IOC Dayrin

[Welsh Halfwit]

Sometimes I need to off-load a plot to someone else. Cameo's can help...

39

The group arrived some ten minutes walk away from the town centre and its thriving marketplace, where beings of every race shopped for things they wanted and needed and desired and others tried to charge them as much as they could get away with at that moment in time. They could already see Micans in overly theatrical rags holding out devices for Wolven to wave their hands at as they didn’t want any of it. “Dalton,” Gerry advised, “keep linked in to the ship. If you spot anything of ‘local interest’, geotag it and ident the hawker for later.”

Dalton nodded, wondering if he could get some parts for his listening devices here.

“Any words for me,” Dane asked.

“Try not to get shot or kidnapped,” Gerry replied, heading down towards a vehicle rental place.

Dalton stopped Hewelstone as he made to follow the Human and the giant. “We’re going to be examining market stalls and shops,” he told the Shrewvian, replete in his flower bedecked shirt and shorts for the summer day. “We’re going to be looking at stalls and shops,” he advised, “no sense in us renting a vehicle.”

“If we’re splitting from the moment we arrive, should we have beamed down together?”

“Probably not. But it’s secluded so no-one probably saw us,” Dane mooted, before heading off to the market with his ‘financier’ and ‘sound technician’.


Behind them, a Celican faded into view from the shadows of a building and watched the group head away. His scarred face wrinkled. He knew U.S.C. when he saw them, even if they were in casual clothes…


“How come I have to drive again,” Keila asked as they were given the digikeys to a truck style vehicle the rental place has just managed to find in their storage lot. They’d paid for a day’s rental only and the server, a Russellian Canine female who had probably been hired more for her looks than her business acumen, pointed the way to the lot, where the auto dispense system would bring their vehicle.

“It’s easier than forever adjusting the seat,” Gerry sparred, getting into the passenger side of the hover up, taking hold of the handbar and pulling herself up and into the cab. Keila, for her part, just sat on the seat and swung her legs in.

“If we swing by the market later,” the Fleman said, clipping her restraint into place, “I can see about picking up some spare parts for our vehicles.”

“You realise we have a maintenance crew for that? And replication machines?”

“And one qualified auto mechanic,” Keila replied, “who needs things to do when not working.”

“You’ve considered dating,” Gerry asked, programming the navigation system with a known address for their target.

Keila smirked. “Bit big for that, boss. And that ain’t me saying it.”


In orbit, Pavel, the Raitchian sitting in for Hewelstone on the comms station, thought he heard something, just on the edge of the bandwidth he was being force to use due to the transmitter being slightly out of alignment, which was one of the reasons the Shrewvian had gone down there. The ship wasn’t always going to be able to go home for supplies and maintenance so they needed their own spares and a tri-vector modulating beacon receiver was high on the list. “Something…” he said, adjusting he console frequencies as Switt looked to him. He heard it again, only going the other way this time. From the planet to somewhere else.


Keila eased up as they were about to park beside the door to Dolar Scheen’s place of business. Even as some of the locals came running to tell them they couldn’t park that thing there, Gerry climbed down and got her ident ready, as Keila moved the truck. Slightly. “IOC,” Gerry announced. “Senior agent Evangeline Gerry and Agent Keila Sweetstalk. We’d like to talk with Dolar Scheen.”

“What about,” said a familiar looking Wolven with a blakfur ‘brow’, pushing to the front and clearly intimidating them, even the one a good foot taller than him. He looked on them expectantly.

“We need information on one of your legitimate transactions,” Gerry said, exaggerating the politeness slightly. “Not that you do anything illegitimate, of course.”

“Tell the locals that.” He crossed his arms. “What do you want? Might as well talk out here.”

“You hear about the kidnap attempt on Dartina?”

“I heard about the trouble it caused with shipping,” Scheen replied. “What’s it got to do with me?”

“There were two crews involved, Gerry replied, noting the sun inch higher into the sky. Soon, she figured, it would clear the building and be straight in her face. She crossed her arms. “One lot of locals and one from offworld. The offworlders got there somehow. And we know they’d been exposed to Darvinni root in the last week.”

Scheen rolled his eyes. “And you suspect I had something to do with it. Of course,” he growled, “That’s how it always goes.”

“No, I just think you may have more luck getting the crew manifest off the last import of the root. You’re the only one importing the stuff so they have to deal with you.”

“Oh,” he grunted, “True.”


“What would be the shipping costs to Meeca,” Dalton asked one of the vendors, thinking about the price of getting the root to Meeca as he asked questions. The Female Feline, who kept glancing at Dane, worked it out on her padd and showed it to him. Dalton nodded toward Dane and, getting the hint, she showed him instead.

“That seems quite cheap,” the ‘buyer’ said. “How can you manage that?”

“We have a deal with the hauliers. So, do we have a sale?”

Dane was about to agree when Dalton interrupted. “For the moment, we will take one hundrd grammes of the product. We have to test it for quality, You have a supply here?”

“I’ll get some from the back.” She moved away with style as Hewelstone burst in through the front door, attracting their attention.

“I found a Gravitic interpolar beacon,” he gasped, holding the heavy item in both hands. “Cheap too. We need this. Uh, for the sound system in the restaurant,” he added, remembering their cover. He looked at Dalton, who was stock still, looking towards the door. “What’s with him?”

“Bloomin’ ‘eck,” Dalton breathed.


A moment later, with the fifth lot of root for testing, Dalton commed Gerry to report he’d just seen Pirate Captain Savra in the market...

[Amazee Dayzee]

Guessing the next story is going to be about Savra then since there was a sighting of the pirate captain. I was hoping at some point we would pivot back to Hawle soon. At least we have the RP we are doing ourselves. So get ready to respond to that at some point soon.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Oh, yeah. They have a workload so Gerry's going to want to offload some of it...

[Amazee Dayzee]

That definitely is going to be interesting to see her trying to do that. Just hoping that her higher-ups will see how much they all have to do and approve of Gerry getting help.

[Welsh Halfwit]

40


“Now how the heck does HE fit in,” Gerry asked rhetorically after turning off the comm. They were in the bare bones office of Dolar Scheen as he had words with someone on a comm in the side office. They could hear the shouting and threats as Keila leaned towards her.

“Who,” she asked.

“Captain Savra,” Gerry whispered. “Of the Pirate ship Kerbal. He’s been sighted in the market”

“You think he’s connected to all this?”

Gerry mused. “Can’t be ruled out,” she admitted. “Considering that attack on the freighter on the way to Dartina, it’s quite possible one of the Pirate clans is involved or has knowledge of Markin’s formula, considering they were trying to steal part of it. They won’t be involved in the stuff involving Martin, though.”

“Why not,” Keila grumbled “sounds like something a pirate might do.”

“Not this one, according to Hawthorne, anyhow.”

“Oh, he knows her?”

Gerry nodded. Schole re-entered the room as Gerry considered things about the big Celican. “I… explained things to Galan shipping. They’re sending the details across to the infoline number you provided. Anything else I can help you with?”

Gerry still looked distracted so Keila chanced her ear with a question or two. “How come the locals seem to think you’re always up to stuff,” she asked.

He considered not answering the question but, eventually, relented. “I had a business partner until recently,” he allowed, slipping his hands behind his head as he reminisced. “He was an experienced mover with a less than totally honest look on life. Me, being an innocent in the ways of business,” he added, taking a hand from behind his head and waving it in front of his chest before returning it to it’s partner, “well, I didn’t tumble on to it for quite some time. The first few raids came as a complete surprise.” Keila didn’t believe that in any way. “Shortly afterwards, my partner vanished with a good few percent of the company holdings. He probably shipped himself out of the sector. Not that the law forces have ever found anything.”

“Once a criminal, always a criminal,” Keila agreed.

“It IS the Raitchian way,” Shole agreed, gesturing to the ridge of black fur atop his eyes. “And I have some of that in me.”

“Makes you a better businesstype,” Keila added, smiling slightly.

“Only if trusted. Is she OK?” He gestured to Gerry, who snapped back to attention.

She shook her head, as though to clear her mind and apologised before standing up. “We’ll be checking into those files,” she advised the boss. “We might be back if we need to return.” She extended a slightly pudgy hand. “Thank you for your time.”

He took the hand and she felt the callousness of the pads more than the slightly ragged nature of his claws as he shook it. “Anything to help.”

And get the IOC off your back, Gerry thought.


Martin lay back on his bed and took a heavy breath as he thought about how he’d lost everyone he’d ever cared for and the only frinds he had right now were a non sentient feline and a Mican who he barely knew and who never really seemed totally thrilled to have him around. He liked her, really after what she’d done to that bully, but he wondered if this was to be his life now? Hiding on a starship from people who wanted his father just as badly as he did, but for different reasons. He wondered if he’d ever be able to ask his parents why they’d done what they did. He wondered if he wanted to. Would he like the answer? What was he to do now? He’d already covered the classes in the auto-teaching programme and had nothing to read. He sighed. He needed to find something to do. He swung his feet off the bed and down to the floor, standing and walking to the door before he remembered he wasn’t wearing anything and got dressed before starting to look around the ship.


Chief Schole was the first to see the boy and ordered him to help with holding a panel and Martin tried to ask questions as to what he was doing but Schole was choosing not to answer except to give a curt ‘thanks’ after he finished the job. “Look, kid,” he added. “It’s not you. I’m not good with people. Figure you’re wanting someone to fit you in?”

Martin paused and nodded.

“How’re you with night vision goggles?”


The world looked pale green in here, with fighters and shuttles practically glowing against the deck as Martin tried getting used to the things over his eyes. He could see other, older, people with name tags showing on the goggles to ensure he knew who he was talking to or, rather, who was ignoring him. Deck Chief Ooran introduced himself and Martin realised he was Molian, which explained the lack of light in here. “I hear from the Squirrel that you’re looking for things to do and learn, eh?” The Molian’s nose twitched. “You won’t find much learning space in here but, if we can get you basically up to scratch,” he conceded, “it leaves the fully trained for the most important parts of the job.”

“I, uh, know most of the tools,” Martin affirmed, having helped his mother work on several cars that had passed their way over the years. She’d said she was repairing them for friends but he had to wonder, now.

“Good, good.” Ooran agreed, “but you’ll need to know everything about the tools before I let you loose on the ships.” He clicked a finger. “I’ll have you training with Wirrin. She can teach you stuff in the holoroom and get you used to the goggles. She’s fairly bored in the hover chair anyhow. Can’t work for a few weeks so might as well keep her busy too, eh?” He toddled off to set the lessons up.


“Can you still see him,” Dane asked Furbright as the trio stopped in at another supplier.

“Oh, yes,” Dalton replied, adjusting the glasses he’d added to his attire. “He’s being rather obvious about following us.”

“How can you know that?”

“He’s waved at me twice.”

Dane held back a chuckle at the audacity.


They weren’t after him, he was sure of it. They’d not responded to his invites but he knew they were interested in talking to him about something. Probably what he knew about the kidnap of that scientist on Dartina, considering the Lappinean had been there at the time, working for IOC. So he wasn’t entirely surprised when the slightly round Human made herself known, stepping into his vision at a respectful distance. He turned. There the monster Lappinean was. Again, she was at a decent distance. What was going on? “Hawthorne Plebar says you can be talked to,” the furless wonder said simply. “We need a word, Captain.” He really prepared to run now, so he was unprepared for what she said next. “Cafe?”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I assume that when people tell him they need a word with him he assumes that they are gonna beat the stuffing out of him? The fact that he was nervous seems to suggest that is what he had seen before firsthand with others.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Well, he usually fights but he doesn't have his energy whip on him and few are prepared for Keila ..

