Edrus Vaan had spent the better part of a year stationed on Listening Post 121 of 142, nestled comfortably outside the sixth and outermost planet of the system. He was alone, or at least he would be if his partner, Kal, ever managed to annoy him to the point of murdering her. It had been a close thing on more than one occasion. She favored the shrill poetry beamed from the surface of the planet Pedres, when the receiver was in a position to catch it and when he or a rogue solar storm didn’t manage to disable it. Unfortunately, his partner was an engineer, and the only thing that ever seemed to get repaired on the listening post was the multi-channeled acoustic receiver. It would be an easy thing, next time she took the skiff out, to rig the docking locks and leave her out there for the space walkers to come and collect.
Sometimes he questioned the Maeyar Fleet Ops’ wisdom in sending husband and wife pairs to man long-term space postings.
Before he could come up with more ingenious methods of making his wife’s untimely expiration appear accidental, a small alarm light flashed on his control panel. He looked at it, his lone eye swiveling as he pared the skin off the last of his preserved fruit. His attention moved to the small display in the wall, where numbers flashed in rapid succession, vectors and values which he was trained to interpret.
He swallowed. "Kal, jewel of my existence, are you doing maintenance on the superluminal sensor array?"
The high-pitched squeal of Kal Vaan’s plasmic welder cut out, leaving only the high-pitched squeal of her poetry. Transmitted through sublight radio waves, the recorded verses were more than four hours old before they reached the station and mounted an assault on his ears. Kal appeared through the hatch, still wearing her protective mask. "No, light of my morning. The superluminal array is functioning as it should."
Edrus watched her perform the same scan he had just performed on the instrumentation.
"Impossible," she said, "not even Malagath ships have a darkspace profile like that. I don’t know anything that does."
"Could it be that human freighter back with another shipment?" asked Edrus. The strange, primitive race setting up a trade depot on Pedres with the Maeyar had spacecraft with antiquated darkspace engines that suggested craft of a much larger size on the FTL sensors. He dialed the vector into the optics system, state-of-the-art lenses with a light amplification module to magnify what little of the core star’s brilliance made it out this far. It would take a few seconds for that light to bounce off anything coming out of darkspace and return to the sensor, so he waited while his wife tapped away on a console, asking the neighboring station if their superluminal array also held the anomaly.
The nearest station was a few light-minutes away, and Edrus’ quandary was answered through his optical sensors before the message ever reached them.
"Dark stars," he whispered, as spacecraft began to fill his scope by the dozen. Nearly a hundred had transitioned into the system before he could pry himself away from the lenses. "Send a burst to Pedres, we’re under attack."
Victoria stumbled off the ramp of the Condor’s airlock, gasping with relief. Ersis played host to a great many smells, few of them pleasant. But after the carnage the Vautan rescues wreaked on her nasal passages it was like being in the fresh spring air of Northern Ireland. Thank Christ they were finally off her ship. Four days of shore leave for the crew while the Condor deodorized would help to raise spirits as well. Ersis was on a moon orbiting a gas giant so closely that it was completely shrouded by its nitrogen-rich upper atmosphere. The low gravity and an atmosphere dense enough to breathe made it an instant favorite for an interstellar harbor and for the businesses that grew to support the shipping and their crews. The Vautan survivors would have no issue finding passage here and soon their schematics would be on their way to Earth via secure FTL channels. Four days meant time enough for her to put the Vautan officer and his arrogance behind her. And maybe find some humans she hadn’t seen every day for the last six months, and even more importantly, wouldn’t ever have to see again.
As far as security was concerned, Ersis was about as safe as a xeno city could be if you avoided the rougher spots. Of course her Vultures were walking rough spots, and most of her marines would have to be hauled out of security lockup and stuffed back on the Condor. For personal protection, the sidearm on her hip and her Union Earth Privateer uniform jacket would suffice. Humanity was known to Ersis. Even so, she scowled as Major Calhoun caught the door of the magnetic train before she could get away. She ignored his self-satisfied smirk as he wedged into the seat between her and a xeno her retinal implants had difficulty identifying. Protocol dictated the captain have a security detail on xeno planets and neutral stations. It would be batteries or nothing for another six months.
