Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Captain Tarrant next became aware of anything, he was lying on the bunk in his ready-room while a corpsman was taking his pulse. "Take it easy, Captain, you might've hit your head. Hold still for a second, I need to check your pupil reaction." A penlight was shone in one eye, then the other. "All looks normal, sir. I'll need to run a few more tests to be certain, but it looks like you just had a vasovagal attack."

"A what now?" Tarrant tried to sit up, then decided against it as his head swam.

"You fainted, sir," the medic replied. "It's a stress reaction, basically your brain hitting the emergency shutdown button."

"Oh." Tarrant very carefully turned his head. As he had suspected, Admiral Liu was standing nearby. "I'm terribly sorry about this, Admiral. It appears I've finally gotten around to going off the deep end."

"Would you feel better if I told you you didn't hallucinate the aliens?"

Captain Tarrant's head thumped back onto the pillow. "Not... particularly," he groaned.
"The situation's under control. Consider yourself temporarily relieved of duty due to ill health and let the medics take you down to sickbay."

Captain Tarrant briefly considered objecting, as the Admiral wasn't technically empowered to do that without the Chief Medical Officer's endorsement, and something must have shown in his expression. "It's not an order," the Admiral assured him, "but it will be if you walk back out there and faceplant again."

He had a point, Tarrant decided. If nothing else, collapsing on the bridge in front of everyone had been embarrassing enough the first time. "Aye sir," he said resignedly.

* * *

"Is he going to be alright?" asked Jeb.

"Nothing a long vacation won't fix," replied Admiral Liu. "Not your fault, he's just had a rough couple months; it's kind of an eventful time to be in the Navy."

"So we gathered," Bill said dryly. "We've been watching your TV whenever we're in line-of-sight. The news channels have been... instructive."

Liu smiled wryly. "I'm sure my political leadership will be truly overjoyed to hear that."

Jeb decided he liked the admiral. He'd been impressively level-headed about the whole First Contact business so far, and appeared to have both a sense of humour and a robust intolerance of bullshit. Maybe that was why he was posted to what Jeb gathered was the remote and unfashionable end of the Zyrix system.

Which didn't appear to have any other name, incidentally; much like the Kerbals, the locals just referred to it as "the sun" in ordinary conversation. That was something the anthropologists had asked him to make inquiries about, along with a few more details about this mysterious Earth-That-Was they'd heard mentioned a few times, because despite all of Bill and Bob's dilligent efforts they'd yet to figure out where exactly it was; its orbital period didn't coincide with any of the planets they'd located so far, which admittedly couldn't have been even a third of the total in this system if their information was anything to go by, and the local equivalent of an Astronomical Unit seemed to put it well outside the habitable bracket of the local star. Jeb had a theory about that, one that he hadn't yet worked up the nerve to voice aloud.

"I've been asked to deliver a letter of introduction signed by the leaders of most of our governments back on Kerbin by hand," Jeb explained. "I'd like to request permission for myself and Kurt here to come aboard. We'll wear pressure suits and submit to any biohazard decontamination process you deem necessary."

"That can be arranged. I'll consult with our chief medical officer and get back to you with the arrangements."

"Do you really think that's necessary?" Jeb said warily, watching Kurt struggle to strap a gun-belt on over his suit.

"Better to have it and not need it, boss. I mean, can you imagine what'll happen to my promotion prospects if I let you get kidnapped and dissected by aliens on my watch?" He finally got the catch done up, then reached into the arms locker for his pistol. It was a space-service weapon, small enough in calibre and muzzle velocity that its recoil was manageable in zero-gravity and the rounds weren't capable of puncturing anything vital inside a spacecraft. They weren't capable of puncturing anything vital inside a kerbal who was wearing even the most rudimentary body armour either, but one had to make certain compromises in extreme environments.

"You want to take one too?" he asked, slipping four twenty-round magazines loaded with hollowpoint ammunition into his suit's pockets.

"Best not. We can pass you off as my security detail but I'm technically a diplomat. Besides, I barely even qualified with the damn things, remember?"

"Alright." Kurt slipped a fifth and final magazine into the gun and holstered it, leaving the chamber empty; regulations and good sense forbade loaded weapons in cockpits. He thought long and hard for a moment, then grabbed a second, even smaller pistol and a couple of magazines for it and stuffed them in his flight-bag. He didn't honestly think there was much danger, but it'd still be good to have something to arm the boss with in the event of things going sour.

The Mk1 Mod 5 capsule had much better and more compact electronics than its ancestor, leaving room for a passenger seat and a couple of small storage lockers. It was still crowded as all hell, with about as much leg and elbow room as a compact car, and the laptop and its bulky comms interface attachment weren't helping.

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" Kurt said worriedly, as a nearby corvette spun lazily to track their course with its forward guns.

"What are they gonna do, torture us for information to help them plot the invasion of Kerbin?" Jeb laughed derisively. "They've got enough to do keeping their own people in line, and the only FTL drive within several light-years is on our ship."

"That's what worries me," Kurt replied. He hadn't just been watching the news broadcasts, although those had been worrying enough. One of the channels they'd identified specialised in historical documentaries, for a given value of the word 'historical', and Kurt had gravitated towards it out of professional curiosity when the anniversary of a recent armed conflict had come up. It had been highly informative in ways the network had probably not intended.

Jeb shrugged. "I don't trust the Union of Ostensibly Allied Planets all that far, but this Admiral Liu guy seems to be on the level. If he's not, well..." He opened the manilla envelope containing a print-out of every non-classified detail of the Alkerbierre Drive's operating principles and held up a photograph of what was left of Eeloo. "Think this'll get their attention?"

Kurt laughed out loud. "That will do nicely," he declared, with some satisfaction.

"IAV Fredricksson, this is... Uh, we never picked a callsign so let's go with Homesteader One. On approach, requesting docking instructions, over."

"Homesteader One, this is Approach Control. You're cleared inbound for the main landing bay, indicated by four flashing yellow lights. Be advised, our grav-envelope starts approximately two metres inside the outer airlock door. Some minor nausea and dizziness are normal during transition, over."

"Copy that, Approach Control." Jeb shook his head. "That's gonna take some getting used to."

The revelation that their neighbours had artificial gravity had caused no small amount of consternation back home. They'd seen it on local television a couple of times, but only in the context of programmes that were obviously fictional, and had written it off as one of those technobabble-powered handwaves that even determinedly hard-SF series had to resort to sometimes; renting a spacecraft or orbital facility for location shoots wasn't cheap, and wire-work and bluescreening¹ only went so far.

Captain Tarrant had obligingly and rather dramatically disproved that particular notion, throwing much of their anthropological analysis into disarray and forcing some drastic reevaluation of the Alliance's estimated tech-base. They still didn't seem to have FTL yet, but it seemed they might be closer than the kerbals had previously realised.

This was doubly unfortunate given everything else the Kerbals had been learning from human television. Jeb had always been a proud and vocal member of the share-and-share-alike camp when it came to the distribution of knowledge, but even he was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of placing everything they knew about the human race in the public domain. The public mood had swung from excitement to alarm rather quickly once they'd pieced together what G23 paxilon hydrochlorate was intended to do as opposed to what it had actually done, and in some cases it was hardening into anger. The fact that a large faction of the local government was less than pleased about what had been going on behind their backs was helping only moderately, and the usual suspects were still working up a good head of righteous indignation and demanding that Something Be Done. Nobody seemed to have a clear idea what that something should be, but when had that ever mattered?

* * *

The landing bay was bigger than he'd imagined; apparently a few nuances had escaped the translation team and the Fredricksson was a pocket carrier rather than what Jeb had first thought of when he'd heard her described as a cruiser. A bright red line was painted on the deck; judging by the fact that a pressure-suited figure carrying a pair of lighted batons was standing quite normally on the other side of it, it indicated the edge of the gravity field.

"Hoo boy. Approach Control, this is Homesteader One. Request guidance on crossing the gravity threshold without denting your deck, over."
"Homesteader One, Approach Control. Normal practice is to touch down short and taxi on thrusters. And don't feel bad if you scuff the paint some, everyone does the first couple of times, over."

Jeb chuckled. "Copy that, Approach Control."

Homesteaders weren't really designed for taxiing, but on occasions when they had to be moved around after landing but the local gravity was too high to hover on RCS thrusters alone the landing skids could have wheeled trolleys strapped to the underside. They were remarkably similar in size and shape to a skateboard, and had therefore probably caused more injuries and property damage than any other piece of equipment in the history of Kerballed spaceflight.

"It might be easier to get out and push," Kurt remarked. Jeb gave him a Look, not bothering to dignify that with a response, and engaged the lateral thrusters.

And then promptly regretted it as they crossed the threshold, making his head spin and his stomach lurch both at once as having half his body in freefall and half in 115% of Kerbin stndard gravity sent his autonomic nervous system into a kernel panic. The loud and urgent squawking from the instrument panel suggested the autopilot hadn't fared much better.

"Minor nausea and dizziness, the man says," Jeb muttered. "You okay?"

"I'll live."

Jeb hit the RESET button for the SAS unit to shut the alarm up, making a mental note to turn it off before entering or leaving a grav-envelope in future, and took a look out of the window to see a couple of ground crew and some sort of towing vehicle approaching the capsule. "Valet parking service, huh? Better get buttoned up."

"Can you hear us okay in there?" someone broke in over the radio.

"Loud and clear. We're suiting up now. Uh, is this gonna take long? The computer doing the translating is air-cooled, it's only rated for ten minutes in hard vacuum."

"No problem. We'll be done in less than five."

"Great. Stand clear." Jeb pulled a lever next to the hatch, opening a valve to equalise pressure. There was a faint pop instead of the drawn-out hiss he'd been expecting, and Jeb somewhat belatedly realised the airlock had closed behind them at some point while he was busy trying not to be sick. Feeling slightly silly, he opened the hatch and climbed out.

Four humans were waiting for him. Two of them were unarmed, unless something that looked vaguely like a pressure-washer and a handheld searchlight counted as weapons. The others had some sort of carbines or sub-machine guns and the look of a security detail; apparently not everyone as as relaxed about this situation as Admiral Liu. Their eyes locked onto Kurt's gunbelt, and while they didn't raise their weapons, their sudden change in posture suggested it was a possibility.