[Amazee Dayzee]

I don't think that ANYBODY can be prepared for Keila honestly so when she springs out at somebody they can't defend themselves. Therefore they are at her mercy.

[Welsh Halfwit]

41


Captain Savra opened the door on an extremely nondescript studio flat with a triple lock on the door and, Gerry assumed, a hidden weapon that Savra had turned off when he pressed his thumb against the middle of the keycard when he held it to the hidden door sensor near to, but not on, the ‘keyhole’. He gestured for them to enter and Keila put a hand across her bosses chest and stated she’d go first as Savra probably had something in or on him what meant he was exempt from any danger. Gerry, a little honoured, didn’t object to her actions as, by and large, she had no choice. She didn’t think there was a trap anyhow. The Celican didn’t seem the type to do that when under a flag of truth and parlay. “You’re safe here,” he groused. “It’ll be wiped within an hour of your leaving.” He closed the door as Keila finished her inspection of the room. Two sofas, no windows, one unmade bed at the back. An insult to the word ‘kitchen’ at the side. Gerry sat carefully on one of the sofas and sank into it slightly as Savra took the seat opposite. “IOC and U.S.C. working together,” he rumbled. “Doesn’t that lead to conflicts of interest? If you have to investigate your shipmates?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Gerry announced, pulling a signal jammer out from her pocket and flicking it on in full view of him, looking to show she wasn’t hiding anything. “Duranite Ore,” she said simply.

“I’m not my chief Engineer,” he replied, “but even I know that it’s adaptable, malleable, generally shipped in secret and not worth half the effort of stealing as you have to deal with people like you once you have it. No offence.”

“Catching lawbreakers is our job,” Gerry agreed.

“But, sometimes,” Keila chipped in, feeling it was time she said something, “we just look to keep the peace.”

Gerry shrugged and thumbed toward her giant compatriot. “She’s right. On our way to Dartina, we came across two Crayzon clan Fawren 38’s attacking a freighter they believed had a load of Duranite Ore aboard.”

Savra sat forward and put his chin on a fist. “I heard about that,” he asked, fixing the Human with his sharp eyes. “But they’d have no need for it. Not with their current tech being thirty years out of date and using replication machines for parts.” He glanced aside. “Maybe the rumours are true,” he mused.

“Rumours?”

“Nothing for you to deal with” he commented sharply, closing off that avenue of talk. “This is to do with the new engines that professor was designing, isn’t it? Duranite Ore is probably needed for that?” He shifted forward again. “But I thought you’d sorted all thay,” he asked with the whisper of a predator’s grin on his face. “Sorted everything out and got your ‘attagirls’ from that idiot in charge now?” He rested back into the chair. “Oh, I’d have enjoyed fighting that over reaching Rottian just once,” he laughed. “In a ‘no-kill’ hand to hand match of course. It’d be a fight but…” the warmth and charm fled his voice as his gaze bore through to Keila’s soul. “...I’d win,” he intoned. “You don’t think it’s over, do you,” he demanded of Gerry. “You want to know what I know of the Crayzon. They’re no allies of my clan…”

“Which is,” Keila asked casually.

“Confidential! Now, what do you know that makes you think it’s not over?”

Gerry could see the scar moving under the fur as his impatience grew.


“Hello,” Pavel stated as he heard something through space. “We have… something on the comms, Commander.”

Switt gulped and knew decisions were coming her way. She swallowed down the hint of bile in her throat and nodded for him to put it over the speakers. Then, remembering she was in front of him, told him to do it.

The voice that came across with a blizzard of visual and audio interference, declared itself the Mican ship ‘Zenis’ out of Micanna, with engine failure close to Peresis that was meaning it was entering the suns corona and they reckoned they had about five hours left before the call cut off. “Orders, Commander,” Pavel asked.

Switt brought up files on her computer and examined the records for this ship as Pavel started to ask the question again and she shushed him with a finger. “Commander,” he persisted, we HAVE to go! We’re the closest ship can make it to them in time!”

“Of course we are. The logs all show them to be correct,” Switt admitted. “But the files,” she added, were altered two hours ago. Set us on a course for there,” she ordered. “Or, at least, partway there…”


“Understood,” Dane told his comm before ending the call. “They’re received a distress call. Switt’s taking the ship to investigate.”

“Leaving us down here,” Hewelstone lamented, carrying a small pile of technical hardware doodads for his personal use as Dalton carried the roots in a small pack.

“Only for a few hours. Unless Letitia crashes the ship into the sun.”

“She has quite a canny head on her, that one,” Dalton ventured. “Flying the ship into the sun would involve too much paperwork. It’s safe.” He logged in on his computer. “Swizzlehurt’s sent back reports on the samples we sent up. The third one’s a match to the root on the boot.”

“That’s… Embury,” Dane recalled. “We going to go back as officials?”


“They have a depot here,” Savra advised after Gerry had told him much of what they were investigating. “I’ve been looking into locating it in case we ever need to remove them from the board, so to speak. No fur off my nose if the imperial forces do it. I know it’s in the Deria Valley somewhere. How’s Plebar?”

“Doing well on her ship. Helped cure an outbreak of mutated Celican flu a few months back.” She could see he knew about that. She could also see the spark of pride in an unexpected friendship that he’d never talk about. Hawthorne had once told her that pirate ships ran from her clipper ship so now she wondered if the Savval was, in fact, under the protection of this Captain and his clan. “Anyhow, we never heard this from you,” she added, standing up. “We have work to do, what with this and the Child smuggling ring…”

Savra made sure the doors wouldn’t unlock. “WHAT child smuggling ring,” he demanded.


“So that was the shop,” Hewelstone asked.

“I don’t think we were quite as undercover as we thought,” Dane added.

“Which is probably why it’s on fire,” Dalton admitted.

[Amazee Dayzee]

If it is on fire I would assume they would make sure help arrives to put it out. Heroes don't leave buildings burning intensely so that other innocents can get caught among the flames and end up getting injured or worse.

[Welsh Halfwit]

42


The crackling blaze flowed from several of the front facing windows as firefighters prepared to engage the conflagration and local officials kept the local unofficials back. To the crowds annoyance, Furbright’s card had gotten the trio from the Dayrim through the cordon but they were still not allowed too close so Dalton had decided to speak to the local Police’s senior officer as the Raitchian had been coming over to him anyhow. Hewelstone and Dane were checking what the fire department needed, to see if they could help.


“Understood,” Harrison stated, sat, in his office, on a chair that reminded him it wasn’t built for Equinna with every groan and squeak. “I’ll have a team sent down to assist with controlling the crowd. And recording them, yes. You’re sure there’s no imminent danger to you? Right. Understood. But I reserve the right to enact Protocol 155 if anything begins to happen. Understood.” He tapped off his link and stood up before tapping it as gently as he could. “Officers Havin, Garrimore, Walton and Wezarra to teleport bay 2. You’re needed for crowd control down in the market. That’s all.” He left to get to the teleport bay first as he needed to brief them in person. The C.O. was down there, after all, and they had a duty to protect him. Really speaking, he could have enacted 155 and teleported Dane back up to the ship already but, as the Captain stated he was in no danger, there wasn’t an option. But he was monitoring the Commander’s vitals anyway. In case.


“So,” Keila asked after the meeting, “what was that about?”

“The ‘dropping in’ of the Child trafficking?” Gerry relaxed into her seat in the vehicle. “Simple enough. People are very emotive over children, especially one’s that aren’t always theirs. This one featuring Micheal now…”

“Martin,” Keila corrected.

“Martin, right. You know how much fuss this case will cause on Dartina when it breaks? As it WILL, because of the trial.”

“A fair amount but…”

“Now imagine if it involved Galsettia. TWO colonies involved. And the third party on Calderon. That’s three. You get a storm like that, the Council gets pressurised by the media to do something about it.”

“Right, too,” Keila thundered.

“I agree. We’d need to bring in more ships. Do more inspections. Tighten the noose, so to speak.”

Keila suddenly got it. “And that would cut down on the ‘business’ of the pirates.”

“As well as cost a fortune in funds and time.” Gerry nodded as the car drew up into the parking lot closest to the fire. “But they’d do it. Savra knows that. What I just did, “she added, uncoupling the seat belt, “was set him on the way to dealing with it for us. Unethical as he’s likely to drop several bodies on the way but it’s not our budget. Now,” she added, seeing the flashing lights, and smelling the acrid smoke, “let’s go poke our noses in here, shall we?”


The building had been dampened down, although there wasn’t too much left to save. The office where business tended to be conducted that was beyond the shop level had been the epicentre of the blaze, according to the fire officer’s initial assessment and it was still only barely safe to go in so Keila waited outside as Gerry and Dane headed in for a fast inspection. “Said you were no good for undercover,” Gerry remarked, wearing goggles so her eyes didn’t stream and a breather unit so her lungs didn’t burn.

Dane chucklegrowled that he wasn’t responsible. It must have been Furbright that had given them away. He couldn’t blame Hewelstone as he’d gotten caught up haggling for a Sariy 5 audio magnifier at a market stall outside the shop so hadn’t joined them. Gerry knew she’ need to check that later. The Shrewvian had a slight reputation for bending the rules for their own benefit. Wryly she conceded, to herself, that it was no worse than she’d just done with Savra but that, hopefully, wouldn’t run counter to her own investigations.

“It seems like something of an overreaction to a few questions well placed and asked,” Gerry continued, pulling up a picture of the Raitchian female that owned the place. “Suspicions of being part of the Crayzon clan. But not proven?” The senior fire officer remarked that there was rarely a way to link legitimate businesses to the clan. In any case, before they did, something like this tended to happen to the business. His helmet cam recorded him stooping, his gloved hand picking up a half melted databank from under a picture frame that, due to being made of marble (and rather ostentatious if you asked Dane) hadn’t burned, just edged away from the wall. The Raitchian looked up and started moving it away further.


Outside, Dalton and Hewelstone were sat in the Police control truck, pretty much being ignored by everyone in a uniform. “So,” Dalton started awkwardly, as so often when people start woth ‘so’ and haven’t planned the rest, “you’re a communications engineer?”

“Yes,” Hewelstone replied.

“Hear any, uh, goo…”

“To stop you there, I wouldn’t tell you if I had. It’s borderline illegal if proven.”

“No, no,” Dalton replied, trying to defuse the situation. “I mean, I know you’re good. I’ve seen the stuff you’ve bought. I just wondered,” he added, pulling a bug from his pocket, “if you had any way of incresing the transmission range of this?”

Hewelstone looked at the device with interest, his brain already working through a few scenarios.


“So, what’s through here,” Gerry asked, turning left instead of right on leaving the office and heading towards the less damaged section of the building. “Hmm,” she muse, “a kitchen. Lots of cupboards… all empty,” she added, after trying a few. “No fridge.”

Dane removed his mask. The smell was still overpowering but bearable now that pressure jets had blown out the windows. “Got an industrial scale replication system here,” he remarked, pointing to the floorpad. “Slave countertop relay there for small items,” he added, pointing to a shiny black worktop unit that wasn’t so shiny as it would normally be and the control panel beside it. He coughed.

