am one of the few on my ship who has the experience of an assault like this. I shall lead. I take it you will supply the ground forces?”

Hawle nodded and advised Raven and Jaqui were already getting their team ready.

“We go in ten,” Hawle finished.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Looking forward to seeing what will happen once they get down there. I have a feeling its gonna be a bit tricky when they leave the ship!