"If you guys are on the radio circuit, I'm going to take my sidearm out of its holster and lay it on the deck," Kurt told them. "The chamber is empty but it's loaded."

The two humans exchanged surprised looks. "What were you expecting, a death-ray?" Jeb quipped.

"Now you mention it..." one of them replied.

The resulting laugh broke the tension, and the guards both slung their weapons. One of them picked up Kurt's pistol and examined it with interest, then turned a dial on his suit's wrist and spoke for a moment on a channel the kerbals couldn't hear, presumably asking for further instructions. Apparently satisfied, he switched back and handed the gun over to Kurt. "My superiors say you can keep your weapon, sir."

"Thanks." Kurt made to holster it, but hesitated. "This thing probably needs to go through decon procedures."

"We'll take care of it." The crewman with the handheld spotlight thing stepped forward. "We're going to use a combination of UV and an antiseptic wash. You have protective visors on those helmets?"

"Sure do." Jeb slid his into place. "Let's get this done."

The process was fast and not terribly dignified, involving every inch of their suits being blasted with a mixture of water and industrial bleach at several hundred psi to eliminate anything the UV lamps hadn't got rid of. Once it was complete, one of the deck crew gestured to someone behind a control room window overlooking the airlock. "We're going to dump the atmosphere in here and repressurise, just to be on the safe side," he explained.

"That's not going to cut into your safety margin, is it?" Jeb asked, rather worried; it was a pretty big airlock and they were a long way from their home port.

One of the humans gave him a slightly odd look. "No, we're fine, it's standard procedure for chemical or biowarfare defence. Some nasty stuff got thrown around in the Unification war."

Jeb saw Kurt's eyes narrow at that, and made a mental note to ask him just which side was the first to start throwing those chemical and biological weapons around back then.

"It doesn't make sense," Captain Tarrant muttered, staring at the CCTV feed from the airlock. "Their technology's barely in the 21st century. How the hell did they jump straight to FTL before they even got grav-envelope technology?"

"I wouldn't extrapolate too much from that one ship," Admiral Liu pointed out. "Nuclear-thermal's rugged as all hell, got a fifth as many moving parts as even the simplest laser-fusion drives and it'll run on plain tap water in a pinch. And that grav-wheel? Hell, it's got between zero and one moving parts depending how you look at it. Now, if you were going to be so far out in the Black that your nearest approved spare parts dealer was a couple years away at best speed..."

"Point taken," Tarrant admitted. "But-"

Whatever he was going to say was forgotten as a Marine looked in through the conference room door. "They're here, sirs."

The two aliens entered the conference room a moment later. They were a little shorter than a human on average, the taller of the pair coming to about five feet six by Captain Tarrant's reckoning. Their heads were taller and more cylindrical, and their hands had only four fingers, but otherwise their similarity to homo sapiens was just close enough that with a bit of stage makeup they could pass for human at a distance. Tarrant wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

Their spacesuits, on the other hand, couldn't have passed for human unless they were kept in a museum. Either their internal biology was significantly different, accounting for the much bulkier and heavier suits, or their materials science was about a century behind humanity's.² He wondered what that might mean about their society; did they simply have different research priorities, or had they reverse-engineered their FTL drive from some third party?

"Good morning, gentlemen," said one of them. "Apologies for the shock we gave you, Captain Tarrant. We'd intended to get in touch by radio once our colleagues back home perfected our translation software, but you happened to be in the neighbourhood."

Tarrant smiled awkwardly. "Quite alright, Mr... uh..."

"I'm Jeb and this is Kurt. We don't use secondary names quite the way you do; I think there's maybe twenty different ones total, all representing a different ethnicity. And yes, it does get confusing sometimes," he added with what looked like a faint smile.

"Your knowledge of human culture is pretty impressive; have you been studying us long?" Tarrant replied, with a note of suspicion that was not lost on the Kerbals.

"Not especially. We arrived about a year and a half ago by your calendar, and once we realised this system was inhabited we decided to maintain a low profile until we knew what we were getting into. A few weeks later we managed to pick up some satellite TV transmissions; that's how we got the translation software working."

"Just like in the movies," Admiral Liu quipped.

"Yep. Our movies too, funnily enough. Anyway, I have some official communiques from the various nations of our home system here..." He fumbled in a plastic document folder and handed over a sheaf of paper. Tarrant skimmed the first page; apart from the occasional phonetic spelling, it was undistinguishable from the dry official boilerplate of government communications everywhere, which was at once vaguely reassuring and moderately surreal. He put it to one side for more detailed perusal later.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Jeb continued, "but there's something I really have to ask. We've had our optical and gravimetric sensors searching around the clock for nearly a month, but for the life of us we can't figure out where your homeworld is."

There was an awkward silence as Captain Tarrant and Admiral Liu exchanged looks. "That's... complicated," Liu replied. "And kind of embarrassing."

* * *

"You're kidding."

"Bill, you've been my favourite prank target since we were building sounding rockets out of scrap metal. Is this my usual MO?"

Bill sighed. "No. But come on, Jeb. Doesn't it strike you as just a tiny bit implausible that they could go from a handful of jury-rigged colony-ships to a full-on interplanetary empire in what, a century and a half?"

"More than a handful from what they're telling me; they basically took their whole space infrastructure with 'em, including two decent-sized habitats. Besides, even if Captain Tarrant is a ridiculously good actor, what do they stand to gain by making up a huge elaborate cover story? They could just as easily tell us 'Earth' was on a weird orbit way off the elliptical."

"I guess," Bill admitted. "Still, I wouldn't trust their version of events all that far. Any progress on getting those I/O specs?"

"Everything useful in their onboard library's coming back with me in hard-copy, but it's not much; they sent a request back to headquarters for something more detailed. Admiral Liu estimated two local days, maybe less."

"Nothing like First Contact to cut through the red tape, huh?"

"That's exactly what he said. Anyway, printout's done now, see you in ten minutes."

"Copy that." Bill cut the connection and returned to the guest blogpost he was working on.

The Core Worlds

Posted by: Bill

 

March 18th, 2525

Mood: World-weary

So, we know a little more about the system our new neighbours live in now. The subject of their mysterious homeworld of 'Earth', aka 'Earth-that-was' is something Jeb will probably want to tackle himself when he gets back from the conference aboard the Fredricksson (and no, I can't pronounce that either), but our hosts have helpfully given us some navigation data.

I also had the debateably good fortune to speak directly with an Alliance Naval officer who hailed from one of these 'Core' worlds, and... Well, let's just say I discovered another thing our two races have in common: The tendency for wealthy urbanites to lapse into provincialism, condescending snobbery and unpleasant stereotypes involving sexual congress with animals when discussing people from remote rural districts.

Now, I'd be happy to write this off as an isolated case of someone being a jerk if it wasn't for something I heard on one of the local news channels. No, not the Miranda thing, though that was bad enough. Something about a protest against voter "registration requirements" for Rim worlds. (Rim worlds being defined as anyplace whose economy is too small to support any fashionable wine bars, from the sound of it.)

Yeah.

I think the post-First Contact honeymoon period was over before it really began.

Don't misunderstand me. I have absolutely nothing against our neighbours as people; most of the humans I've interacted with so far have been nothing but friendly and courteous. But what little I've learned about their government leaves me with a very bad taste in

The console made an urgent beeping, and Bill set his tablet aside and brought up the radar display. Two fuzzy blips at long range, on an intercept course. "What the...?" He nudged the attitude controls to bring Starfarer 1's bow to face the contacts and switched over to the optical sensor feed. "Oh, hell."

* * *

Aboard the Fredricksson, the bridge crew were doing much the same. "Reavers," Captain Tarrant breathed. "Sound general quarters!" he barked, slamming one hand down on the button to set off the alarm while grabbing for his respirator pack with the other.

A five-second blast of deafening noise echoed throughout the ship, followed by the voice of the bosun over the PA system. "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. Down and aft on the portside, up and for'ard on starboard side. This is not a drill."

Jeb was halfway through the prelaunch checklist when the klaxon went off, and looked out of the Homesteader's tiny window to see a crew chief frantically gesturing to him. He popped the hatch and stuck his head out, gesturing to the laptop and the radio antenna sticking out of one side. The human caught the hint and grabbed the handheld radio off her belt. "Sir, we need you to clear the launch bay and proceed to the safe zone!"

"Where the hell's that?"

"Oh," the translation program emitted a burst of gibberish followed by an error noise as the human swore in Chinese, "didn't anyone bother telling you? Three decks down and follow the green line on the wall!"

"But what about my ship?"

"Your first officer's going to have to handle things, sir, we need the launch bay clear right now!"

Jeb swore under his breath but nodded. "Alright. Kurt, grab the spare O2 bottles." He pulled a medical kit from the bracket on the bulkhead. "We can make ourselves useful here, at least."

"Twelve contacts, all running with no core containment. Four Trans-Us, one Packard-class armed merchantman, remainder unidentified at this time. Estimated time to weapons range, nine minutes."

Tarrant nodded. "Understood. I want a full missile salvo as soon as they're in range. Target four at the Packard, hit the rest with one missile each."

"Aye sir."

"Captain, I want the taskforce in Formation Echo, or as close as we can get with this few hulls," said Admiral Liu. "We'd better try to screen off our visitors, that Packard's got two missile tubes and they might still be working. And keep that Blue Sun ship where we can keep an eye on 'em."

"Aye sir. Starfarer 1, this is the IAV Fredricksson. We are moving to a defensive formation, please maintain current course and speed, over."

"Copy that, Fredricksson. Be advised, I have not yet received cleared-hot but my Rules of Engagement permit returning fire in the event of a missile launch. Please ask your colleagues in the gunships to stay clear of my field of fire, over."

"Roger that, will do. Fredricksson out." Tarrant shared a look with the admiral. "Someone's a little eager over there."

"We're engaging Reavers. Who the hell ain't? Anyhow, signal the Davis boats to give our new neighbours a clear shot, I wanna see what that boat's capable of."