Gerry frowned. “Is that blood by your foot,” she asked, cringing as he almost wiped it out with a turn of the foot. “It’s a trail,” she added as he saw the thin red line.

“Going straight to the replication machine,” Dane replied.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Sounds like whatever happened to his foot occurred somewhere around the replication machine and I can't imagine that it is really pretty to look at if he can turn it like that. I can feel Gerry wincing at the sight.

[Welsh Halfwit]

What works one way can work the other...

43


“Do you know how much violent crime I have to deal with,” the Police Chief asked, standing in his office as Dean and Gerry sat opposite in the old style brick room. The paint was flaking and the door lock was broken. The Raitchian was standing with his arms crossed as he leaned against a filing cabinet where he kept physical records for the same reason criminals used them. His cabinet was locked with one of the most up to date electronic and physical sysyems possible and Gerry reckoned he’d diverted a good proportion of his office budget to it. She appreciated it even as he answered his rhetorical question. “A few beatings, a little shoplifting. Never anything serious. You two turn up and, within three hours you’ve irritated a ‘legitimate’ businessperson” He made fingermarks in the air to emphasise what he really thought of Dolar Scheen. “...there’s been arson and murder. What do you do for an encore?” He gestured. “Should I arrange a shoot-out in the cathedral?”

There’s not much call for sarcasm, Chief,” Dane remarked, shifting in the chair. “We didn’t have anything concrete enough to bring it to you when we got here, just the evidence of Darvinni root from Zoran province on Cana. Some sort of harmless parasite that only comes from there or something.”

“Which has WHAT to do with either of you?”

Gerry decided to take this on and stopped turning the empty cup she had in her hand over. “Turned up on the boots of one of the groups came in to grab Professor Markin on Dartina. Came from the root that that shop was selling. So we need to find out where that shop got the product from as they, more than likely, helped the strike team get here.”


Hewelstone looked over the replication system computer to see if he could reverse the settings and bring back whatever had been discorporated. He’d never heard of it working properly and he knew that every successful had ended in something unstable that tended to explode a moment or so after reappearing but Dalton had remarked on how they needed to know for certain so could their electronic specialist set something up to do that? He was a bit fed up of being the specialist now. He’d already had to use some of the stuff he’d bought to enhance Dalton’s spy device and, now, he was using some more of it to replace the damaged parts of the system here. At least he’d get this stuff back after the work was done. Keila was ready to take pictures, as was a local. Dalton was close by with an active scanner to detect the breakdown towards explosion. Hewelstone popped his head up from behind the counter. “You lot ready,” he asked.

“As ever, Barnard,” Dalton replied.

“OK,” the Shrewvian warned. “Turning the power back on… now.” He pressed a switch and was relieved as the power flow began to build, using the circuit board he’d purchased to bypass some ruined sectors and engage the device’s memory circuits.”Take the last thing that went through… It’s still intact in the memory as disintegrate only… Do a little creative work… And here we go.” He enacted the reversal procedure and didn’t look over the top as Dalton told him the figure had arrived, slumped to the dais with her arm flopped to the side and her unseeing eyes looking down to the floor – or so he imagined. The shutterbugs took video pictures of her and Keila took pad prints. They couldn’t take physical samples as every cell had already begun rupturing in what was a final insult beyond the painful death. Something to do with the energies not being aligned or something. Anyway, he was just thankful that nothing like that happened when he teleported and… what was that? Oh, right. Hewelstone grabbed his kit and legged it after the thundering Sweetstalk and the others before the body burst in a fireless way that blasted the eardrums.


“And it’s definitely her,” Chizelhurst told the almost empty room as she read the reports from Dalton’s device. “Gene scan taken at the instant of revivification proves that.”

Behind her, Marcus griped that he should be down there with him as he armwrestled Amy – or tied to anyhow. It was clear that his arm definitely wasn’t up to it yet as the android was beating him on only twenty percent power.

“I told you, boy, when you can press a hundred pounds for twenty seconds on that arm without too much pain, you can go back in the field. As we don’t HAVE any weight blocks available to us, Miss Amy’s sitting in.”

“I like being useful,” the Android admitted. “Even if I AM just a paperweight.”

“With very cold hands,” Marcus griped, only to be surprised as her hand warmd quite quickly. “You have an inbuilt heating system,” he asked.

“To stop me freezing in winter,” she replied, her ears ‘twitching’ like a real felines. “I do not believe you can win this, Mr Seelevan. You should gather your strength.”

He grimaced. “I can’t let… Dalton face all the dangers… by himself. He could get hurt.”

Amy’s neck joints whirred slightly as she inclined her head to look at him. “But he has not been,” she reminded him. “You have.”

“Don’t remind me,” he asked as she clunked his hand to the pad after seven seconds.

“Apologies.”

“No, that’s.. just a saying. I’m just saying that, if anything happens to him and I’m not there, I’ll be devastated.”

“As opposed to how he’d feel if you were there and got hurt because you weren’t fit to be?”

Marcus paused in thought. “Shut up and armwrestle,” he said, a tinge of humour in his resentment.

“I’m going for fifteen – nil,” Amy announced.


“I thought he was going to order us off his planet,” Dane confided to Gerry as they walked back to her rental car. It was parked across a dusty lot of hover and grund vehicles and Gerry laid the card on the side of the door for it to open and she hauled herself up and in with a little assistance from the Commander.

“He almost did,” Gerry agreed. “Fortunately he changed his mind,” she added, putting the padd of information regarding the clan on the passenger seat. Dane tossed it into the back as he got in. “Few places to look at in there. Ship scanners as well as eyeballs might come in handy.”

Dane nodded in agreement. “Passive scans only though,” he advised. “Last thing we need is a load of clipper ships in our face right now.”

“I suppose.” She engaged the vehicle’s engine. “Better get back to Dalton and the others now,” she told him. “I gather they’ve made a mess...”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Oh I'm sure when she gets there she will find that Dalton's mess is not that bad and she is exaggerating about how bad it is! I am sure it is nothing that can't be fixed though maybe she should not dwell on it because she could manifest her worry into existence.

[Welsh Halfwit]

44


Switt wished she could put her feet up. She used to have a footstool under her desk, back in the office and she thought it better than keeping her feet flat on the deck or unsupported in mid air atop the opposing knee. She checked the readings on her arm rest. “Are we within visual yet,” she asked.

“Another fifteen minutes,” the helm officer claimed. He wasn’t quite sure why she kept asking. It would only take a few computations on the arm rest to work these things out.

“”OK,” she said lightly, “put it in park, would you?”

“Sir,” the helm replied, a bit perplexed by the order.

“Slow it to a near stop,” she elucidated. “Prepare a level seven probe to go on in our stead. It’s when we get to visual range that the trap – if it is a trap rather than truth or a diversion – will be sprung and I’d much rather they shoot a drone rather than me. And the ship, of course.”

“Of… course,” the helm officer replied, concerned at how quickly she’d thought to add that.


Schole had the probe ready to go, having programmed in a facsimile of the Dayrim’s transponder to broadcast her ident. The level seven had a programmable system that allowed it to go to velocity two for short periods so the Jondahl had set it to jump when it was clear of the ship and proceed towards target, slowing down where required. “Poynton…”

His subordinate rolled her eyes. “You’re going to ask me to carry that to launch position, I take it?”

“Nah, Dayla,” he said cheekily, before sharpening his tone. “I’m gonna tell you to. But you can ask for assistance. Dover, perhaps? Just kidding. DOVER! Come help Poynton shift this thing!”

With the Russellian’s aid, Poynton shifted the probe, by pulley, over to the launch position and loaded it, ready for launch. “Lucky they… auto launch torpedoes,” Dover wheezed, leaning against the launch tube door.

“Only because they don’t need to be… programmed,” Poynton replied, pausing when she felt the thump of launch. “Things going OK?”

“Could be worse,” he replied.

“Give it fifteen,” Poynton ‘joked’ “and it probably will be.”


“Sue me,” Dane told Gerry’s smirking face. “I’d forgotten Switt had pulled out of range and we’re on our own for the moment,” He sipped his soda as Keila tackled a Fish supreme and Titan veggieburger, subtly intimating that she could eat meat. Dalton, for his part, was dealing with a vegan delight – which, according to his face, wasn’t and Hewelstone examined a grain laden Cheesefeast as the group sat in the local franchise burger joint that Gerry had only chosen as she knew they were set up to cater for multivore services and kept the vegetarian and vegan completely separate. And the fact that the quality seemed to be identical across the entire galaxy. It made it a generally safe option without being a really healthy one.

“Yeah, we need to upgrade the comms receiver on the ship. Apparently, when it was mothballed, ours went to the Tigella,” Hewelstone griped.

“And you’ve not sorted that out yet,” Dane asked, squitting sauce from one end of his fish burger whilst biting into the other side. “I know you were listening in to other people’s communications since before we launched from Cora II.”

“Schole told you?” The Shrewvian’s nose twitched. “Uh, I was calibrating systems and accidentally…”

“...Listened in to a Command level request,” Keila finished.

“Better be the last time,” Dalton advised, deciding not to mention the work done on his devices. “At least without us asking.”

“Which we wouldn’t do without a warrant,” Gerry finalised, poking her finger down on the table decisively. She poked it – or, rather, the map on it – three times to emphasise the point as she mentioned how they were a by the books outfit and needed to prove they wouldn’t break any rules before turning the pointing finger on the comms specialist. “...and we can’t play favourites,” she declared. “Now,” she continued, “if we’re investigating the shop owner, one Darla Macefield, we should start at her address in Tiikiiti…”

“Tikiiritin,” Dane supplied helpfully.

“There. See what we can find. All done?”

Dalton decided to head to the bathroom, heading past a number of patrons as he went and the others finished up, heading back to their vehicle. Dalton bounded over to join them after Gerry had checked for devices and got into the back seat after the diminutive Hewelstone got in to sit behind Keila with Dane sat behind Gerry. “Heading for where you tapped,” the giant asked Gerry.

“Correct,” Gerry replied, feeling the folded paper map the Chief had given them in her inside pocket. “Think it was enough show for their spy, Dalton?”

“Probably,” the lithe Lappinnean replied. “She’s coming someone now. I’ll have the number shortly.”

“It’s a good job I know you weren’t really having a go at me,” Hewelstone grumbled as Keila started the vehicle up and rumbled their way out of the parking lot.


Switt watched space. That’s all she needed to do right now and, frankly, it was extremely boring. Just beige blackness with pinprick holes as far as the eye could see. Nothing of magnificence, just an endless, vast, tapestry that went on forever, no matter what some said. They said the universe was still expanding and she sometimes gave idle thought to what would happen when it met another, similarly expanding universe. Would they try to overwrite each other? Would there be an explosion of energies or a humongous build up of power that would crack planets for a hundred light years like eggs? Sometimes these thoughts kept her awake at night. Sometimes they…

“Commander,” Lieutenant Commander Kirin said gently, making her wonder when he’d gotten there. “Pavel says the probe’s in visual range.”