The spaceport mooring the Condor accessed the city proper by automated trains traveling between free-standing magnetic relays. No visibly apparent force lifted the cars, but the ground smoothly fell away as Victoria lifted above the rooftops to her favorite part of the journey.
"Look Red, that’s the Apex, one of the new class of light cruisers the Lereigh just put out. That forward ablative plate can shrug off almost anything short of a Malagath particle cannon. That at the next mooring over? That’s a Jenursa boat. Diplomatic, must be an ambassador yacht."
Red, not normally interested in ships unless they were simulating boarding actions, leaned over and squinted.
"Two down from that, that’s Maeyar, right? We pulled rescues off a smaller one."
The public car carried them higher and she could indeed see the dorsal point defense microwave emitters of a Maeyar frigate.
"Hell yeah, look, so is the one next to it. They’ve got those distinct flared fins back by the engines. Designed to dip into atmo, that’s why they’re so streamlined and have that reinforced ridge running down either shoulder. Those are vibration dampeners, those things can pull mach levels that would shake most ships apart. Love to get my hands on some of them."
"They’re not alone," said Red, pointing out the opposite window.
Victoria pressed her hands to the glass, ignoring the scandalized wheeze of the xeno whose personal space she’d doubtless violated. She whistled. "That’s the Twin Sister, she’s a carrier. Fighters, bombers, interceptors. We could park a dozen privateers in her hold. And she’s got two more escorts, that frigate and that missile boat next to it. No way this is a coincidence, there’s major fleet movement going on here."
The magnetic train car lifted them too far from the ships for her retinal implants to identify any further vessels. Newly upgraded after a brush with vacuum had damaged the old ones, this model had tighter text display and the color count upped from grayscale to 256 colors in the photo display, which was a first. Relevant data about the Maeyar scrolled across her screen, downloaded directly from the Condor’s computers. Most of it she already knew. Most of it was reports she wrote. By the time the train reached the city center Victoria was up to speed on the new entries drafted since she last encountered the xenos, up to and including an attack on Pedres. Though details were sketchy, Ersis’ proximity to the Maeyar’s second most populous world almost guaranteed that the battlegroup she saw was en route.
The Union Earth kept an embassy of sorts tucked away in the seventy-first level of a helical skyscraper just off the main concourse of the city. Slightly bigger than a broom closet, it was more of an officer’s lounge for privateer crew, with an on-staff cook and access to FTL comms without having to resort to public terminals. There was no official ambassador attached to the embassy, and the sign in Kossovoldt Standard upon leaving the gravity lift simply read "Union Earth Office" in plain lettering. Sitting in front of it was a bored-looking local counting down the minutes until shift end. It perked up when it spotted Victoria, consulting a small note.
"Captain Marin, you have a visitor," it said in a passable English, albeit with more of an American accent. Clever, that. And only the second xeno she’d seen use a human language since she’d become a captain. "Senior Wing Officer Sothcide."
Victoria leaned over to Red, "South-Side! The Maeyar J.O. we pulled out of the hot seat. Looks like he’s moved up in the world, went and got himself command of a fighter wing." She turned to the receptionist. "How long has he been here?’
"Just a few minutes, Captain Marin. Captain Jones invited him in."
Victoria grew silent, then pushed past the xeno without another word. Beyond the door was a small airlock, which cycled the atmosphere with a brief rush of wind. She removed the chilly oxygen bleed from her nostrils as the ambient air became a closer approximation of Earth’s 22% oxygen, a gas toxic to most of the life on Ersis.
Not so to the Maeyar, and Victoria saw that Sothcide had removed the breathing apparatus from his long, dangling snout. Thin membranous flaps that reminded her of cuttlefish fluttered along the side of his narrow face and neck as he breathed oxygen-rich air like his own planet’s. Upon noticing her with his single central eye, the Maeyar pilot set down his coffee cup and stood, dark liquid still dripping from his tube-like mouth. Across from him, Captain Jones also smiled under a trimmed black beard, though the chill in his eyes could have hidden the Condor from the most advanced thermal sensors in the galaxy. He stood as well, clearing his throat to speak.