Formation Echo was a fairly simplistic one, a roughly circular wall of ships with the larger and less agile vessels concentrated towards the centre and smaller, more manoeverable ones spread out on the edges. The theory was that the larger ships would then have overlapping fields of point-defence fire to make up for their limited handling while the smaller ones would have greater freedom to use the full extent of their speed and acceleration without fear of colliding with one another. In an open-space engagement like this one it was pretty effective on paper, but Captain Tarrant wasn't a particular fan of it as it necessarily had all ships facing the same way; a few enemy warships running full emission-control or using a convenient moon or planetoid to block line-of-sight could find themselves with a window of several seconds to line up a shot before they were noticed.

Still, on this occasion it was a non-issue: The nearest orbiting body was a good twelve light-seconds out, and the odds that the Reavers had spotted them early enough to detach a few ships to run cold and quiet towards the flanks were pretty low.

"Any idea if they've seen us?" Tarrant asked the sensors officer.

"Hard to say sir," he replied. "The Packard class's sensor suite is pretty good for a Fleet Auxillary; in fact, theoretically they could've seen us as soon as we saw them. But there's no way to know what kind of condition it's in or how competent the operator is. What I can say for sure is there's no sign of a course change yet."

Tarrant stared at the tactical display, frowning heavily. The second scariest thing about Reavers, after the whole deranged cannibal part, was that they were so thrice-damned unpredictable. Most would just charge headlong into battle without a care for the odds, but some groups showed signs of much more intelligent direction, using proper tactics -often right out of the Alliance Navy playbook- and declining battle if the odds were against them.

Nobody really understood the fine details of Reaver neuropathology, but it was certain that at least some of them retained skills and knowledge they'd acquired before the Pax or else they'd never have made it off-planet in the first place. And a number of Alliance military personnel had been on Miranda, either assigned to the tiny picket force or choosing to settle with their families. It wasn't hard to infer the rest.

"They're changing course sir! The Packard's taking the lead, the smaller ships are pulling back and... Jesus! Positive ID on another vessel, type confirmed as Longbow-class!"

"A what?" Tarrant couldn't quite hold back a heartfelt groan. "Please for the love of all that's holy let it be a civvy model..."

"Sorry, sir. Got a definite visual on the dorsal turret. I think she might be the Lafayette; she's missing her whole portside radiator array, that tallies with the bulletin from Intelligence."

"Shiny, just damn shiny. Time to missile range?"

"Four minutes, sir."

Tarrant exchanged looks with Admiral Liu. "Orders, sir?"

"Concentrate fire on that Packard and the little ships, ignore the frigate for now. I've read the bulletin on the Lafayette," he added, seeing Tarrant's expression. "She was pounded to hell and gone before her crew abandoned ship, probably a write-off even if we could've got her back to drydock. Only thing she could be good for is a decoy."

"Course changes! The smaller vessels are breaking formation, sir!"

"Called it," Liu declared with grim satisfaction. "The big fat important-looking target comes in dumb while the small fry move around to bite us in the ass when we're not looking."

"Missile range in sixty seconds!" the weapons officer called out.

"Fire when ready. Tubes one through four engage the small craft, five and six take out that frigate." Couldn't hurt to hedge their bets, Tarrant reflected, even if the admiral was probably right-
"Missile launches from the frigate!" Yep, definitely a good idea to err on the side of caution there.

"Mission Control, I don't want to rush you or anything..."

"Sorry, Bill. Our intel guys are reviewing the downlink feed now, we have to be absolutely sure of this one. Continue weapons-hold unless fired upon-"

The console made a loud and urgent noise. "Never mind! Missile launches detected. Enemy craft confirmed hostile, engaging!" Bill called out. He flipped the MASTER ARM switch to the on position and let the fire-control computer crunch the numbers while the first shell was loaded. A long moment later, the system chimed happily as the word 'SHOOT' flashed on the screen. He jabbed his thumb down on the fire button. "On the way!"

"Railgun fire detected from Starfarer 1," the sensors officer observed.

"Calibre looks about even with one of our main guns, sir," the weapons officer added. "Velocity's approximately one-third our... Huh, now would you look at that." The single slow-moving radar contact suddenly winked out, replaced by a fuzzy cloud.

"Canister shot," Tarrant realised.

"Looks that way sir. Useless against anything better-armoured than a revenue cutter, but it'll really do a number on those missiles. Second shot fired, same trajectory."

"Buck and ball," Liu added. "Same tactic the Independents used to use. We ditched canister shot because point-defence lasers kill missiles just as fast and don't take up magazine space, but they never had the industrial base for good solid-state laser systems."

"Maybe these guys are as far behind the curve as they look, at least when it comes to weapons tech," Tarrant replied, with a touch of bitterness. What did that say about humanity as a species?

A moment later the inbound missiles met the expanding cloud of canister shot. A handful of brief, strobing flashes punctuated the Black as most -but not all- of them took hits and detonated. "Four leakers still inbound," the weapons officer reported. "Thirty seconds to effective laser range- Reaver ships deploying decoys!"

"Did this pack hit a fleet logistics ship or something?" Tarrant growled. "Damn it, not only are they getting smarter, they're getting better equipped. Reload all tubes with heatseeking missiles."
"Aye sir."

Seconds later, the Alliance taskforce's own missiles reached their targets. Perhaps half locked onto radar ghosts from chaff clouds or active decoy emitters, but those that found their mark had a gratifying effect. Fully half the Reaver ships were blown apart completely, and the looted frigate was left spinning uncontrollably in space with a gaping hole in her side. A few seconds later, Starfarer 1's railgun round impacted midships and blew her clean in half.

"Hell of a bang for that velocity," Liu remarked. "Guess that shell was packing a warhead." The Alliance had gone over to hypervelocity pure-kinetic rounds some time ago, but Tarrant was vaguely aware that slower rounds with explosive payloads had some advantages; reduced wear and tear on the rails, less electrical power needed or heat generated and not as much recoil to compensate for with engines. That last one would be a big deal for the Kerbals, as between their old-fashioned nuclear motors and their probably rather poor thrust-to-weight ratio they couldn't easily write off six kilometres of delta-v a shot.

The commander or alpha male or whatever the hell you called the one who did all the complicated thinking must have survived the first salvo, because the survivors immediately executed a simultaneous course change to move them out of effective weapons range as soon as possible. Captain Tarrant allowed himself a moment of grudging professional admiration for anyone who could coax an orderly retreat out of Reavers, but nevertheless ordered a second salvo while there was still time. It wasn't quite as effective, the Reavers were changing course too fast for accurate shooting, but another small ship vanished in a brilliant flash of light and the Packard began to tumble out of control.

"Do we pursue, sir?" he asked the admiral.

Liu shook his head. "We'd have to split the fleet, and if they're smart enough to think of using that cruiser as bait then they're sure as hell smart enough to have some buddies waiting just out of detection range. Let 'em go this time."

"Aye sir. Stand down from General Quarters and resume course."

* * *

"Lieutenant McKerjel, reporting as ordered, Colonel." Part of him felt like he should be standing attention, even though he knew there was no video link.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Your report has been received, but I'd appreciate it if you could summarise your impressions of the Alliance's military readiness, and that of these 'Reavers' they created."

"Certainly, sir. I regret to report that my direct observations are somewhat limited as I was confined to an assembly area for noncombtant personnel for the duration of the engagement, but I do have Starfarer 1's sensor records from the moment First Officer Bill Kerman armed the railgun as per standard operating procedure. Going by the time-stamps, we spotted the Reavers at approximately the same time the Alliance warships did..."

Kurt briefly outlined the sequence of events. "Their manoeuvres were unremarkable; what I'm told they call 'Formation Echo' is functionally identical to our Defence Formation Six and serves the same purpose. As we suspected, the Fredricksson's fighters were not deployed for a ship-to-ship engagement. While it's probable they can mount some anti-capital ship missiles when necessary, their primary function appears to be engaging surface targets.

"Alliance weapon systems appear to be similar in general operating principles to ours but significantly more advanced in design. They used missiles even against what we'd deem low-value targets, from which I tentatively infer that they have looser Rules of Engagement, a larger budget or both." That earned him a small laugh.

"Lucky sons of bitches. Any idea what their weapons are capable of compared to ours?"

"Hard to say, sir. I haven't been able to independently verify any of the information provided by the Alliance sailors, but if their accounts are to be believed then we being attacked by repurposed civilian spacecraft and two commandeered warships that were severely damaged before being abandoned. What I can say for sure is that their point-defence lasers are significantly more powerful: If we assume the enemy missiles were equivalent in mass and materials to one of our heavy ship-killers, they delivered at least one-third more energy per second than a Sunbeam 5. And that's probably an optimistic estimate.

"Likewise, I haven't had the opportunity for any direct observations regarding the capabilities of Alliance armour-plating. The ship Starfarer 1 killed was already severely damaged and none of the Alliance Navy vessels took a hit. That wrecked warship probably offers the best potential source of intelligence, but that may have to wait until the return leg of our journey."

"Thank you, Lieutenant McKerjel. Keep up the good work. That'll be all." The voice connection terminated.

"You ready to head back?" said Jeb, poking his head around the door. "Because you're not going to believe what just came in from Barkton..."

Kurt and the Fredricksson's communications officer hadn't yet managed to jury-rig a method of transmitting video from a kerbal laptop to an Alliance video screen, so Kurt had brought a projector and screen along with him. Admiral Liu, Captain Tarrant and the two Blue Sun employees watched as a large group of kerbals gathered in front of a large and impressive civic building, watched over by a small cordon of police. Tarrant couldn't read the placards, but the expressions and the handful of Independent flags were pretty instructive by themselves.

"That's the Meeting Hall of the Council of Twelve Pillars," Jeb elaborated, somehow pronouncing the capital letters. "The nearest equivalent in your culture would be the old United Nations of Earth-That-Was, though they have somewhat more legislative power." Behind him on the screen, a kerbal stepped forward with a flag bearing the Blue Sun Corporation logo on a long pole, followed by another who was ostentatiously holding up a burning taper. "You will notice, I hope, that we are making a clear distinction between the actions of Blue Sun Corporation and the actions of the human race as a whole," Jeb continued. "However, the citizens of Kerbin you see here also came to deliver a petition to the Council of Twelve requesting that the transfer of FTL technology be contingent on the outcome of the public inquiry into Blue Sun's actions. They needn't have bothered, as a motion to that effect was being voted on the same day. It passed all but unanimously."