“Um,” she shook her head. “Right. Uh… relay the signal from the probe to us, yeah?” She glanced at her second to make sure the more experienced command officer was in agreement. He was. “Let’s see what’s out there”


The screen changed from pockmarked void to a void that was pockmarked in slightly different places and a moon to the port side. There was no ship showing. She ordered maximum enhancement and there was still nothing. “OK,” she advised. “Let’s get back to Cal…” She paused as the probe stopped transmitting. “What was that,” she asked.

“A Kraylor 4v cruiser,” Kirin replied. “Heading our way.”

“All speed for Caltimma,” Switt advised.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I bet she is hoping that they can make it back before the cruiser catches up to them and they have a confrontation. Even after everything Switt has been through I am pretty sure sure she still wants to avoid fighting.

[Welsh Halfwit]

45


An hour and a half to Caltimma, Letitia mused, watching the cruiser on the screen behind her, closing in at a rate of a thousand miles a minute which, according to her mental calculations, meant they’d be caught fifteen minutes before they got there. And, she recognised, there was the probability there was a second one out there. She’d told the comms officer to tell Caltimma they were coming in and Pavel had reported back that long range comms were down, probably to do with the cruiser. She almost asked him if he was kidding but there was no sense in antagonising the officer. They’d probably knocked the local relay offline. So she was working on the principle that the cruiser might just go away if she got to the militia lines. She felt the rumbling of the deck as Kirin looked at her. “Captain,” he said. She didn’t think he was talking to her. Dane was the Captain so why did Kirin think he was here? “Commander Switt, ma’am,” Kirin said, looking to make things clearer. She looked at him this time. “Don’t you think there’s something we should be sounding?”

“Pardon? Oh,” she said, realising what she’d forgotten, “yes. Order the yellow alert, would you?”

“Pavel,” Kirin commanded, “Yellow alert.”


Martin acked as the lights in the holoroom flashed back to normal and the zero light goggles almost blinded him, making him drop the artificial laser wrench he’d been using to remove a damaged piece of metal that had vanished along with the rest of the room and the tools as the ship went to alert status. “What does that mean,” he asked the kind faced, long eared, Bassian female as she put a hand on his back and looked to the wall.

“Yellow alert,” she announced. “It means I need to get to my workstation and I need to get you to a secure zone.”

He frowned at her. “What’s that, Wirrin?”

She powered the hover chair she was temporarily confined to over to the door and activated the control. “a place of safety. C’mon, trainee.” The door opened and, reluctantly, Martin followed. He wasn’t totally sure he wanted to be running and hiding again but… what choice did he have? Wirrin checked where the nearest of the two secure zones was before making her way towards it, smoothly and silently enough that she almost ran over a mican technician. She sighed. “Want to announce me to people not paying attention, Martin?”

“I could,” he agreed smartly, saving a handful of people from being shunted as they made their way to the allotted compartment. When they arrived, there were a few people, mostly from sciences outside a door that was, steadfastly, refusing to open. Wirrin took the toolbelt off Martin and set to work, releasing the mechanism and opening the door. “Gwan in,” she told Martin.

He stayed. “What about you?”

“I go where I’m ordered. Now in. Go.” She pointed towards the door and, reluctantly, he trooped in.


A moment or so later, Martin perked up as Wirrin motored into the room. “Contacted the chief,” she said with embarrassment. “He said best place for me was here. As the emergency technician.”


Schole recalibrated the sensors and streamlined the power flow to the engine and the structural integrity field and he was giving serious thought to contacting the bridge and telling them to slow up soon or the ship might just fly apart. He directed Poynton to direct more power from the shields and some life support to the integrity field. “Keep an eye on it,” he called, before heading out of Engineering. He commed Poynton a few seconds later to tell her he was heading for the bridge station as he could, more easily, harangue the command officers from there. The Corgan chuckled. He’d be back if the situation demanded it. But, for now, the place was hers to command.


Harrison was fretting slightly, a situation not especially helped by the presence of the wounded IOC officer and their technician, who’d insisted that she wasn’t going into a secure zone as she’d served with the Militia on Lappinia IV and was as qualified as any of his guards were to hold a weapon and shoot at things. He was fretting because he didn’t know the state of the enemy or, frankly, the state of the acting Captain. Like most everyone else on the ship, he’d seen the video of her ‘restraining’ the Raitchian attacking Martin so he could see she could handle herself one on one. Ship to ship was something of a different matter, though. He was consoled by the thought of Kirin being up there to assist, though. He cleared his thoughts of doubts. “OK,” he announced. “You two can go with Hastur and Leban,” He indicated the Dober male and Wolven female. “Defend the pilot section. I understand you already have a relationship with Flight Leader Coran?”

“He does,” Midnight assented, nodding towards Marcus. “He hopes to work with her someday too.”

Celicans, Harrison thought.

“Why protect the pilots,” Marcus asked. “Surely they’ll be in their fighters and out at the first sight of trouble?”


“Only if that first sign isn’t someone putting a pulse round through their head,” Leban gruffed.

“Point taken,” Marcus admitted, hurrying to catch up with the pair as they’d already headed out. Harrison kept organising his troops.


“What can you do,” Chizlehurst demanded of Amy as the robot was taking up room in her sickbay right now and, if she was going to be there, she might as well be useful. “Are you programmed for medical capabilities?”

The metal feline shifted her head to examine the slightly stocky elder Raitchian. “I have programming in triage capabilities built in,” she remarked. “In case of medical need during a lecture whilst someone fetched the nur…”

“I don’t need a full biography,” the Doctor said, setting up a biobed as she talked. “You’ll be the first they see. Use those sensors of yours and scan them. If you can deal with it, treat them in the waiting area. If you can’t, send them back.”

Amy computed this. She was only supposed to accept orders from the IOC officer in charge. The Doctor was IOC Dayrin’s medical official and that, technically, made her the senior ranking official in the room. It did not conflict with any established parameters so was acceptable.

Being as it only took half a second for her to say ‘of course’, Chizelhurst would never know, nor care, how much thought had gone into that.


Fifteen minutes out and Pavel said he’d managed to contact the nearest relay station and send the automated alert message that, apparently, Letitia had ordered him start up a half hour back. She couldn’t recall doing that. “He’s almost on us,” Kirin warned.

Switt swallowed hard. It tasted like Pineapple and grease in her mouth. “Stop all engines,” she announced, taking several seconds to say the next words. “Battle stations.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Hopefully for Switt the taste of pineapples and grease in her mouth will soon turn to the taste of victory! I have no doubt that she will be able to handle this fight and give out orders with aplomb!

[Welsh Halfwit]

46


The car stayed out of sight close to an office block in the town of Creyton, a half hour from the capital, and waited as the afternoon dragged on. “You’re certain this is the address on the map,” Dane asked, almost rhetorically. Gerry glanced at his. She’d been expecting the question for the last ten minutes and she thought he’d shown supernatural resilience not to bring it up before now.

“It’s the address given,” she replied, “and I hear that chief’s not known for his sense of humour. He’s not one I know personally, of course. And we can’t get closer or we might be seen.”

“I sometimes get that trouble,” Keila grunted. “No haystacks to hide behind. Only a couple of buildings. What IS that building anyhow?” She pulled up the navigation system and opened the cartography application to get a view of the colony and the roads, then zoomed it in to show the local area. The village shuttle stop, the local produce shop, the general store and the local mechanic all appeared on the map but this location showed up as a grey blotch until she came in as close as she could, when it came up with Callista comms, the local communication system. This, it seemed, was the local hub, dealing with the north east of the world, including the capital. The door opened and Hewelstone and Furbright crept back into the car and Dalton handed Gerry the receiver for the bug the communications specialist had just installed in the managerial switchbox.

“I linked it in to the number on the comm that Dalton provided,” Hewelstone declared, twitching his nose. “If it goes wrong, it’s his fault.”

“Nothing like supporting your partner, is there,” Dalton mused, sitting back.


The ship skidded to a halt, reappearing in normal space with Caltimma a distant dot, sized like a marble against the backdrop as Letitia imagined the cat of the same name watching. She hoped he was going to get somewhere safe. And Martin too. “Enemy,” she asked of Kirkin.

“Two hundred thousand kilometres to aft, Commander,” the Canine replied

“Helm, bring us about. Stand by weapons and shields… um… Launch Fighters. And Kirin?”

“Yes,” he asked as the others complied with orders.

Letetia stood up. “Get your backside in this chair.” She saw him look from it to her in onfusion. “I’m a BASE officer, Kirin,” she stated. “I have no formal experience in ship combat!”

He swallowed and understood what he meant. She might learn quickly but there was no quick in combat. There was learn or die. “Take the science station and scan things, Commander. You’re relieved.” He leapt over to the command chair.

“You have no idea how much,” Letitia muttered, taking a new post.


Keri hadn’t bothered giving her ‘identify the enemy’ speech this time as she’d not had much time to bone up on them. So she’d just used the ‘be ready for anything’ speech she tended to hold in reserve for just such an occasion and then bolted for her fighter with the others following. She knew the deck chief would have the lights on, ready for them to not break legs falling over in the dark and she was just about ahead of Chipper as the swift Chipmunk kept trying to get around her. She was first into her fighter, though, using her athletic capabilities to help her vault into it and pull the canopy down before fixing the flight faceplate onto her helmet. These came designed to suit the mizzle and latch into the helmet whilst still allowing enough jaw movement to actually talk. The Heads Up Display of pilots lit up as the controls came to life under her deft, thin gloved, fingers All the lights were ready in her helmet and the lights died in the bay before the automatic launch systems engaged stage one, then two. And the fighters vaulted into space before the Dayrin could engage her shields as she scoped out the enemy, launching fighters. “OK,” she stated. “Fawren 115b’s. Five to ten years old but no slouches. Ten of them and ten of us. Keep to your pairs and keep close to the others. They’ll try to split us apart. Don’t let them. Keep out of the main cruiser’s firing area. Let the Dayrin handle them.”

<“What if they can’t,”> Talbot’s voice asked.

“Then you’ll have a long drive home.” Keri watched as something launched from the back of the Dayrin as it faced Corinna. Probably a probe, she mused, noting long range comms were down. Kirkin, probably. Switt would be too focussed on the fight and, possibly, fretting. She struck the Flight leader as a good organising force but she doubted the Mican was ready for this.


The quintet in the car had backtracked to a small hotel down the road now that the bug was in place and rented three rooms for one night, with Keila on her own and the others in twin beds that none of them were using right now as they sat on the Fleman’s king size bed, munching snacks and drinking sodas from the vending machine whilst listening to the bug on the deputy managers line as he gave orders and passed on instructions. Hewelstone noted down the comm numbers he was calling to deliver instructions and one had them thinking they were on the right lines. It contained warnings about the U.S.C. being in town and investigating the destruction of a certain shop in the market. A voice replied that that had never been them. A name was brought up. It had Gerry rolling her eyes. He must have gone and done it right after leaving the meeting with her. Or he’d had that first mate of his do it. Dane glared at her. “We don’t arrest people because they’re going to kill someone,” Gerry whispered in retort as Dalton ate a vegetable of some sort and winced.

“Pepper,” he claimed.

“And we can’t prove it was him anyhow. The unoathed word of a criminal never stacks up in court.”

“But it was him.”

“Or his metal toothed first,” Dalton put in.

“Or him. Shut up.” The team listened to the manager talk as Hewelstone located the other comm.