Victoria’s scorn was less disguised as her upper lip curled back in disgust. "Shut your mouth, Jones, I can smell Director Sampson’s cock on your breath from here," she said in English. Color rose on Jones’ cheeks, his smile melted into unabashed scorn.
"As I was just informing the Wing Officer," he announced in Kossovoldt, "The Privateer Corps takes a keen interest in Pedres. Whatever your operation, I’m sure we can find a mutually beneficial arrangement."
Sothcide crossed to Victoria, gently squeezing her shoulder with his free hand. "And as I was just informing Captain Jones, I am here to speak to the captain that defeated the Springdawn."
"Officer Sothcide, I’m sure we can all-"
"He said out, pig-fucker. Hit the road, Jones, preferably from a great height after the major here throws you through the window. Won’t kill you in this gravity. Probably. But it’s your call."
Jones looked at the coffee mess where his own security detail was eyeing the bulk of Major Calhoun, weighing loyalty with self-preservation. He shrugged at his captain, who uttered a disgusted sound. "Have it your way, Victoria. I’ll see you in the sky," he said. He pushed past Red, his security nodding to the major as he passed. Marines were their own breed.
After the airlock cycled behind him Victoria let her breath out, feeling muscles unwind she hadn’t realized she clenched. Jones was a plastic-smiled pushover, but only when he had dirt between his toes. In space the man was a hooded cobra, quick and deadly. Sothcide slurped more coffee as he watched her relax.
"Not marriage material, I take it, Human Victoria? Tell me, what is a ‘pig’?"
Victoria collapsed onto the white leather couch, putting her boots up onto the ottoman while Red went to investigate the coffee. "An Earth animal, small, fat, and very tasty when fried. But they have a reputation for uncleanliness, so much so that a few human cultures refuse to eat them. They spend their days rolling in mud, snorting and snuffing and screeching at their own ugliness."
Sothcide’s eye spun as he considered this. "To fuck one would then be loud, messy, and altogether impractical, I imagine. A colorful colloquialism. My culture has a similar one, though it requires some knowledge of Maeyar local dialects."
"We’re practically cousins."
Sothcide took the seat opposite her, settling in as best he could to a chair never designed to accommodate his alien physiology. "It’s not the only similarity our people share. I met with one of the human captains of your fleet, and upon my asking he offered, free of any cost, a paper version of your religious text. Though I am given to understand there are almost as many religions among the humans as there are stars in the galaxy, this one had a story that was of particular interest to me. Are you familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan?"
"Intimately. Catholic school. The Maeyar have a similar story?"
The frills on the sides of his long, narrow face fluttered. Victoria knew it was ascent before her retinal implants chimed in. She remained quiet as he continued.
"The storms in Malvis, the northern reaches of my homeland, are said to have once been even more fierce than today. It was during such a storm that a woman became lost along the road to pilgrimage and sought shelter within a nearby community. Rather than offer aid, those of the village robbed her, and beat her terribly as they chased her back into the storm. For two days she wandered, filthy, starving, and ill from exposure. On the third day, she collapsed upon the road, unable to move any further.
"Two textile merchants passed, and she begged them to let her ride their draft kanua. A beast similar in purpose to your ox, I believe. ‘There will be no room for the cloth, and if you lay upon it you will soil it and we will not be able to sell it,’ they said. And they left her in the road.
"Next she saw two men from her own village, and these too she begged for aid. ‘Brothers,’ she said, ‘Help me along the path. I need only the strength of your arms.’
"But they felt great shame to look upon her, pretended they did not know her, and they left her in the road.
"Finally a beggar crossed her, dressed in rags and limping on a rod made from the stalk of a river frond. He lifted the woman, and leaning on her as much as she upon him, he brought her to a shack he made from discarded scraps, and returned her to health with a stew of wild roots. He asked nothing for his kindness. In time, her strength returned and she completed her pilgrimage. At the conclusion of her journey, she returned and she married the beggar, for he had already acted as a husband to her."