"It seems we aren't the only government with an information security problem," remarked one of the Men In Grey; Jeb thought it was the one who called himself 'Mr Green'.

"Actually, we haven't had a serious security breach in quite a while," he replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's one of the advantages to being selective about what information we classify as secret."

"And having laws against abusing national security rules to conceal evidence of criminal activity," Kurt added pointedly.

"So everything you know about humanity so far...?" Captain Tarrant began in doom-laden tones.

"All over the media."

"Oh."

"Anyway," Jeb continued breezily, "I'll make sure to have a copy of this recording transmitted so you can forward it to your political leadership. You gentlemen may want to take a copy as well; I can't imagine your Board of Directors would be happy if the first they heard of it was from the press package we'll be passing out once we arrive at Greenstone."

That, at long last, got an overt emotional reaction from the Blue Sun employees. "The what now?" exclaimed the one Jeb thought was 'Mr Brown'. "You cannot seriously expect us to let you go down there and just hold a gorram press conference! Are you crazy? There'll be panic! Mass hysteria! This information has to be-"

"Has to be buried under twenty layers of security classification?" Jeb retorted testily.
"We are trying to preserve public order and stability here, Mr Kerman."

"Yeah, and an absolutely fantastic job you're doing so far!" Jeb snapped. He forced himself to take a couple of deep, calming breaths. "This is pointless. You can't keep this under wraps anyway. Even if every sailor in this fleet keeps their mouths shut, the minute our ship comes within visual range of a civilian vessel or installation then someone's going to put two and two together."

"Eyewitness accounts are unverifiable and photos are easily faked. At worst there'll be wild rumours, the disruption would be minimal."

"Just what are you afraid of?" Jeb demanded. "You must have studied every inch of our spacecraft with every sensor you have by now, so you must realise we're no real military threat unless we point the bow at a planet and set the warp drive to 'Ramming Speed', and if we were inclined to do that then the first you'd have known about our very existence was when five-ton wrecking balls started hitting your populated planets at thirty times the speed of light. But we haven't done that, although I dare say there was a non-negligible body of opinion calling for it when we got that poor brave Navy lieutenant's last words translated. Oh, yeah, that's something else I was supposed to let you know." He turned to Admiral Liu and Captain Tarrant. "The Astronomical Institute of Kerbin would like to contact her next of kin to ask permission to name a star after her."

"I'll see that the request is forwarded to her parents," Admiral Liu replied solemnly. "And on behalf of the Navy, they have my thanks for their kind gesture."

One of the Blue Sun representatives looked like he was about to say something, but apparently -and probably wisely- decided not to.

"Anyway," Admiral Liu continued, "while I agree that trying to conceal the arrival of our guests is impractical and probably counterproductive, I think it'd be a good idea to hold off on a press conference until after you've met with the President and the Council of Ministers. Just out of diplomatic courtesy, you understand."

Jeb nodded. "That's perfectly reasonable, Admiral. Agreed. Now, unless you have any further questions, I have a meeting scheduled with Lieutenant Mitchell."

"Mitchell's one of our engineering officers," Tarrant explained. "He's also an amateur historian specialising in early human spaceflight."

And on that note, the meeting broke up. Captain Tarrant stayed seated, deep in thought. They could obliterate our entire species at a stroke and there'd be nothing we could do to stop them, he reflected gloomily. And they turned up just in time to see ample evidence we deserve it.

"Captain?" He looked up to see Jeb standing by the door, laptop still under his arm. "Am I right in guessing you're a little concerned by how your people are viewed back on Kerbin?"

"You could put it like that."

Jeb perched on the edge of the conference table. "Well, I can't speak for all of them, but personally, I'm pretty damned impressed. It took great courage and ingenuity to even reach this solar system, much less accomplish everything you have since you arrived. And sure, I don't like what happened on Miranda; I don't like what I've pieced together about the Unification War, for that matter. But do you think my people have never known war, or tyrants, or atrocities? We aren't so different, Captain Tarrant. My people were just luckier."

"How so?" Tarrant wondered.

"It'll be in Mitchell's report. Speaking of, I have to run. Thank you, Captain."

Tarrant nodded absently, and made a mental note to question Lieutenant Mitchell rather thoroughly at the earliest opportunity.

All the same, he did feel somewhat better.

 

Are You Kidding Me?

Posted by: Jeb

March 29th, 2525

Mood: Indescribable

(I'm sure you can guess which editorial I'm referring to here.)

"Cultural imperialism"? Seriously?

Let's get something straight here. The revelations about the Miranda Message in the news? Those are not "part of the local culture". The local culture has a term for the forcible administering of mind-altering chemicals en masse, and that term is "crimes against humanity". We don't have a direct equivalent, thank all that's holy, but that's the charge preferred hereabouts for such blatant and systematic violations of medical ethics and the sanctity of sentient life that the only fitting penalty is death.

You may argue that we shouldn't be taking sides when it comes to a matter of internal security; I disagree, but I'll admit it's a defensible position. But who thinks we're being condescendingly crypto-racist for siding with the faction of the Alliance government -and voting public, I might add- that wants to enforce the letter and the spirit of its own laws is cordially invited to go and criminally molest a gronnek.³

"Lieutenant Mitchell, reporting as ordered, sir."

"At ease. So, lieutenant, I'm sure you can guess why I called you in."

"Indeed, sir," Mitchell replied. "There's a detailed report in your inbox along with a copy of the reference materials furnished by our guests, but I'll summarise what I've learned so far." He twisted his cap in his hands nervously. "I obviously can't verify any of this independently, but the documents Jeb gave me were very elaborate and detailed. If it's deliberate disinformation, someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble.

"Anyway... The long and the short of it is, the Kerbals are at pre-Exodus levels of technology. They've only been in space about forty of our years, most of their space infrastructure runs on nuclear-thermal motors and they're not even close to gravity field tech. The FTL drive was a lucky accident."

"Lucky how?" Tarrant asked. "Did they reverse-engineer it off of someone else?"

"Not exactly, sir. This is where it gets a little weird. According to Jeb, there's some kind of space-time anomaly in the vicinity of their star system. Maybe a wormhole, maybe somthing else; they're still firing probes into it to try and find out. But the practical upshot of all this is, they managed to kludge together a working FTL drive as a result of the observed behaviour of some of those probes."

Tarrant nodded. "I've suspected something along those lines for a while. I don't suppose he let slip any details of how the damn thing works, by any chance?"

"Not much, sir. He did give me a translated copy of an article from his homeworld's scientific press, but it was light on specifics; in fact, it openly states they don't have a complete picture of the physics themselves. You'll find the text attached to my report."

"I see." Tarrant sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. "I wish we could verify some of this. Did Chief Ling get to take a look at their shuttle yet?"

"He's down in the hangar with Jeb as we speak, sir. I'll bring him up here as soon as he's done."

"Good. That'll be all, lieutenant."

Mitchell returned a little over an hour later with Chief Petty Officer Ling in tow. "Easier than we dared hope, sir," he reported. "I got total access, and Jeb even removed a couple of non-critical parts for us to examine as long as we stuck to non-destructive tests. Apparently that tin can's pure COTS." It took Captain Tarrant a moment to parse the acronym for "commercial off-the-shelf". "As for the tech itself... Well, it's gorram ancient, sir. Chemical fuel all the way, hydrogen peroxide for the attitude thrusters and liquid oxygen combined with a petroleum derivative for the main engine. I haven't gotten the chemical analysis of the fuel sample back yet, but going by smell alone it's mostly kerosene, probably mixed with something to lower the ignition temperature. Computers looked pretty basic too, but then for something that small and simple I guess you wouldn't need much."

"Crude but rugged, then?"

"You can say that again, sir. I got a pretty good look at most of the parts; they're nearly all steel and copper with a few ceramics, and the tolerances are loose enough that any back-street metalwork shop out on the Rim could probably run off replacements, and the fuel's not that much harder to make. If the late great Mr Kalashnikov had gotten a job with the space program then I reckon his rocketships would look a lot like this one under the hood, sir."

"Planning to buy one, Chief?" Tarrant joked.

"You know what, sir? If my wife wouldn't have a conniption over it then I just might. They ain't all that practical anyplace terraformed 'cause they can't take off through an atmosphere, but damned if they don't look fun to fly."

Lieutenant Mitchell had helpfully included a timeline comparing the list of human and Kerbal achievements in spaceflight. For the first couple of decades, they were largely comparable: The Kerbals had put a space station in orbit some time before a manned lunar landing, but otherwise the major milestones lined up almost perfectly. But then the human timeline began to grow sparser; no more manned missions outside of low orbit, then no more manned missions at all for a while. Meanwhile, the Kerbals were forging ahead with the colonisation of 'Duna', which Mitchell's annotations helpfully explained was a mid-sized rocky planet with a thin atmosphere of mostly CO2. Prime terraforming candidate if they ever figure out the tech, Tarrant mused.

But what the hell motivated a race to go hell-for-leather settling a barren rock that had nothing worth breathing in the atmosphere with first-generation nuclear motors for their main propulsion system? It must've taken them most of a year to get there even when orbital conditions were ideal.

Just how fast did Kerbals reproduce, anyway? It hadn't occurred to him to ask. Better find out though, before some of the more histirionic elements in Parliament thought to wonder about it themselves; someone might decide an interstellar invasion threat made a combined excuse and smokescreen for even more constitutionally dubious goings-on.

And he supposed he ought to at least consider the possibility that said invasion threat wasn't completely ludicrous, even if it was hard to imagine what the Kerbals would stand to gain from it. If they wanted lebensraum or some natural resource they were short of back home then they'd be better off finding it in other nearby star systems without current tenants, and if they were covetous of mankind's technology then they could simply buy some, although the provisional exchange rate (based on the relative market values of platinum and a lot of educated guesswork) wasn't currently in their favour.

But then again, when was starting a war of aggression ever the rational course of action? That certainly hadn't stopped humanity over the years. Who was to say the Kerbals were any different? Tarrant thought of the crowd of protestors in the video footage from Kerbin. Lots of high-minded righteous anger (and why shouldn't there be? Plenty of Alliance citizens felt the same way) to provide a motive for the Council of Twelve, or one or more individual nations, to take it upon themselves to wade in with the best of intentions and no thought for the consequences.