Kirin ordered shields up and ordered comms to send out a hail, instructing the other ship to stand down by order of the U.S.C. There would be no attempt to board herunless combat was initiated. No response. He ordered weapons to full charge and Peeves complied, targeting the weapons stations on the opposing ship as he did so. “Picking up an energy spike,” Switt called.

“Here we go,” Kirin replied.

[Amazee Dayzee]

This is gonna be a real make or break moment to Switt to see if she can handle giving orders in combat and being successful. Since this is her first time I see there might be some hiccups but I am sure that she is gonna be successful.

[Welsh Halfwit]

47


Kirin watched as the cruiser opened fire first and ran himself through the scenario. The cruiser was new. Well, three years old at most. Still under warranty if it had been purchased legitimately. And it quite possibly had been. This was no Pirate craft, he pondered. It was too clean and fresh and unmarked. Even with shielding, the hull tended to be scored by meteorite particles and the radiation of the local sun but, from the close scan he’d just taken, there didn’t appear to be enough signs of general use. This thing, to him, was new. This thing was company. “Ten to port aft,” he ordered as the energy pulse struck the front shields and rocked the ship. “Target main weapons and engines. Helm, attack pattern Dane Delta 4. Ready the fighter dispersal weaponry for automatic firing as soon as we’re able.”

He heard a volley of ‘ayes’ as people attended to their tasks, Switt scanning for weaknesses in the enemy hull. He wasn’t sure she’d find one.


The quintet had decided this was enough. The warrant for the bug had come through, officially ten minutes before they’d put it in and Gerry was quite happy to use time zones in this, based on the warrant applying to all offices of the company, that happened to be in a time zone two hours east of them. The local police had been notified thirty seconds ago but they weren’t waiting. They got the light weapons they’d legally brought with them on and handed Hewelstone one that he wasn’t, strictly speaking, supposed to have. He eeped and looked worriedly at the device so Gerry sighed, took it back off him and told him to stay behind them. They’d driven the car right to the door this time, getting out as close as they could to reception to give them the best possible chance of catching people with their pants down, as Gerry put it. Dane wondered if this was a common thing for Humans. The tails usually stopped it, didn’t they? Well, he supposed, not for females. Perhaps it was a female saying, more than a Human one? He watched Gerry stride to the desk. “IOC with a warrant to search the establishment,” she snapped, getting the receptionist’s attention. “Stop what you’re doing immediately.”

“I’ll… need to tell management,” the scared Canine on the desk stated. She moved to press a button but Gerry put her hand in the way.

“Anyone but the owner of extension 571,” she advised. “A Miss… Bedelmire?”

The girl nodded slowly. “I’ll tell Mister Mitchum.”

“I’ll, um, need to work at the computer centre,” Hewelstone said, hoping that would be far away from any trouble.

Gerry nodded and snapped her fingers at one of the guards, who looked around as though to see if there was anyone else there. “Yeah, you. Don’t know your name. Escort Agent Furbright and Hewelsstone to the local computer mainframe. Now,” she added as he hesitated.


Keri scorched to the starboard side as the cruiser itself tried to scratch her from space and she issued a warning to the others that the ship was prepared to fire into the melee of ships to hit them. Corporate types, she thought. No loyalty to each other, just to the people paying the bills. They might have a lot of people quitting from the fighter pilot side of things after this. It might, she thought, indicate they were a new unit which put them equal to the Dayrin in at least one positive aspect. She scowled as one of her lights blanked out, Threw a multi g-force move that she wasn’t fond of and crashed cannon fire into the two ships that had been pursuing her. She wheeled in an arc and dove into another firefight, knocking two opponents off Alpha 5 as 8 and 10 followed up. “Tighten our groups and take this in closer to their ship,” she commanded. “If they’re firing into melee we might be able to use it.” Another shot blasted clear across her canopy, from the Dayrin to the cruiser. It crunched onto the cruisers front shields, the colour display overlapping on her canopy screen.


Marble hadn’t been a fan of the loud shriek sound so had scuttled out of the room he’d been in and into the hallway, where creatures of original scents were running here, there and everywhere, almost treading on the feline several times as he’d hid behind a trolley and tried not to panic. He’d scooted down several passages and seen dozens of big entities until his scared brain had detected a scent he knew and he followed it, scrambling through a door just before the person tried to shut it. Didn’t they know they were supposed to wait for a cat to decide in or out? He chose in and he heard the thump of the door behind him and wanted out. For a few seconds. Then he looked for safety and surprised Martin by jumping on him. The boy shouted as Marble hissed at the predators around him, then picked Marble off his shoulders and cuddled him happily. What? No. Didn’t the boy kit understand Marble was here to protect him? Not because he was scared? How do you protect someone when they’re cuddling you?


“From what I can see,” Switt advised, holding on to the console as the room shook, “their shields are down fifteen percent overall. Nineteen percent in the lower port forward area as we look at it.”

“Not good as outs are down thirty percent,” Kirin mused. “Commander,” he asked, “how would you win this one? In your own way?” Without waiting for an answer, he ordered a new attack pattern from the helm. “Pattern Alpha Mike 4,” he ordered, going by one of the book’s attack patterns.

Letitia almost didn’t hear him as she was thinking. How would she get out of this if it were happening? Which, of course, it was. Get someone else to do it. Alpha Mike 4? Why did that sound so hopeful to her brain? Nothing had passed through her ears that might indicate why Alpha Mike 4 was so… Oh, hang on, she told herself, grabbing the console again to stop herself being thrown off. “Are they broadcasting signal,” she asked.

“Local range,” the comms Officer told her.

“Then they can receive it also,” she guessed. “Can we send an interference signal to knock out some of their systems?”

The comms officer lurched as the bridge rocked again. “They’d lock us out too quickly.”

“What’s your idea, Commander,” Kirin demanded.

“Alpha Mike 4,” Letitia grinned. “Otherwise known as A.M.4. Or Amy.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Pretty sure that Amy will be able to do what Switt needs as well as a lot more in order to end the fight quickly so they have a victory. After all, I doubt the opponents right now are seeking Amy.

[Welsh Halfwit]

First he meets with them, then he orders a murder and now he just drops by...

48


Amy made her way to the bridge, her internal gyroscopes keeping her upright as she strode, unlike the others around her, who were constantly being shuddered and falling by the impacts on the ship. She pulled a technician away from a wall unit that was heating up quite spectacularly fast and the Raitchian thanked her as the section sparked and broke into fire. She put him down. “It was no trouble,” she claimed, leaving the stunned creature there as she kept walking. The calculation that the technician could be hurt had taken less than half a second but the movement had taken several seconds. She found she… enjoyed the physical but wished it could be as fast as her intelligence. But maybe there was something to say for this compassion and slow time as it seemed to give them time to get to know each other. She might get to know someone later. She wondered how fast it would happen for her, learning the person’s thoughts and actions to a point they became predictable. Would she mind? She stopped a Mican from falling as she considered that, then applied the exact amount of pressure needed to the button to summon the lift. A few percent too much and she might have cracked the plate. It took an interminable five seconds to arrive and she stepped in. Several calculations as to why Commander Letitia Switt might want her on the bridge occupied the seven seconds before attaining the correct floor and she was, thusly, not surprised by the instruction the Commander gave to try and infiltrate the opposing ships’ computer and disable systems. It was doable, she supposed, and she ran the request through several systems and was tilting towards a ‘no’ until she added in the fact that, without her doing this, they were likely to be killed. If she did this, there was a chance that they would succeed and the USC was not likely to destroy their defeated opponent. It would actually help to save lives. Three seconds later, she added her own survival to the calculations and thought she could be proud that it had not entered into the calculations before. “They may have anti viral systems active,” she counselled. “It can take time to get through those protocols.” Again, the ship shook. “But I will do what I can,” she added, pushing aside the communications Officer and sitting on their seat. She checked the system and, noting the absence of a Gravitic interpolar beacon, opted for the distinctly secondary option to try and establish a communications link as Pavel moved to a linked station to get the fighters back on system. Amy plugged herself in to speed things up.


A life in digital format, streaks and curves, moved around her. She could see nothing beyond the flow, hear nothing in the millisecond. It carried her in the direction she would choose, just a program looking to do as it was bidden. First to find the way through the wall she couldn’t see but knew was in the way.


Coran felt the weapon fire scorch the underside of her fighter, reminding her how close the margins were here. They were tangling under the underside of the cruiser, having drawn the enemy away from the Dayrin with the obvious idea they were going to attack the less defended underside of the ship. They might attack if they had the chance but it was mainly to keep the enemy from attacking the Dayrin. “Five,” she instructed, “take a strafing run on the shields. Six, Eight? Keep five in one piece, then the three of you rejoin.” She heard them accept the order and break formation for their attack, five pulling away on the attack several seconds before six and eight, pulling one of the enemy ships with them. Coran wondered if his boss was screaming at him right now as a more experienced officer would probably have guessed what was going to happen and a life blinked off a screen as Talbot was blooded with his first kill. Chippers fire kept an enemy off Talbot’s tail as the experienced Chipmunk kept his young wingman safe. The scans from Five’s run had come in. The shields, it seemed, were getting thinner around the lower port fore area where the communications system was located. She sent the information back to the bridge and advised her flight to target the area when they could.


Gerry and Dane were invited up by Mr Mitchum, a Raitchian of surprising poise and a silver grey fur disposition that spoke to his age and attitude. “You really believe Miss Bedelmire is involved with criminal enterprises?”

“We believe so,” Gerry acknowledged, declining the offer of water from a decanter, even though – or, perhaps, because – it was Soda-fona water from Haldana. She never needed the taste of home and resented the idea of sending Benson even a cent in credit. “What does she do for you?”

“She’s the head of procurement for this area. Items we need, we go through her.”

“So she’s in shipping,” Dane asked, for clarification.

“Not just import and export. Her team looks for buildings and infrastructure too.”

Gerry signed. “We’ll need to see all the finances,” she said, continuing as the door opened behind her, “and everything that’s been purchased so we can find out if… was that her,” she asked after the door closed. Mitchum nodded. “Erwin, would you..?” Dane took off at a run, sensing the pursuit was on.


Alpha four was down. Gone from this life to whatever awaited the Canine in the next. Coran spun the ship around in a tight circle by engaging the pot top and starboard underside jets. This one on her tailfin was getting quite annoying. She engaged the small nose thruster as she stopped the rear thrusters. The sudden jolt lifted the nose up and threw the ship around, nose over tip, adjusting the travel line of the ship as she rotated, allowing her an upside down shot at her pursuer. It scorched his shields and he fought to get back on her tail as she tried to remain on his.


“We have long range comms,” Pavel called as Amy sat stoic at his usual console.

“Has anyone responded to our call,” Kirin asked, looking at the ceiling uncertainly. He’d felt something with that last attack. Almost like dust…

“Not that I can te… Look out,” Pavel shouted as a section of the roof fell clear and Kirin dove for his life, not quite escaping as the plating fell on him. Switt was fastest to his side, checking for a pulse as Pavel called for medical aid. “Shields are down in the aft section,” someone called. “We’re being boarded.” Switt wondered who they were telling. “COMMANDER!”

Letitia shook herself free. Um, right,” she said. “Tell Harrison to repel boarders. Um… go to attack pattern Alpha three,” she told the helm, hoping she wasn’t ballsing it up.