Victoria cast a glance at Red as the parable hung in the air. "You’re right," she said. "In a strange, endearingly misogynistic sort of way it is like the story of the Good Samaritan. This is about our last meeting, the time I pulled you off that burning frigate."
"Indeed it is, Captain Marin. But it is bigger than that. As the woman married the beggar, so too does this commonality of spirit marry my people to yours. There are few among the stars to show such compassion outside the bounds of their own peoples. When you found me I had been passed by twice by my own kind and left for dead, to be scuttled into stardust by one predator or another. Even the Maeyar seem to have lost this tenet of compassion, its warmth slipped away into the cold voids between the stars and the space behind space. Care and mercy have as little meaning there as time and distance."
Sothcide pulled a silk handkerchief from his uniform pocket to dab at the coffee dripping from his proboscis, flourishing the square of yellow cloth in his long fingers.
"Behold, Human Victoria, the fruit of our peoples’ union. The softest of organic fibers, grown from worms I am told, though I believe it to be jests. The Maeyar cannot get enough of it to satisfy demand and fashion."
"Yeah, I’ve got some silk undies. Pretty great stuff."
"Your coffee, too, has become a luxury, a cup of this size worth more than its volume in engine coolant. And in return, the Union Earth asks only alloys, silicas, and minerals widely available in asteroids across our holdings, safely away from trafficked darkspace lanes. But all trade with the Union Earth comes through Pedres. A planet which, as you likely surmised by our presence here, is under attack."
Vick leaned forward. "An attack that threatens any trade. But Scarves and dark roast are not a formal defense alliance. Union Earth won’t want to be involved. If anything, they’ll call a halt to excursions until it blows over," said Victoria as she accepted a mug from Red. How long had it been since she had spiked coffee? Bourbon woke her up better than caffeine. "Nor, and I don’t divulge this information lightly, is our fleet in a position to fight an interstellar war. If you’re looking for front-line allies, we’re not in a position to help, despite whatever Jones tried to promise you."
Sothcide stood, holding a single slender finger before him, his lone eye fixed on her. It was black, speckled and dotted with luminous flecks like a star map. "One ship, Victoria, the right ship, can make all the difference. I have seen how you can brush between the waves of radar, hide the heat of your engines and walk across space. Even our smallest fighters burn like stars in the infrared. Details are slim. We know who, and how many. But the Condor could discover the true nature of this invasion. The why."
Victoria sat back on the white leather and considered. Helping the Maeyar defend Pedres could cement their alliance. Or it could earn humanity a powerful enemy. In either event, it could get the Vultures killed and the wreckage of the Condor scattered to scrap above an alien planet.
But it could effect change in the landscape of the Orion Spur. Humanity tenuously clung to a half-dozen worlds with expeditionary colonies on a few more. The largest after Earth was a colony of just over a half-million. All were vulnerable. An ally like the Maeyar would ease defenses on a wide front, and open up at least two more scouted systems, and maybe even cohabitation. Few enough xenos needed oxygen atmospheres. And there would be xenotech. Where there was fighting, salvage always followed.
"South-Side, this isn’t a call I can make on my own. My officers deserve a say in this kind of commitment. When do you leave?"
"Two standard days and nights."
Considering the possibility, Victoria stood to escort the Maeyar wing officer out through the airlock. The Condor was in fighting shape, and two days refit would patch up a few scars they’d earned in the months since they’d put human space in the rear viewscreen.
Once the rush of air died down enough to speak again, Sothcide turned to her, hands brushing the sides of her shoulders again.
"Thank you, Captain Marin. For the coffee and for meeting with me. I hope you will see your way to joining our battlegroup as we leave for Pedres."
Victoria grinned. "I’ll see you when I see you, Wing Officer Sothcide. And I won’t tell your wife that you were putting the moves on me."
The frilly wisps at the sides of his head fluttered again. Laughter, this time, accompanied by a burbling whistle from his proboscis. "Captain, it was her idea to send me here. I may command the fighters in her bay, but the light of my horizon holds the reins of the Twin Sister."