And if the Kerbals were savvy enough to link up with the dissident local factions... Well, there were all sorts of rumours about Independent warships falsely listed as lost in action and making a run for the Deep Black. Rumours that probably had a grain of truth to them according to Naval Intelligence. With logistical and technical support from a rear area that was essentially impenetrable until and unless the Alliance cobbled together a working FTL drive of their own, that might not be a fight they could win...

Captain Tarrant looked up at the clock hanging from the ready-room wall, and was mildly shocked to realise he'd been lost in thought for over half an hour. He'd better get some of this down in writing for the Admiralty.

There was one bright side though, he mused, pulling up the text editor on his console. This development ought to be a tremendous incentive to take Blue Sun to the bloody cleaners.

* * *

"Great Kerm above, that's real? Not some sort of mock-up, or a really weird practical joke?" Scott shook his head in wonder. "I'm not sure if I'm horrified it got past the planning stage or impressed they actually got the bloody thing to work."

"Impressive cargo and passenger capacity though," Bill remarked. "Up to six passengers and twenty-four tons of cargo to low orbit? Not bad for a conventional launch system, especially a majority-reusable one."

"For a very broad definition of 'conventional'. Look at that axis of thrust! I can see what they were trying to do, there's no way you'd soft-land a rocket stage that big, but I'm afraid to ask where the centre of mass is. You'd be fighting to stop the bastard somersaulting all the way to orbit."

"Might be easier to work with it, let it push the ship into a gravity turn naturally."

"That'd work, I guess. But can you imagine trying to fly it manually in an emergency? It wouldn't be a glide so much as a controlled plummet."

"As opposed to an uncontrolled one by capsule," Bill pointed out reasonably.

In his cabin, Bob shifted uneasily in his sleep.

"I tell you, though, nobody on the design team ever got any flight time, even in a simulator."

“You're right there. The team back home's only translated the first half-dozen chapters, but these folks were government-funded from Day One. Military pilots, engineers who used to be making missiles for the losing side in the huge-ass war they just got done with... A World War, they called it. Imagine the Age of Strife with only two sides and condensed into one big six year throwdown."

Scott shuddered. "I'd rather not, thanks." He took a long swig of coffee. "You've got to admire these people," he remarked, half to himself. "They've been through such a cataclysmic catalogue of awful shit they're practically a whole race of unsympathetic sitcom protagonists, a fair bit of which they've done to themselves I might add. But not only are they still here, they've built themselves a thriving interplanetary empire! And an empire that hasn't destroyed itself in an orgy of blood, violence and fire despite apparently being run by a committee stuffed with cartoon supervillains, opportunistic plunderers and total cretins. I don't know how they do it!"

"I'm pretty sure that was a little bit racist."

"I dare say. But that doesn't mean it's not true."

Bill raised his eyes heavenwards, and cued up another image on the screen of his laptop. "Well, anyway... This is what they tell me the space agency who came up with that Shuttle thing eventually replaced it with."

Bob moaned and rolled over, breathing heavily.

"Oh, come on." Scott massaged his temples. "Someone has got to be taking the piss. Reality television, really?"

"Is it really any weirder than Jeb doing those commercials, or Bob releasing an album to pay for Munbase One's new rec-dome?"

"Considering it involved stranding a bunch of egomaniac numpties on the next planet over with the bare minimum of actual training and putting the edited highlights on pay-per-view? Yes! And it just gets better; did you read as far as what happened when the ratings dropped?"

"Uh, now you mention it..."

"Well, it's not pretty."

There was a long silence as Bill read on a few pages, followed by another, longer one as it sank in. "Oh," he said, eloquently.

"Yeah."

"But in all fairness, this was what, four centuries ago? Or one and three-quarters if we discount the time they all spent in cryosleep?"

"True. Still makes you wonder, though-"

Bob sat bolt upright in bed with a yell and stared about him, heart hammering. "Great Kerm," he breathed. "A nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare..."

Sorry about that.

"Wha-a...?" Bob leapt to his feet, grabbing a heavy ornament from his desk.

Hey! Take it easy! I'm not in the room. I'm not even on your ship.

"Then where the spaffing hell are you?" Bob hissed angrily. "In my head?"

Not... exactly. Look, I don't have a lot of time before these Blue Sun goons stuff me back in the Faraday cage, but I could really use some help. And you don't have to talk out loud, by the way.

Bob put several pieces togetther. The Academy, he said in his head. You're one of those kids they...

You saw the edited highlights. Now can you please have someone get me the fuck out of here?

Alright, alright. I'll do what I can. Bob took several deep, calming breaths. Tell me about the ship you're on.

What are you going to do?

I don't know yet, but I'm damn sure I can't just call Admiral Liu over on the flagship and tell him I got a psychic distress call.

He'd probably believe you; I heard my handlers bitching about him earlier.

Maybe, but how'd that look on a search warrant?

Point. Damn, they're coming back. Not sure when I'll be back in touch.

Call me ASAP. Maybe I'll have a plan by then.

Bob sat back on his bunk, massaging his temples, and reached into his desk drawer for the remains of a bottle of strong and expensive liquor and a tumbler. He poured himself a couple of fingers of it and downed them in one, then sat down at his desk, reached for a notepad and a pen and tried to think.

 

 

* * *

"I thought you'd ask eventually," said Jeb. "The politicians back home worried about an invasion of land-hungry aliens?"

"Not yet, but they might be when they read my report," Captain Tarrant replied.

"Well, it's kind of complicated." Jeb took a sip of water, the one thing on this ship that he could drink without getting ill. "It wasn't us Kerbals who were facing an overpopulation problem," he said. "It was the other sentient lifeform on Kerbin."

He briefly outlined the role of Kerm trees in kerbal society; their symbiotic relationship with the villages that grew up around them, offering detailed information about soil conditions and highly nutritious fruit in exchange for the Kermol tribespeople helping to spread their seeds, and the vital role they played in kerbal reproductive biology.

"One Kerm tree is barely smarter than an insect, but their roots form some kind of neural network and as a network of Groves gets bigger, the Kerm gets smarter. At thirty-seven it's pre-sapient, on a level with certain..." The translation program on his laptop glitched out. "I guess that doesn't translate well, but I'm told they're analogous to Earth primates like chimpanzees. Go over thirty-seven, and the Kerm crosses the sapience threshold... and it's extremely traumatic and almost guaranteed to kill every tree in the network and any kerbal who happens to be communing with them at the time, at least without an enormous amount of preparation beforehand."

"Communing?" Tarrant asked.

"Best way to describe it in your language is 'contact telepathy'; the Kerm extrudes a lot of thin roots or tendrils or something that enter through the skull and permit a direct brain interface. Our neuroscientists are still some way from a complete picture of how it works.

"So anyway, this all started coming to light around the time our first long-term mission in near-Kerbin orbit was ongoing, and the first proper mapping satellite we ever launched was tasked with finding out the scale of the problem. At that time we didn't know whether it was possible to nurse a Kerm over the sapience threshold at all, and a lot of people -me included, when I got to hear of it- were pretty damn scared of what it might mean. So we took what appeared to be our only chance and threw all the resources we could spare at getting a viable off-world colony going.

"What we didn't learn until we had the first settlement on Duna pretty well-established was that two Kerms that have passed over the sapience threshold don't need anywhere near as big a buffer zone to prevent turf wars; they can coexist about as well as any two random kerbals or humans living next door to each other. Pre-sapients -and especially newly-planted seeds- still need a lot of space and some careful handling, but we've got a good century before Kerbin approaches the saturation point."

Captain Tarrant smiled humourlessly. "That's... not wholly reassuring, but better than I was afraid of."

"Oh, come on," Jeb retorted irritably. "Even supposing that we could narrow the technology gap enough to put our space forces on an even footing hull-for-hull, and somehow compensate for the fact we haven't had a real war in two generations, how the hell are we supposed to fight a war of conquest against a polity with three hundred settled bodies and nearly two and a half times our population?"

"I know, I know," Tarrant sighed. "But there's going to be people who won't let a little thing like logistical reality get in the way of a good panic, either because they don't know better or because it suits their own agenda."

"Hah! Oh, I know the type," Jeb snorted. "I guess politics is still politics whatever your species. Still, I do have some news that might reassure everyone that we're on the level. The governing council of Duna has requested that I pass on an invitation to tender for terraforming contractors." He passed over a sheaf of paper, which Tarrant paged through until he found a detailed breakdown of the numbers. Numbers with an imprressive number of zeroes.

"That... will be very well-received," he declared. Terraforming corporations had some pretty serious lobbying clout, and given that the good candidates in this system were being rapidly exhausted they'd have powerful commercial incentives to keep Alliance-Kerbin relations cordial. Things were definitely looking up-

The intercom buzzed. "Yes?"

"Sorry to bother you, Captain, but there's a call for Mr Jeb and his first officer's demanding a patch-through. He says it's urgent."

"Bill isn't given to using words like 'urgent' lightly," Jeb added. "I'm sorry, Captain, I'd better take this."

"Alright. Put him on."

"Jeb, we have a situation here! Bob's unaccounted for, and wherever he's gone he took an EVA suit and a lot of guns!"

Jeb opened and closed his mouth a couple of times with no sound coming out. "What," he said at last, too stunned to add a question mark.

Captain Tarrant felt a sudden, urgent and entirely rational need to be in another line of employment.

A short while earlier...

Bob tapped a six-digit code into the keypad, and the door to the weapon locker opened with a muted click that nevertheless made him wince slightly.

You worry too much, remarked his new friend, who'd introduced himself as Christopher.
So Jeb is always telling me.

Bob briefly considered a rifle in a calibre that would defeat most large predators, but decided against as it was heavy and unwieldy at close quarters. He picked up a shotgun instead, placed it in his holdall and began stuffing cartridges into a bandolier when suddenly he noticed something much more useful.

"Now we're talking," he said to himself, picking up a sub-machine gun. He hadn't known they had any of these onboard; must've been issued to Kurt. It was a squat, blocky and extremely mean-looking weapon with no stock and only a canvas strap for a foregrip, and he'd a hazy idea this model was pretty wildly inaccurate outside of knife-fighting range. But for what he was about to undertake it'd do just fine. He put it in the bag with the shotgun and filled half a dozen magazines for it.