Thirty thousand kilometres away, an ugly ship dropped into space, ostensibly on its way past the conflict. It locked weapons on target and opened fire without stopping, lashing the cruiser with fire as it passed by the top of the ship, delivering severe damage to its shielding before the aft weaponry engaged. The guns were weaker but, after the damage inflicted by the fore weapons, shots penetrated and small sections exploded into space before the Kerbal’s attack run was complete and she slammed back into velocity speeds.


“Well, that was unexpected,” Letitia said.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Sometimes the unexpected things that show up are actually the best kind of exploit that can happen to you at some points in your life. Like when you are getting into a fight with an unknown ship despite not having a lot of experience in the roll of Commander. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

49

Harrison and three of his people kept the area around engineering free from trouble as the teleport disruption system stopped the opponents appearing directly in the department. The Equinna, laboured by a need to NOT blow out walls, had his suit’s inbuilt energy shotgun on half power and the rest diverted to his shielding to provide cover for his subordinates, whose suits weren’t quite as capable when it came to self protection. The full suits the opponents were wearing were high spec but not so high spec that they were the exclusive use of a corporation like Fawren or Monta. Last year’s model, he thought, skimming aside as a bolt almost hit him. He had another team coming up behind them but knew they were likely to have to divert to the engine area to back up the team there. The door was closed between them and engineering anyhow. It kept the engineers inside safe but trapped them so there was no way the intruders were getting past. He fired, clipping one of the armoured figures and spinning him sideways, out of sight for a few seconds.


The medic was on deck, dealing with Kirin, as Switt pondered what to do next. She tried to recall what she’d seen on the screen a few seconds before… “Peeves, concentrate your fire on, uh, the lower fore section of shielding. Where our fighters are, un taking shots?”

“Shouldn’t we target the bridge of the ship, maybe,” he argued, that ship weakened their shields…”

“Which they’ll divert to cover their sensitive sections, Lieutenant,” she snapped, annoyance forcing it’s way through her nerves. “now let’s see if that’s been left vulnerable,” she added as the room shook again. She held on to a railing. Falling over wouldn’t look good right now. “Helm! Attack pattern Delta five!” She recalled that, in every training manual she’d read, there was ALWAYS an attack pattern Delta five. She just hoped it allowed Peeves to target that area. Or she’d seem foo… whoa, hang on again. She took up a close seat and watched the ceiling carefully.


Marcus and Midnight kept position close to the now empty fighter bays in case the enemy decided to try to put them out of order so the ships couldn’t land… or something. They had a pair of guards with them, who gestured for Marcus to keep quiet as someone was coming. He tensed, feeling his feet and the burns as he tensed. He knew the guard was checking friend or foe parameters inside the armour and seeing the results that led to the arm being raised and… The firing began and Marcus hoped Midnight kept her ears down.


Dane leapt over a trolley that she’d thrown in his way and landed some fifteen paces behind the Canine. He had some advantages, he knew. He had the athletic prowess but she had the home advantage. She knew this building better than he did and, probably, the people too. She was calling out for help but they were going too fast so few were reacting as they raced past. He heard her calling out for someone called Galvey to kill him and he had a feeling this one wasn’t going to stand by… The Celican almost hit him with the fist from nowhere and only the near liquid nature of Dane’s spine allowed him to twist out of the way and avoid the impact, twisting him off his feet, which he tried to use to send his foot spiralling towards the assailant. It didn’t work as the angle wasn’t right, but it did allow the Feline to land on his feet and shuck his claws to swipe towards the nose of the attacker. He dodged back and the claws struck the door frame, shooting pain up Dane’s fingertips as he reasoned he was lucky the guy didn’t have a firearm. He tried to chop Dane’s arm but he pulled it away enough that it had no real impact and Dane threw himself at the attacker.


Keila sighed and walked to the bottom of the stairs that lead to the emergency exit to the building. She could hear the person descending the stairs at quite a rate of knots. Dalton had frozen the lifts, it seemed, so this was the route. Well, that’s what the receptionist had told her. She’d been pleasant enough in conversation and had even chuckled at a few of her jokes and Keila was pretty sure it wasn’t just nerves. Apparently the girl didn’t like Bedelmire as she was a ‘snooty cow’ so she was quite happy to help her ‘go to heck’ and Keila wondered what it took to ensure such loyalty in the staff. She fixed her with a glare as she turned the last corner and came face to face with the giant standing some six steps lower than her. “Gettin’ your steps in,” she asked, before bounding once to land next to the fleeing Canine. She slapped a hand heavily onto a shoulder. “I have to travel twenty miles for that,” she added, watching the pain on the Bassetian’s face. It made her chuckle as she got the cuffs out. “Always leave someone on overwatch,” she mentioned, putting the target over her shoulder and heading back up the stairs.


Amy poured her programming into the battle as the computer team on the other ship tried to deny her access, aided by their computers automatic defences. She’d fended off enquiry attacks and had been trying to infiltrate important systems or draw computing power away from other systems at the very least. Whilst the computer was focussed on her, it couldn’t focus on other things as efficiently, especially with the damage the Dayrin was doing to the physical ship. She ‘felt’ it panic as something happened and she was able to infiltrate another level. If she were to have to describe it, she might use the idea of trench warfare, probing defences and moving forward, trench by trench. It wasn’t exciting but she never did exciting so didn’t really know what that would be like. She was surprised to discover she didn’t find it as fun as arm wrestling Marcus. She was pushed back out as she was distracted by the surprise that she knew and understood what ‘fun’ was. It took a fraction of a second but she took herself back to her calm state and deflected an incoming code attack.


Keri Coran watched as the lower port fore area fell apart under fire from the Dayrin. The ship was occupied, she reasoned. At least this section had been. The ship struggled to right itself as the explosion of atmosphere twisted it around to starboard and the fighter leader noted Peeves taking the hint and firing into the hole until shielding went up, distracting from the… Coran swept into a dive as an enemy tried firing on her, the shots scorching into the cruisers shields. Alpha 8 opened fire on the intruder and she accepted his comment about daydreaming.


Peeves commented that the cruisers computers hadn’t raised the shields fast enough and mooted that either it was out of date or something else was taking it’s attention as a shot from the enemy creased the hull. “Evacuate deck one,” Letitia commanded Pavel, noting the damage on her screen. “Bulkheads if needed.” He passed on the order. “Now they’re expending power there,” she told Peeves. “target their main power distribution nodes.”

“I… don’t know where they are,” he replied.

“You have experience against this sort of ship. Use it. Guess.”

Peeves swallowed. “Aye, ma’am!”

[Amazee Dayzee]

That guess that Peeves is going to make had better be a good one and at least partly right if they want to get out of this battle in one piece. Nice to see Switt is beginning to get more confident in her role as ship commander and learning the ropes of combat.

[Welsh Halfwit]

50


Dane had him on the ropes. Well, he was pretty sure he did. He was bleeding more than the Captain anyway. Mostly from slashes across his eyes. Optical implants didn’t come cheap and Dane had been sure this tank was wearing them before he hit them. He tried to throw the Celican through the window, only to realise that wasn’t nearly as possible as the vids made it appear. It had bonged it’s defiance and sent the Celican back at him. The workers in the room had quickly absented themselves as their computers weren’t working anyhow. The Celican was near the door now, glaring at Dane inside the office and preparing his next strike despite everything. The hunter grimaced, his muscles tightening up as his back arced and static energy sparked on his teeth before he fell forward to reveal Gerry with a small shokprod standing in the doorway. “What,” she asked, “didn’t you bring a weapon?” She started restraining the hunter.

“Bedelmire got away,” Dane said, staggering to a chair.

“Sweetstalks intercepted her,” Gerry retorted, grabbing the office first aid kit and doing her best to speed over to his side. “Now, let’s see what I can do with this.”

“Are… you trained?”

“Basically,” she admitted, opening the case and looking at a dermal injector like she didn’t know what one was.


Amy had noted the opposition getting worse. Lighter. She was getting through. In deeper. This gave her a split second shiver of concern. She was getting deeper into the lines, leaving her exposed to the rear. A decent pincer movement could trap her and she regretted reading those books on war between mammals last night. It was thirty seconds she wasn’t getting back and she’d learned so much about tactics and foolishe commands. So she did what she hoped the Commander wouldn’t mind. She pulled back slightly, sending commands into already compromised systems as she fended off attacks from a rather intelligent computer specialist. He might have a chance against her. Unless she increased the air pressure in the room he was operating from by quite an extent. Why had she assumed the defender was male? Hmm, his attacks were slackening. Was three gravities too much? She might need to pull that back. In a moment or so. Oh, that looked vulnerable.


Switt knew they had the upper hand now, as a cannon on the cruiser’s starboard side lost power when it was about to fire on them. She’d seen the build up on screen, followed by the sudden drop off. The medic had stabilised Kirin, although he was still out and Switt still wanted him to be back in command as she knew the moment was coming soon unless something new happened and she wasn’t sure she could give the order without vomiting. Pavel was saying something but she couldn’t quite hear him over the concerns in her own head. “Move us behind the cruiser,” she said, not knowing the exact terminology for the order. “Target her engines.”

“Aye, sir,” the helm replied. What was his name again? Switt thought she really needed to know. In case something happened. She could hardly call for medical attention for ‘Ensign What’shername’, could she? She’d noted the cruiser was losing power to the engines on her port side which, she figured, affected their turning circle so… One of their fighters locked on to the front viewer and she almost called out, just holding herself in as she recalled they were three floors in and the image was relayed from cameras. It still looked mightily close as the anti fighter weapons – well, those that were still operating, tried to latch and dispatch.

“Commander,” Pavel tried again. She heard him this time.

“Yes, Pavel?”

“I’m picking up ships heading our way from Caltimma,” he announced. “It’s the Militia. Our message got through.”

Switt thought about kissing Pavel but she didn’t think it would give the right appearance.


“She’s trying to get away,” Coran reported as the cruiser started trying to evade the Dayrin, probably sensing things weren’t going their way. The USC ship was moving to target the engines, she saw, which would give the enemy the chance to power up and escape as there was no ship in their face. She gritted her teeth. They were going to leave their fighters behind, she knew it. They added shield power to the rear sections, meaning there was no access to the bays for her own fighters. They’d need to surface skin their own ship and do a tight one eighty into the bays. Virtually impossible. She switched her helmet comm to general and linked into the fighters communication system. “You non USC lot! Look Your ship is abandoning you! Are you prepared to die for them?Stand down!”

She could see one didn’t believe her. It was running for home, accelerating with rockets to beat the barn’s acceleration, despite, Coran imagined, half the remaining flight of three screaming at them to stop as the cruiser was not going to lower shields whilst the Dayrin was targeting the engines and the fighter hit the shield barrier and crumpled before exploding quickly as the engine and thrusters entered to cockpit and impacted the shields, blowing the core and making sure noting recognisable was left of the pilot. “What of the rest of you,” she asked.


Hewelstone and Dalton sat in the computer centre of the telecoms network, reaming through computer files and blocking anyone’s attempt to send or receive from here. Hewelstone yawned and leaned back in his chair. “You realise we’ve cut off galnet for half the colony, yeah,” he asked, arching his back in the seat.

“I wonder what’s going on,” Dalton grumbled, scritching his left ear. He wondered if anyone would miss that soda one of the technicians had left after they shooed them out

Upstairs, Gerry handed treatment of Dane over to the office first aider. Medics had been called but Dane was adamant he wasn’t going to hospital and Keila entered, carrying her captive over one shoulder.

[Amazee Dayzee]

Let's hope that Keila's captive didn't get too badly beaten by her before she got control and carried them back. Hard to get information out of someone if they are brain damaged or unable to communicate.

[Welsh Halfwit]

Nah, she's fine. Keila's gentle. Usually.

[Amazee Dayzee]

The fact that you said usually in that sentence right at the end makes me worried that this might be the time when she ISN'T gentle whether it is by accident or a captive rubbed her the wrong way. I know that is going to happen at some point so I am going to wait it out to see what goes on because if this captive is fine then it might end up being the next one she accidentally maims. LOL

[Welsh Halfwit]

51


“So,” Hewelstone asked modestly, “what happens now?” He sipped tea from a recyclable cup in the waiting room in the local Police Station as Keila sat in on the office, holding court with the locals as they watched Bedelmire on the cameras. Dane and Gerry were ‘talking’ with the local chief so it was just himself and Furbright in a quiet room, looking over the interrogation room that no-one was using.

Dalton was sat in the corner, filling in his report and wondering why Barnard wasn’t. He half sighed and took in a breath. “We’ll likely hand off the problem to the Caltimman services,” he mused. “We’re more a reaction force than an investigation unit. We’ve made the start so they’ll get to run with it. The local IOC office will be made aware of everything, of course. We trust the locals but only insofar as much as we can throw them.”

“Mastona, isn’t it? Uh, the local office?”

Dalton grunted his yes. “Three days at standard velocity and they need to hire a ship each time. They don’t come out here on hunches.”

“And what will they do?”

Dalton put his padd down. “Are you ever going to do your report,” he asked, slightly interested in the Shrewvian’s reply.

“Done it. I DO know how to communicate, you know? Detailed it all, including the waiting for warrants to justify doing what I’d already done and all the sequestered records from the communications hub. Locals will need to move quick on these.”

“Not our responsibility.” Dalton glanced over. “Anything from the barn yet?”

“Not a thing.” The specialist held up a circuit board. “I get this installed and we won’t need main comms units to speak with the ship. It’ll accept long range relays from ship coded comms. We had one due for installation. Takersday.”

“It’s Takersday now,” Hewelstone heard him say, the translator doing it’s magic.

“Exactly,” he replied.


Switt watched as the cruiser limped into velocity speeds and left the combat area, some five minutes before the Militia were due to arrive. Peeves turned to her. “Do we pursue, ma’am,” he asked. She didn’t know what to say to that. She thought about it, sure. Seconds ticked past and she felt the eyes of everyone watching her. She even felt the eyes of people elsewhere on the ship watching her through decks and bulkheads. “Commander,” he asked again as Amy returned to herself.

“No,” she replied, “shaking herself to attention as Kirin started wanting to come around. “We’re not in any condition. Pavel, get reports from all departments. Um, Peeves? Head on a swivel in case they return.”

“And the one’s still on board,”

“Security needs to deal with them.”


Harrison had noted most of the fight seemed to have left these assailants now. He wondered what had happened, although the lack of bangs and crashes on the hull gave him fair indication as he struggled with two of the suited intruders. The assailants had, seemingly, run out of charges for their weapons so his team had barrelled into combat if they felt able. As one stuck a blade into the joints of his armour on the left hand side, Harrison gripped the throat armour of his first target with both gauntletted hands and squeezed. The Celican IOC agent appeared to take the other on as the Feline… well, from the helmet ears Harrison was guessing it was a feline – tried to batter his arms free but it wasn’t going to work. When in the suit, he could extract 190 pounds of pressure per square inch when really trying and he was really trying now. The metal buckled under the assault, turning inwards upon the occupants throat, restricting the ability to breathe to near zero before he released, grabbed the one trying to cut Marcus and threw him into a wall. He glared down at the one near his feet. “Take the helmet off,” he said through speakers, “and you live.” Marcus scrambled to help the feline with the removal as Harrison stepped on the other to make sure he stayed down. He could see the other members of his actual team from here. One checking on the other. The other who wasn’t moving. Behind them the other IOC officer… Midnight, he thought her name was, was checking the pulses of their assailants. Her fingers were stained red. Harrison engaged his suit comm to check in with the other teams. “Report status,” he commanded.


Coran watched as the pilots remaining from the cruiser decided their own fates. Four still survived from theirs. Three from hers didn’t. Her patience was being tested as they deliberated before three of them hit the ejection system, launching the cockpit away from the engine module, which quickly overloaded and exploded in a flash, adding to the maelstrom of metal pieces that now occupied this small patch of space. The fourth remained intact. Sitting there. “What’s your plan,” Coran asked over the local communications.

<“System malfunction,”> the voice said plaintively, <“Ejection isn’t working but the power is still building… The lower starboard interlock is jammed.”>

“Lower your shields,” Coran stated, getting ready to take aim. She had no idea if she could pull this off so she pulled up the digital wireframe model for help, over laying the schematics of the fighter over the real thing as he called out for help. “Lower. Your. Shields.”


Gerry sat correctly in the chair in the local Police Chief’s office as Dane leaned against the cabinet, thinking about dripping blood on it as he considered the number of plasters and bandages he was wearing. “It’s not a matter of being rude and not waiting for you, Lieutenant,” Gerry instructed, “it was a question of needing to move quickly as they knew we were on the hunt. They were reacting…”

“To the sudden, brutal, death of one of their operatives in the capital,” the Feline chief stated, cutting across the explanation. “It might surprise you to know that I already had several investigations going into the Crayzon links to our local telecoms giant. Now our servers are down as several of the workforce have been arrested!”

Gerry shifted in the chair. “She’s naming several others to get herself out from under the road roller. Sorry about that. I bet the local Justice minister is about to head down here personally to take charge?”

The steel in the cat’s eye stated what he thought of that. “Of course.”

Gerry grimaced. “Ech. Apologies for THAT, too. Met him a couple of times when he was rank and file. Real whiff of family power.”

The Chief nodded. “He still has it.” He threw a small object off the table. It bounced off the wall and he caught it. “They’ll have slashed and burned everything before we can really move on them, you know?”

“It’ll take time for them to regroup,” Dane admitted, wishing he hadn’t as the lacerations still hurt. “We can take that as a win. I’d love to take Bedelmire too but she’s only committed crimes here, as far as we know.”

“At least her flunky attacked you,” Gerry said, “so we get him.”

“Thanks…”


Amy looked up at the damage. The fallen officer. The sparking circuits and the fear meter in Commander Switt holding close to ‘really tense’ on her pulsometer. She gave a flicker of hope to never having to say that aloud then spoke. “Was I successful?”

[Amazee Dayzee]

Gotta love Amy choosing the moment where Switt is still trying to get her heart rate under control to ask if she succeeded in what she was asked to do. It kind of is endearing in some ways because of how innocent she is.

[Welsh Halfwit]

52


Schole was on the bridge ceiling, examining the damage, when Harrison stepped in. “Yeah,” the Jondahl mentioned, pulling his head back out of the conduit that had been a ceiling once. “we’ll need to find out who did this if we can. Someone nicked the magnetic bolts when the ship was mothballed. They replaced them with cheaper ones that could pass at muster for a while but would, inevitably, fail after a while. It helps keep a quite heavy load of metal off a less strong load of metal. Two come into communion too often,” he added, “and one’ll go through.”

“I know that, Hannay,” Letitia remarked from floor level, “It’s around my feet right now. Can you fix it?”

He looked at her from above. “I’ll reroute the systems first,” he told her, and put a patch so you’re not exposed but we need to do the full maintenance that we weren’t given time to do at a proper repair base. Getting a whole new conduit section up here is going to be a tough job for my little squad. Repair bases have machinery we don’t have.” He considered for a moment. “Closest adequate base is Eltarra. You should set course.”

“Commander Dane will take it under advisement,” Switt snapped. “You don’t mind if we pick him up first, do you?”

“No, not at all. Just adds an extra day to our journey is all,” Schole warned her.

“Why are you here, Harrison,” Letitia asked.

“Thought you’d like to know we’ve brigged the four survivors. Well, the three that aren’t in the medical bay.”

“Right,” she waved, “good. You going to deal with them or let Agent Seelevan?”

“He’s already there.”


“Whilst the iron’s hot,” Marcus said, in the interrogation room attached to Harrison’s office, “would you like to get your story in first?”

The pale, powerful looking, Lappinean glared at him, her left ear torn and somewhat ragged from the travails of her life, the left cheek slightly depressed and the ragged cut of a scar down the right side of her neck. Her fingers would have crunched the table if it had been less than metal. “I don’t intend to tell you anything,” she declared.

“What, not even your name,” Marcus goaded. “If you don’t tell me your name, I’ll have to make up one for the capture form.” He looked across at the guard assigned to the room, then back to the prisoner. “How about Begonia?” Her eyes narrowed. “Dalton – that’s my usual partner in all this – and I once had a heck of a night with a girl called Begonia. And her sister Petal. Well, we THOUGHT she was her sister. Turns out it was her daughter but who knew?” He grinned internally as he could see the irrelevance and jabs as to age were getting to her. He could smell the anger rising. “You look like a Begonia.”

“Call me Flax,” she demanded.

“That’ll do,” he permitted, noting it down. “That your callsign?” The twitch of an eye told him he was probably on the right lines. He chose not to press it. “Now, do you or any of our other guests have any need for medical attention? It’s free so you might as well make use of it whilst you’re here.

“I need nothing,” she grunted. “you can ask the others for yourself.” The eye twitched again. “I won’t stop them saying yes.”

“Right. Crayzon clan, I believe?”

“If you say so.”

Marcus mentally rolled his eyes. It was going to be one of those sorts of interviews. “They did abandon you, if you recall?”

“The good of the clan sometimes means leaving a lost member behind.” She leaned forward. “Loyalty,” she told him.

“Shame they weren’t loyal to you,” Marcus remarked. “With a good commanding officer it goes both ways. I’m just establishing things here, making it easier for you. You know how it goes. The harder we have to work to prove we know everything you’ve done the longer you get in the clink. And the cushier clink you get.”


Coran checked in on the infirmary and the pilot she’d shot out of his cockpit to save his life. It seemed she’d cracked the cockpit open when saving his life, a small hole that had almost exhausted the air supply in the pod before they’d brought him in. Commander Kirin was sleeping in the bed to the left, sedated as the auto med dealt with the treatment for his fractured pelvis and tailbone. The Castoran pilot, however, was under Chizelhursts’ care as she treated his broken bone from the fight and the asphyxiation that had nearly emptied and frozen his lungs and iced his eyes. The flight suit, it appeared, was defective. There was a guard there, as the Doctor scuttled between the pilot and the other patients and her registrar program totted up how many of the crew would never be her patient again. And she’d saved one of the enemy. She’d been proud of it. She wondered if the guard would stop her is she strangled this creature? Might he even help her? But no, she thought, you don’t do things like that. Not to anyone. You don’t save them to kill them later because you change your mind. Plus he might well feel indebted to her if he made it. Like three of hers hadn’t. Had she saved any of her own flight? She couldn’t tell. Not often a fighter pilot saved an enemy in a firefight. She wanted to punch him for reminding her just how good she was. “He going to make it,” she asked Chizelhurst.