Last of all, he took two sidearms, one standard issue and one concealable. He stuck the smaller one in his boot and the larger one in the holster he'd already strapped onto his pressure suit.

Bob forced himself to follow the EVA checklist meticulously, spending not one second less than the required minimum period breathing pure O2 to expel the nitrogen and argon from his bloodstream, and double-checking every seal on his suit.

The strip of cloth he tied around his forehead just before donning his helmet served the eminently practical purpose of keeping the sweat out of his eyes, Bob told himself. But really, if he was going to carry out a harebrained scheme straight out of a cheesy action movie, why do things by halves?

You have that trope too?
We have eyes and sweat glands, so I guess it makes sense. Okay, let's do this. And I hope you realise I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

Bob took a firm grip on the bag of guns, and cycled the airlock.

There were two facts about the Blue Sun vessel that were currently working in his favour. One was that its various active and passive sensors only covered a 120-degree cone directly forwards, and that rotating the ship to compensate was not normal practice while in formation with other warships that did have all-aspect cover.

The other was that there was a little-used personnel airlock at the ship's stern with a faulty status indicator; unless an engineering watch-stander was specifically looking for unusual voltage spikes, nobody would notice it being cycled. It was also unlikely that the tiny thruster pack that Bob was using to reach the other vessel would put out enough energy to be noticed by another ship, unless they had the sensitivity of their passive-IR equipment set high enough to create an awful lot of false positives.

Unlikely didn't mean impossible, of course. But that was a risk he was just going to have to take.

This is a really dumb idea.

You suggested it.

I know.

After what felt like an eternity, Bob made contact with the hull of the Blue Sun ship, grabbing a handrail near the airlock and pressing his boots against the hull. The electromagnets built into their soles activated on contact, at least according to the indicator lights on his suit. No effect, he thought 'aloud'. Composite materials?

Far as I know. Something radar-absorbent, with nearly perfect thermal insulation when they want it. Next best thing to a real cloaking device.

Well, that's worrying.

Don't worry too much. They haven't sold any of the tech to the Navy yet, and I don't think they plan to.

And that's even more worrying.

Brings new meaning to 'corporate sovereignty', doesn't it?

I have no idea what that is, and I'm not sure I want to. Okay, I've reached the airlock.

The controls weren't hard to figure out, despite being labelled in languages Bob didn't understand. He emptied the duffel bag while he waited for it to repressurise, pulling out the guns and a heavy ballistic vest. He was wearing a shipboard pressure suit rather than full EVA gear, so the vest and the bandolier went on over it without difficulty. Once the green light flashed, Bob ditched his helmet and adjusted the bandanna before carefully stepping out of the airlock into the corridor.

"Hey, what the-?" One of the crew was coming out of a hatchway with a toolkit in one hand. The man could not have formed any terribly advanced conclusions before Bob kicked him very hard in the groin, grabbed him by the collar as he doubled over and slammed his head into the nearest handy bulkhead a couple of times. He rummaged in the fallen tool box and found a roll of duct tape, which he used to thoroughly truss and gag the groaning, semi-conscious human before dragging him into the airlock.

Nice going.

Thanks.

You've got about ten minutes before he's missed. Take a left here and go down the next ladder, you'll come out in the Engineering compartment. It should be empty but don't let your guard down, I can't pick up much in there while the drives are running.

Well, we'll soon fix that! Bob replied, hefting the shotgun and working the pump-action. Now that he'd committed himself irrevocably his nervousness was starting to fade; in fact, he felt oddly cheerful. It was almost like the moment when the rocket motors shut down and he could unstrap from his seat: He was still scared, but the worst was over and the fun parts...

Bob wisely chose not to pursue that analogy any further.

The engine room was cramped, dimly-lit and noisy, a machine consisting of a large rotating cylinder and a lot of complicated plumbing taking up most of the space in the compartment. "This looks important," Bob said aloud, seizing a fire extinguisher from a wall bracket. He jammed it into the works and was rewarded with a horrible grinding noise followed by a small explosion and the sudden sensation of weightlessness. "And for my next trick," Bob muttered, glancing around for anything else to vandalise, "I shall... Aha!" He wasn't sure if whatever was on the other side of that hatch was explosive or just extremely flammable, but judging by the warning sign he'd lay any money you cared to name that it would react vigorously to the judicious application of arson.
But that would have to wait, because another hatch at the far end of the compartment was opening. Bob unslung his sub-machine gun and crouched behind a locker.

There were two of them, both carrying pistols. That made this a bit easier... Bob flipped off the safety catch and fired. It was supposed to be a short burst, but he was startled by the greater-than-expected recoil and ended up putting a dozen rounds downrange. One human spun away, bleeding profusely from a wound in their side, and the other frantically kicked out for cover. Bob put another, much better controlled burst down in their general direction to discourage pursuit and wrenched open the hatch with the warning label on it.

Inside were two large rows of gas cylinders chained to a bulkhead. Bob switched to the shotgun, took careful aim and blew the valves off three on each side, then took a small cylinder about the size of a felt-tip pen out of his suit pocket. He gave it a twist, tossed it through the hatchway and slammed it closed.

What was that?
Emergency igniter for a rocket motor. Ninety-second delay. 'Scuse me! Bob kicked off and launched himself back towards the ladder. He retraced his steps as far as the airlock and then propelled himself down the opposite corridor, jamming shells into the shotgun and trying to remember everything Christopher had told him about the ship's layout.

Two men wearing body-armour and carrying carbines came floating clumsily towards him. Bob curled up as tight as he could to keep his centre of gravity close to the line of the gun and fired two rounds, using the recoil to slow himself down and drop his magnetic boots onto the deck. The security team were clearly unused to freefall and their answering shots left them spinning helpessly; one of them sailed straight into a bulkhead with a horrible crack and began screaming, and the other was knocked backwards by a chestful of buckshot and came to a dead stop, wheezing horribly. Bob drew his pistol with the intent of putting the man out of the fight with a round through the knee...

And then the whole world spun violently on its axis as a tremendous deafening boom echoed throughout the hull.

On the bridge of the Fredricksson, Jeb saw a brilliant flash, and then the Blue Sun vessel began spinning violently about its axis.

"I think we found Bob," he said softly.

"I don't suppose you have any idea what the hell he thinks he's doing, by any chance?" Captain Tarrant replied, without rancour.

"Funny you should ask that, Captain," Bill replied over the radio, "because Scott found a lot of notes in his cabin. A really detailed map of that ship, with 'holding cells' marked on it quite prominently. We don't know where he got all this information, but it looks an awful lot like someone on that ship sent some kind of distress message."

There was something in Bill's tone that made Jeb very, very suspicious. He sounded almost... amused, like he was playing a role in an elaborate practical joke.

"Distress message?" Admiral Liu said thoughtfully. "Well, that is odd. Captain, I suggest deploying a team of medical and engineering personnel to render assistance. And you'd better send some Marines along too, if there's an armed intruder aboard."

Captain Tarrant was nowhere near as good a poker player as the admiral, and couldn't keep the broad grin off his face. "Agreed, sir. Bosun, you heard the admiral. Make it at least two squads of Marines, and all medical and engineering staff are to wear sidearms. Can't be too careful."
"Aye, sir."

Jeb suddenly understood everything.

"Well, what do you know," one of the bridge crew remarked to nobody in particular. "They facepalm just like we do."

I'm going to be sick.

Try not to. It really isn't pretty in freefall. Bob rubbed his arm where he'd slammed into a bulkhead, then turned on his suit's shoulder-mounted flashlights. Did the lights go out where you are?

Yeah. The ventilation system stopped running too... And I'm in a small compartment that's now airtight. Shit. Shit!

Keep it together kid! Bob snapped. If you panic and start hyperventilating you'll just make things worse. You've got hours before the CO2 builds up enough to give you a headache, much less be dangerous, and I'll be there in a couple of minutes.

Alright. But please hurry!

I will. Bob kicked off from the deck.

 

The two Blue Sun representatives marched into CIC, both looking outwardly unruffled. "We just got word of what's happening onboard our ship," Green said neutrally.

"Civilians are supposed to request permission before coming in here," Admiral Liu pointed out coldly.

"We're not civilians."

"You sure aren't in uniform. Now what do you want?"

"We want you to call off the boarding party, and we want one of these Kerbals to instruct their deranged crewmate to surrender."

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I can't do that," Jeb replied. "Whatever your ship's made of is blocking or deflecting every form of EM radiation we send at it; his suit radio couldn't pick it up, assuming he even took one with him."

"Your buddy blew a twenty-metre hole in the gorram hull!" Brown snarled, his facade of cool indifference finally cracking. "Not to mention trashed our grav-engine, killed two of our crew and put three more in the infirmary!"

"Yeah, about that." Captain Tarrant drew himself up to his full height. "Perhaps you gentlemen would care to tell me just what might have motivated... Bob, was it, to board your vessel?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"Well, I have a few guesses," Kurt interjected. "I've been studying your news media pretty intensively these last few months, gentlemen. The whole Miranda thing has been getting the most attention, of course, but there's also been plenty of talk about the Academy. Destroyed in a terrorist attack, apparently, and dozens of 'specially gifted' children unaccounted for."

"Well, yes. As if that renegade ex-Browncoat Reynolds hasn't caused us enough-" Green made a shushing gesture at his colleague.

"Oh, please. Maybe you can fool the nicely ignorant voting public who've had their critical-thinking skills neatly amputated by your education system, but we Kerbals don't do things that way. Would you believe my best subject in highschool was Sociology? Did good enough that I won myself a full-ride scholarship all the way to degree level with a guaranteed job at the end, all courtesy of Information Warfare Command. Your bosses really ought to look into doing the same, you know, because from where I'm standing it looks like your PsyOps division is being run by a bunch of total amateurs." He glanced at Jeb, who was looking slightly peturbed by this revelation. "They didn't tell you I was an intelligence officer?"

"They called you a 'signals intelligence specialist'. I took that to mean you did the interception, not the analysis."