“With me as his Doctor,” the Raitchain replied, “certainly. Although I’m having to work his treatment around his intestinal parasites, which is quite annoying as the stuff needed to kill them off would wipe HIM too at the moment. It’s mostly defrosting though. Want to talk with him?”

“He’s conscious?”

“He’s wakeable. I’m told you saved him?”

“For my sins.”

“He may want to thank you,” the elder Raitchian advised.

Keri wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.

[Amazee Dayzee]

The person that they saved may have been from the enemy side but at least it shows them that they are merciful and won't let even the people they are against die. So Keri should feel very proud about that as I am not sure that they would have granted them the same help.

[Welsh Halfwit]

53


“So, the Militia lost the cruiser,” Dane told Gerry after finally being updated by the resident Commander whilst Gerry had been left outside the office. “It made it out of their jurisdiction and into the Kalma wastes. They’re not equipped to go in there. The radiation shields aren’t as thorough as some other ships.”

“So we still don’t know who they were working for,” Gerry mentioned, having spoken with Marcus over the relay the Militia had opened for them. Switt’s bringing the ship back in, by the way.”

Dane boggled. “SWITT?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I hope she remembers how to park.”

“She’ll just tell the helm officer to do it.” Gerry remarked. “Anyhow, we’re on the map now. Helping out in the fight against pirates and engaging in a firefight with a mystery cruiser. That’ll get us on the newsvids.” She looked at his face as it posed the ‘will it’ question and her face broke into a tight grin. “We make sure it does. That ship’s not been identified so we want as many as possible to see it. Let the galaxy be our eyes, paranoid conspiracy types and all!” She raised her hands towards the ceiling as her voice rose with the last sentence.

Dane actually chuckled. “I supposed that might work. How long until she gets back?”


Letitia wanted to go find Marble. She wanted to make sure Martin was alright. She wanted to make sure her stuff hadn’t been destroyed in the riling combat. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be finding out the damage and the fact that seventeen of the people around her had come a darn sight closer to death than she had. She certainly didn’t want to be sitting in the chair almost directly underneath the large collection of metal that Schole had just patched up but she understood that it sent a message that she was confident, courageous and committed. Or that she should BE committed, she added mentally. She needed the loo. She stood up, kicking a piece of debris. “Mr Peeves,” she stated, “you’re in charge whilst I hit the head. Is that the proper term?”

The weapons officer, thinking she was trying to lighten the mood, moved his head from side to side in thought. “Maybe not one expected from the Captain but it’ll do.”

She nipped out.


“You can’t go on the bridge,” a voice said, stopping Letitia as she was about to enter the refreshment area. The responding voice turned her around and had her heading for the confrontation, where a guard was keeping a boy back. “Ma’am, I’ve told him…”

“It’s all right, Officer,” Letitia said before walking past and enveloping the boy in a hug. “I was worried about you,” she said, feeling his heart beat against her.

“I wasn’t worried,” he replied. “I knew you were out here to win.” He tilted his head up as she looked down at him.

Then she gently touched her nose to his before pulling back. “Well, I had to, right,” she said. “I had someone to protect.” She glanced around. “Speaking of, where IS Marble? I can smell him on you so he must have been in the safe area, right?”

Wiping an eye that must have had dust in it, Martin smiled slightly. “Yeah, he protected me. Strutting towards engineering the last I saw.” He looked around. “Whered’ya want me?”

She stroked his cheek. “Safe,” she said. “Off this ship. But, for now, in our quarters?”

“Our..?”

“A-12,” she replied. “I had you reassigned to my place. After all, I AM your guardian so you might as well get a bigger place.”

“Thanks. Uh..?”

Letitia looked to the guard. “Get him there, will you?” Then she started back towards the bridge, only remembering why hse’d come this way when she was halfway back. She nipped towards her first destination.


Harrison looked at the wreck of deck six aft and made sure the bulkhead was security sealed so people didn’t manage to open it. The hull had torn here and he had no clue how many lives had blown out of the tear before the bulkheads slammed shut to save the ship. The casualty reports had suggested it hadn’t been many but, he thought bitterly, there was always one. Might it have been one of his? Some had damaged comms so it might well be that the four members of his staff unaccounted for were out there now, frozen masses in the void. He turned and strode away from the sight, heading towards his office.

Marcus stood up as the Equinna entered the interrogation room and stepped toward the Lappinean prisoner, turning the recording system off as he went. “If you don’t tell him what he wants to know,” he breathed, buffeting her face with a snort of breath, “you’ll end up telling me.”

“Chief Harrison,” Marcus said, trying to sound stern, “if you don’t back off, I’ll have to charge you with…” He stopped as Harrison’s head snapped around to face him. The hostility that shone in those eyes… Marcus swallowed as the guard looked unsure as to what to do. “I would have to charge you with, uh, interfering with an interrogation,” he repeated, a little uncertainly.

Harrison looked like he was going to challenge the agent to ‘try it’ but the Lappinean spoke first. “You… you can’t let him touch me.”

“I’m not sure I can stop him,” Marcus replied, his eyes showing the seriousness of the statement as Harrison still had them locked on him. “Al...although I’d have to try if he really, um, hurt you?”

“You and what army,” Harrison demanded.

“Your own security teams,” the guard said aloud, clearly having decided which side his courage was on. “We’d need to. But only after you’d proven it needed, of course.”

Harrison snorted again. “Get information out of her. Whatever you can.” He stomped from the room.

“Well, that was…”

“Yeah,” Flax replied, cutting in. “I can tell you a few things about the Crayzon, I suppose…”


And the ship stuttered back to Caltimman space.

[Amazee Dayzee]

That was a great chapter to read and I like how deep we are going into this story! Hope that you continue to keep it up!

[Welsh Halfwit]

54


The figure stared at the pair of them from the viewer and neither of them was sure if it was a glower or support as Postain viewed them. <“I’m not sure if I should be congratulating you two or asking for your heads. As it comes, you’ve made a handful of low ranking arrests, solved a number of crimes for the locals which were only tangentially connected to the actual crime you were sent out to investigate. You also got the so called victim arrested for his own kidnapping and murder, implicated a major company – and we don’t know which since the professor managed to die of a heart attack in the Dartina Cells two days back – in a deal with a local pirate clan and got seven shades of… stuffing beaten out of you by a cruiser, blacked out half a colony and caused me to have several long conversations with colony chiefs. Apparently the chiefs of police are quite happy with you but the colonial presidents aren’t so enamoured. Something about ‘making their choices look inept’?”>

“Never our intent,” Gerry stated.

“The price of politics,” Dane explained. “We swoop in without THEIR authorisation, expose THEIR problems and zoom away, leaving them to clear things up.”

“Literally what federal agents are supposed to do in these situations,” Gerry argued. “We can only arrest people who’s crimes have crossed jurisdictions.”

<“I know that and THEY know that, Agent Gerry.”> Postain informed them. <“It’s just optics. You’ve done a fair job on this one. I don’t say excellent because you got my ship shot up but you’ve left us things to work on which can bear fruit in the long run. Although we should Kerb al mention of things on an unsecured line, hmm?”>

Gerry knew what he was talking about. She’d included the report of Savra in her notes – as Brightfur probably had too – and he was advising them not to say anything further about the pirate they’d talked to who, in short order, had spoken to them, murdered someone – or ordered their murder in a seriously dark fashion, torched the victims shop and, from what Switt had mentioned, saved the Dayrin on his way out of the system. Adding suspicion of the murder of the shopkeeper to his rap sheet was not trouble. Keeping the fact that they owed him one off it was. Plus she should probably have tried to arrest him at the time but she’d been busy. It had been lucky the Crayzons had chosen then to lure the Dayrin into a trap so he could save them. What with the shuttle and the new ship, the pirates had put a lot into this mission and gotten nothing out of it. Their paymasters wouldn’t be happy. The colony police had already raided their base here and confiscated several tonnes of booty – as they still, sometimes, called it. She reckoned the Crayzon would have to pull back on their attempts to expand now, concentrating on their core area and not entering the control of several other clans quite so much. Was that what Savra had been doing here? Slapping their hands away from certain areas? It suited him just as much to see them need to spend thousands on keeping that ship flying as it did to destroy it, after all. It affected how the Crayzon operated from now on. Possibly.


“You’re awake, then,” Coran told the Castoran rhetorically, seing as he was sat up in bed with cuffs restricting his movement. “You need to keep your cockpits in better order,” she accused, picking a grape off the bunch she’d replicated and popping it in her mouth. “The breach would never have happened in one of my ships.” She winced at the bitter flavour of the streamgrape and put them on the bed.

“Perhaps you should shoot better,” he replied with a glimmer of a grin breaking through the still tight muscles. He let her sit in the chair net to him. “You the pleasant face before the interrogation,” the river dweller remarked, taking a grape and trying it. “Replicated’s better than no attempt,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically. “So, you think I’m pretty? No,” she remarked, “I’m the fellow pilot checking in. The one you might listen to? The Doctor ran your pads and DNA through the systems – cleared up a nasty little infection you must have gotten… Ahem… some place?” She watched him cringe slightly at that. “Doesn’t matter. It came up but there’s nothing serious on your record, Yarra. Only the crash you had that put your brother in the hospital for a while.”

“So, you un… Uh, what,” he asked, his head snapping around to show her all the attention that deserved. “He’s ALIVE? But… but..?”

Coran shrugged. “Apparently it was close but he came through. Told the sheriff how it happened.”

“I… but.. I…” He examined his fingers. “I took his pulse! He… he was dead!”

Coran turned a padd around so Yarra could see the grainy galnet images Midnight had found. She played the fifteen second file of Devar and his wife for him. Then she stopped it. “I can’t tell you to go against your friends and tell the guys things but? Your ship abandoned you, handsome. You’re facing cells in the future but there are worse ones. Talk to them and you’ll probably get you into a place that will allow you to reach out to home if you want?” She stood up. “Your duty is to yourself now, Yarra.” She touched his shoulder and he looked at her softly. “Up to you, bud.” She headed out of the room, letting Swizzlehurst in to run checks as the Castoran helped himself to another grape and consider his future. She headed down to one of the billet doors and pressing the stud to sound the door. It opened and she stepped into Marcus’s room.


The agent was picking up items that had fallen to the floor and he finally understood why carpets were used when they caught the footclaws. Things didn’t smash so much on soft coverings. His keepsakes had survived. He glanced over at her as the door closed behind her. “You think he’ll go for it,” he asked.

“There’s something of a chance, She admitted, bending over next to him to pick up a carbon rod that had fallen to the floor. “What’s this do,” she asked.

He grinned. “Makes you bend over where I want to,” he replied, before kissing her on the mouth.

She let him in.


Keila and Midnight had guessed where Coran had been going and merely followed her silently as she went as it was on the way to the Starwheel bar, where quiet drinking was probably in order tonight but you never knew. The militia buddies would watch out for each other, they knew, but Lappineans needed some fun too. And Brightfur, being an actual colleague, was off limits. And in the hologram room with one of the nursing staff.


And Amy watched the vids to see how to socialise as the ship moved on.

END

Next - Savra: Childcatcher.

[Amazee Dayzee]

This was a very great and riveting story that you put together Welshy as I thought it was truly awesome! I can't wait to see what you have up next when you start the next tale!

Does this also mean I can get a reply back to the RP that we have been doing over PMs also?