"What can I say? We're a small Air Force, I have to wear several hats. But the practical upshot of all this," Kurt said, turning a steely glare upon the two Blue Sun employees, "is that it's blindingly obvious to anyone with the most rudimentary ability to recognise bullshit when it pours out of his television set what kind of operation your 'school for the gifted' really is. Great Kerm above, how stupid do you think your own citizens are, much less us? Are we really supposed to believe that someone kidnapped your secret army of psychic space-ninjas?"

Green smiled faintly. "A fascinating hypothesis, Lieutenant. But you do realise that your only evidence that we even have an army of 'psychic space-ninjas', as you put it, is the unsupported word of a dangerously unbalanced teenage girl?"

"You mean a teenage girl like the one in the video footage you showed us, single-handedly taking apart several veteran special forces operators twice her size?" said Captain Tarrant, in a tightly controlled tone of voice that made some of his more experienced subordinates start looking for the nearest object to hide behind.

Admiral Liu smiled, not pleasantly. "Captain? I think you'd better arrange reinforcements for that boarding party. At least the rest of your Marines."

"Admiral, our ship contains numerous classified experimental technologies-"

"Then let the record state that on my authority as taskforce commander, I am granting those marines access to all classified areas aboard your ship due to exigient circumstances. I suggest you contact your colleagues to inform them of this fact, and quickly," the Admiral replied, "because I will be very displeased if there was a misunderstanding that resulted in one of my sailors or Marines being harmed."

"You can't do that!" Brown protested.

"Watch me. Captain Tarrant, I believe this situation passes the threshold of reasonable suspicion. If you please?"

"I do please, Admiral, very much so. Agent Brown, Agent Green," Tarrant said formally, "under the provisions of the Naval Law Enforcement Powers Act, you are hereby bound by law on suspicion of false imprisonment and conspiracy to kidnap. Mr Hemry, as soon as these men have instructed the crew of their vessel to stand down, have them confined to the brig."

"Aye, sir." The Chief of the Boat stepped away from his station and loomed with the practiced ease of long experience riding herd on unruly sailors, one hand resting on the butt of his sidearm.

The Men in Grey looked at one another. "Told you we shouldn't have shown them the video," Brown muttered.

"Yeah, yeah." Green sighed. "Well, guess it's time for Plan B."

"Oh, hell no..."

"You have any better suggestions?"

"Gentlemen," the Chief said warningly. "The Captain gave you an order."

"Oh, go fuck yourself," Green retorted, and pulled a small cylindrical object from his pocket.

"What the hell-?" Hemry yanked the pistol from its holster, but it was too late.

Jeb yelped and covered his ears as an excruciatingly loud whine filled the air. All around him the Fredricksson's bridge crew were falling to the ground, screaming as blood began seeping from their eyes and ears. "Oh what the fuck," he breathed.

Then Green staggered backwards before his head snapped back and... well, stopped being recognisable as a human head. The cylinder dropped from nerveless fingers as his body crashed to the ground, mercifully cutting off the awful noise. Kurt shifted his aim to Brown... a fraction of a second too late, because the man had been a little more on-the-ball than his colleague and drawn his own sidearm the instant he realised the Kerbals weren't going down. He got the first shot off, and Kurt's own bullet went high as the impact knocked him flat on his back.

Brown had no time to enjoy any feeling of satisfaction, however, because Jeb snatched the pistol that Kurt had pressed on him some time earlier from his jumpsuit's inside pocket and shot the man repeatedly in the back until his gun clicked dry. He fell to his knees, making incoherent little mewing noises.

"Told you... hweee... that thing would... hweee... come in handy," Kurt wheezed. The low-profile ballistic vest he'd been wearing under his jumpsuit had stood up to the shot, barely, but he still felt like he'd been sucker-punched with an anvil.

"Guess so." Jeb very cautiously approached the still-groaning Brown and kicked his gun out of reach. "You alright?"

Before Kurt could answer, half a dozen fully-armed Marines came bursting through the hatch. "Nobody move!" one of them bellowed. Then his brain caught up with his eyes. "What the...? Corpsman! Corpsman! Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened in here?"

"Wiseguy over there used some kind of sonic weapon," Jeb replied. "Guess it wasn't calibrated for Kerbals." He tried not to look at the vivid red stain on the bulkhead.

"Son of a bitch," the Marine muttered, then turned to the hatch. "Where the hell is that gorram corpsman?"

"Right here, Sergeant." A woman with a lieutenant's stripes on her cuffs walked in carrying a medkit, followed by several orderlies. "God almighty," she said to herself. "Get everyone in here down to sickbay, on the double! And someone put some cuffs on that Blue Sun bastard, I need to know what the hell that weapon was!"

"I wouldn't try and move him if you need him alive," Kurt warned, getting to his feet. "My boss here put a whole magazine into his back."

The lieutenant shot Jeb an appraising look. "For a race of peaceful explorers and scientists, you fellas sure play for keeps," she remarked. "Yuoh, get the spinal board on him."

Oblivious to all the fun and excitement taking place aboard the Fredricksson, Bob was carefully approaching the holding cells. Two guards were floating by the hatch, all gripping rifles.
"This is crazy," one of them muttered. "You think the gorram Navy's not gonna ask any questions? We are screwed, man."

"Ah, cool it," another snapped. "They've got two Special Projects operators on the flagship. Ain't no Navy puke who values his career gonna tell them no."

"Wanna bet? My brother-in-law's Navy, he told me all about this Liu guy. You think a guy who values his career gets posted to the pi gu end of ruttin' nowhere? He 'speaks his mind', or so Marty tells me. Those Special Projects creeps are probably in the gorram brig by now."

Do you have something to do with the fact I can understand what these guys are saying?

Uh... Maybe? I've never tried calling someone who wasn't a native English speaker before.

Well, I'm not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, as I believe you folks say.

"I said cool it, Jack. We will be fine. Worst case scenario, we toss a coupla Willie-Petes in the cell; no muss, no fuss, no evidence."

"Yeah, because it's not bad enough that I'm an accessory after the fact to kidnapping, but I gotta be an accessory to murder too! That's real gorram great!"

"Little late to be growing a conscience now, dude."

"Oh, really? Maybe you oughta give it a try. I mean, you've not got a whole gorram lot to lose right now."

"Jack, for Chrissakes, either shut the hell up or go lock yourself in one of these cells and think up horrible stories about your working conditions or something. You're makin' me nervous."

Which one's Jack?

The shorter one, with the blonde hair. He's alright.

I know.

Bob secured both primary weapons against his body by their slings, and drew his sidearm; he'd need a hand free for this. He thumbed off the safety, grabbed a suitable handhold and swung himself into the holding area.

"What the f-?" Jack's colleague never got to bring the gun up before Bob put three precise, efficient shots into his centre of mass. He shifted his aim to where Jack had been a moment before, but he was already hurling himself behind a computer workstation. "Fuck!" Jack whimpered. "Don't kill me! Please! I'm just a gorram cook, man! All I did at the Academy was serve grub in the canteen! I didn't even know what they were doing 'til I signed the NDA!"

Bob sighed. Insofar as he could actually tell with humans, the poor kid sounded like he couldn't have been more than two years out of high school. "Toss the gun out here, and come out with your hands where I can see them," he said, trying to sound stern.

The rifle went sailing across the compartment, and the man -no, boy; dear Kerweh he just looked so young- slowly emerged. "You can understand me?" he exclaimed.

"Yeah. Probably Christopher's doing. And he was wrong, Jack. It's never too late to grow a conscience. Now, do you have any idea how to get these cell doors open?"

"If they're like every other door in this place there's a manual override lever under... Shit. Under a panel that should be about here." He thumped a blank section of bulkhead with the flat of his hand.

"Well, crap. Christopher? Keep calm, we're working on getting you out of there!" Bob peered at the door controls. It was an electronic lock of some sort; maybe he could hotwire it. "You got a screwdriver or something?"

"Here." Jack passed him a multi-tool.

"Thanks." Bob unscrewed and pried off the panel, pulled out two likely-looking wires and touched them together.

Nothing. "Oh, for crying out loud! Not even a backup battery?"

Jack shrugged. "Safety inspectors ain't cleared to even know this ship exists."

"Figures. Okay, I can deal with this. Do you have a handheld radio, a music player, anything with a battery in it? This thing can't use all that much power."

"I don't, but I think he does." Jack grabbed his former colleague by his belt, overcame his revulsion and patted the corpse's pockets. "Aha!"

Bob caught the little walkie-talkie as it glided towards him and pulled off the battery cover. Going by size alone it was somewhere between seven and ten volts, plenty for what he had in mind-

"Heads up!" Jack hissed. Bob heard shouts from the corridor outside and hastily unslung his sub-machine gun. "Keep your head down," he whispered.

There were six of them, all carrying rifles and wearing body armour. Bob mentally tallied up his ammunition: One and a half magazines for the SMG, about fifteen shotgun shells plus whatever was in the two rifles Jack and the dead man had been carrying.

Not looking good.

I'm sorry I got you into this, Bob.

Don't be. It was the right thing to do.

Bob flicked off the safety, leaned out of cover and fired. He was getting better at controlled three-round bursts now, slamming the point-man backwards into his colleagues without wasting a single bullet. He couldn't have done much damage through all that Kevlar, but the amount of swearing he provoked was still pretty satisfying.

"Oh, give it up, you dumb son of a bitch!" one of them yelled. "There's only one way in or out of there! C'mon, if you surrender we might give you some lube for the anal probing!"

"Go stick it in a tree!" Bob retorted, showcasing a remarkable instance of convergent evolution in language despite the suggestion having some rather different connotations on Kerbin. He fired another quick burst to keep their heads down and turned to Jack. "Is there somewhere I can shoot a human where it won't do any permanent harm? You might need an alibi."

Jack shook his head and took hold of the rifle he'd dropped earlier. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I've had it with this shitshow anyway. Hey, that you, Sheng?" he called out. "Next time you drop in on Mr Numos for your daily ass-kissing session, tell him I quit!" He braced himself against the hatch and fired a long, wild burst down the corridor. "Get the door open," he hissed to Bob. "I'll keep 'em busy."

Bob nodded. "Be careful, kid."

Jack gave a hollow laugh. "I was being careful when I kept my head down and let these people make me an accomplice," he replied, then fired another, slightly more controlled burst. "Now hustle!"

Bob swung across the compartment and snatched the walkie-talkie out of the air. As he fumbled with it, he must have hit the power switch somehow.

"...pen your airlock or we will have to use force. I repeat, this is the Marine boarding shuttle off your port bow..."

"Oh, hell yeah!" Bob jabbed his thumb down on what he really hoped was the Transmit key. "Marine boarding shuttle, this is Bob Kerman! Myself and a former Blue Sun employee are at the holding cells! We're pinned down and need assistance!"

"What the...?" Whoever was on the radio clearly hadn't expected that, but a helpful burst of gunfire from somewhere behind Bob apparently convinced him that this wasn't a put-up job. "Understood! Stay off the air, this is a non-secure channel! We're on the way, over!"

"Copy that, Marines! Over and out!" Bob flipped the radio over and yanked the battery. "Backup's on the way, Jack! Now please Kerm and Kerweh and anyone else who cares let this fucking work..." There was a click, and the panel made an angry buzzing noise. "Yes! C'mon out Chris!"

A small -very, disturbingly small- black-haired missile shot out of the cell and collided with Bob. He couldn't have been more than than twelve years old.

Bob hugged him fiercely. "It's alright, kid. You're going to be okay."

"Alliance Marines, Alliance Marines! Drop the weapons and put your hands in the air!" someone yelled. The Blue Sun personnel spun around and began firing down the corridor behind them.

Jack began taking aim, but Bob grabbed the rifle and forced it down. "Don't! You'll hit our guys!"

"He might, but I won't!" Christopher pushed past the two men, holding Bob's sidearm.
"Chris no-!"

"Mustn't look," he whispered, and closed his eyes.

Six pistol shots rang out. Six Blue Sun employees fell dead. And the innocence of a boy not even old enough to shave died with them.

* * *

"I'm not honestly sure what a kerbal's ribs are supposed to look like, but I'm pretty sure you've cracked a couple," the medic declared, peering at the X-ray picture.

"Yeah, me too," Kurt agreed, wincing. "I'm sure glad that guy was packing subsonic hollowpoints." The two Blue Sun employees had also been found to be carrying suppressors for their sidearms, presumably in case they wanted to dispose of inconvenient witnesses a bit more subtly. "How are your crew?"

"They'll live." The medic's face darkened. "All of them will have permanent hearing impairment, and Chief Hemry suffered a cerebral haemorhage. There's probably other long-term injuries we haven't diagnosed yet because we don't know exactly how that little toy works."

Kurt felt a very brief moment of pity for the crew of that Blue Sun vessel if they were foolhardy enough to resist arrest. Every ship in the taskforce had sent its entire Marine detachment over to reinforce the initial boarding party, and the bootnecks⁴ were not likely to be in a very forgiving mood after word had got around. There was already an armed guard on Brown, despite the fact there was no more than a 50/50 chance he'd ever walk again.

Jeb's only comment when informed of this was, "Maybe he'll get lucky, and they'll shoot him instead of making him do thirty to life in a wheelchair."

There was a sudden commotion at the hatch, and Kurt looked up to see Bob walking slowly into the infirmary with a small child in his arms. He was still wearing his pressure suit, a cartridge bandolier and a bandanna of all things. It would have been comical if not for the look in his eyes.
"Is he hurt?" the Chief Medical Officer asked carefully.

"Not physically. He's sleeping now."

"Put him on one of these beds. We won't wake him."

Bob did so, and then collapsed into a chair next to the bed Kurt was lying on. "He killed six men today. Pickpocketed my gun and made six perfect headshots in less than fifteen seconds. They've turned him into a finely-honed killing machine."

"Oh Great Kerm..."

"He's eleven and a half years old, Kurt. The half's important, he was very clear on that. A kid that age ought to be dreaming of getting a cool new bike for his birthday, trying out for a sports team at school, maybe just starting to notice girls. But those... those fucking sociopaths taught him..." Bob's voice faltered, and he buried his face in his hands. "What makes anyone do shit like this?" he mumbled, once he'd composed himself a little. "I mean, what could possibly be worth doing that to a kid? World peace, the secret to immortality?"

"Some of them think they're making the Alliance safer." Bob started at Christopher's voice. "Some of them think they can make people better somehow, let everyone have the same gifts I do. But most of them... They like the world how it is, and they want to stop people changing it. Hey, the language thing works both ways. Cool."

"Thought you were asleep," Bob said softly, getting up and stroking the boy's hair.

"Not quite. And we're not all bad, you know. Even most of the Blue Sun folks weren't; they were just scared, like Jack."

"I know. Close your eyes now, kid. You've had a long day."

Jeb knew from experience that he was going to regret this -something about his endocrine system not having all the right enzymes yet according to the xenobiology people back home- but he'd gladly put up with some gastric distress in a few hours if it meant his hands would just stop shaking already. Besides, this drink that the locals called 'Navy Rum' was really rather nice.
"Thought I'd find you here." Jeb looked up, and saw Admiral Liu standing at the hatchway to the wardroom. "Mind if I join you?"

"I don't, although I suspect the medics might."

"Ah, the hell with what they think! I'm beyond economic repair anyway. Pour me one of whatever he's having, son, and leave the bottle."

"Aye sir." The steward poured Liu a double in a balloon glass and made himself scarce.

"So," the Admiral began, picking up his glass and savouring the bouquet, "how you holding up?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess." Jeb stared into his drink. "You're right, by the way. That was the first time I'd ever fired a gun at anything but a paper target, and so help me every deity who might be listening I never want to again."

"You saved a lot of lives today. Mine included."

"You're welcome."

"Doesn't help much, does it?" Admiral Liu raised his glass. "Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women," he said to himself, and tossed it back in one long swallow.

"That did not translate well. And no, it doesn't. Every time I close my eyes, I keep seeing..." Jeb sighed heavily and poured himself another shot. "I'm sorry. This must seem rather pathetic to a career military man."

"Not at all. Sapient life's the rarest commodity in the gorram universe, near as we can tell. Attacking another thinking, self-aware being with intent to kill, even in defence of your own life or someone else's? That ain't something to take lightly. Sometimes I think we Navy folks have it too easy because we only see the ships through our gun-sights, not the people in 'em. Makes it easier to not think about the people in.. planetary targets, I guess you'd call 'em."

Jeb thought of satellites loaded with twelve-metre tungsten rods, an idea conceived at the height of the Kerm Grove Crisis but mercifully banned by treaty before it could go beyond a feasibility study. Not that warship railguns were any less deadly in practice, or even an overclocked cargo mass-driver on an asteroid mining tender, but by the time they'd started building those the prospect of war was a lot more distant. "I see what you mean," he agreed. "So, how much mayhem did we cause?"

"Oh, moderate amount. Parliament's about evenly split on awarding Bob a medal and clapping him in irons, and Blue Sun's got one hell of a lot of explaining to do."

"Good. I'm sure the Council of Twelve are feeling much the same about Bob, or they will be once they've read Kurt's report. Heck, I am. I'm going to need at least another three of these before I have that conversation..."

"I'll, uh, come back later then?"

Jeb spun around in his seat, preparing to give Bob an industrial hairdryer-grade shouting at, then saw the bandanna and burst out laughing instead. "Bob, you crazy son of a bitch, I've gotta hand it to you," he said, once he'd got his breath back. "When you get your action hero on, you go all the way."

"Well, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Now if it's all the same to you gentlemen, I'm feeling a powerful urge to get drunk."

"Reckon that makes three of us," Admiral Liu replied.

So they did.

A few weeks later...

"You are completely unsuited to the very concept of a vacation, aren't you?" Inara sighed, but affectionately. "Here we are, staying in a beautiful country house on a huge estate as the guests of a fantastically wealthy couple, and you're yearning to be back onboard a cramped little cargo ship eating protein bars."

Mal just shrugged. "I'll admit to bein' a mite restless. Not to mention concerned 'bout overstayin' our welcome."

"You worry too much. Now get back into bed before I have to come get you."
Mal wisely declined to argue. Inara wrapped her entire body around him like he was the world's largest teddy-bear and sighed happily. Mal stroked her hair and smiled, allowing himself to relax a little...

"Cap'n, 'Nara, I think you'd better come see this!"

Inara said a word unbecoming her previous occupation. "Kaylee, this had better be extremely important!"

Gabriel and Regan had a ridiculously large television at one end of the ranch house's open-plan ground floor, and everyone currently even approximately awake crowded round it as a reporter excitedly babbled into a microphone in front of the Parliament building.

"... still no official word from the government about what transpired, but- Wait, here they come now."

Someone stepped onto a small podium outside the building. Someone very, very obviously not human. He(?) fiddled with a small computer for a moment, plugged what appeared to be a microphone into it and clipped it to his lapel.

"Citizens of the Union of Allied Planets. My name is Jebediah Kerman, and my colleagues and I have journeyed here from a solar system some eight light-years distant. I know this is a terrible old cliche, but... we come in peace." There was a pause as the alien stared at his computer, then cracked what was probably a smile. "Except for my friend Bob. He came to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and he ran out of gum somewhere in the Oort Cloud. And I have no idea what the hell that means," he muttered in a tone the microphones probably weren't meant to catch. "Can you tell I didn't write this speech myself? Anyhow, before taking questions I would like to give a short statement in order to place an accurate first-hand account of recent events in the public domain before the rumour mill can get going..."

"Well," said Inara, once the network finally cut back to the studio, "that... happened." Her expression and tone of voice suggested that she'd emote properly later when she could spare the mental system resources for it because what was currently happening was just that weird. That was normally more Mal's shtick, but even a trained and experienced Companion's professional veneer of unflappable serenity has its limits.

"Gorram it! I knew we missed some of the kids," River grumbled. "You'd better phone them," she told her father. "Mrs Wei will want to talk to Christopher."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." Gabriel rubbed his eyes. "After coffee. Or something stronger."
Wordlessly, Simon pointed to the television, which was now showing footage from what appeared to be a Kerbal news channel.

Gabriel blinked. "Are those Independent flags?"

"Yep."

"Ich bin ein Browncoat," River quoted happily.

"Right. Definitely something stronger. And not a word, dear," Gabriel added, giving his wife a quelling look.

"Actually, I was going to ask you to pour me one."

Mal just leaned back on the sofa and smiled. Today, he decided, looked like it was going to be a good day.

THE END... of the beginning.