"Just the usual, sir," Faisal replied. He scratched his broad, striped nose with the very tip of an extended claw as text scrolled rapidly on the side bar. "Some compacted news 3deos, personal letters. And a few updates to our T&S list. Otherwise, same old stuff, sir."

Isidore Wyatt, captain of the Sojourner-class scout UAV Spiralwhite, reclined in his far-too-comfortable command chair and frowned. A loan from the Terran Star Navy, he was new enough still that the similarities between Fleet and the Navy easily deceived him into dismissing the differences. It required effort, for instance, for him to quite believe his exec looked like a bipedal tiger and his third in command a bipedal wolf, but it was only three weeks into their one-year deployment. He had time to adjust.

"What system will we be passing next?"

Faisal's ears swiveled backward. "Catalog Black-257, sir. Looks like a yellow star. Gas giant and an asteroid belt." He grinned, displaying sharp fangs among his more humanoid teeth. "No pleasure planets to enjoy in Black-257."

Wyatt chuckled quietly. The Harat-Shar tiger might be hard to believe, but he was easy to get along with. The human studied the holographic projection of the passing stars, fingers laced into a steeple over his chest. The Navy's request for his transfer to the larger Alliance Fleet had come as a surprise, but it had seemed like a reasonable career move. Terra mobilized her ships only to protect Sol, Earth and the surrounding, laboring colonies, and despite having joined the Alliance, she remained too poor a system to fund any major exploratory efforts. The Alliance, meanwhile, had over thirty solar systems in its Core and added new protectorates monthly. It had sounded like a win-win situation...until Wyatt realized that Fleet didn't work like any military he'd heard of. Which is why a junior grade captain had ended up in charge of what amounted to a tin can -- what Fleet insisted was a scout.

Like so many of the gengineered constructs that had somehow become races in their own right, Spiralwhite had a human origin and too many sharp teeth. The Fleet might have been like the Navy six hundred years ago. What it was now...

Wyatt shook his head. Whatever it was, he was in it for the next ten years. "When's delta shift due up, Commander?"

"Ten minutes, sir," the tiger said. Tigraine, Wyatt reminded himself. Harat-Shar tigraine. "We're due in-system in three hours."

"Sounds good."

"Up for a game later tonight, Captain?" Faisal asked with another one of those fangy grins.

Wyatt paused. "Not tonight." He smiled. "I need more practice to keep you from cleaning the court with me."

The tigraine exec chuckled. "Your will be done, sir."

The formality of the Fleet continued to evade Wyatt; at first, he'd assumed from his crew's behavior that there was no real separation between ranks except for duties, but a few weeks' careful observation had revealed a tacit set of rules dictating when a situation required formality. He still hadn't hooked into that ruleset, and his few attempts to find the limits hadn't really provided any useful insights...except possibly that Harat-Shar were very good at rhedball.

Three hours until they reached the next system. He could shower and get a nap in three hours. Wyatt stood. "You have the con, Commander."

"Aye, sir. I have the throne. Err, con."

Wyatt heaved a small sigh and headed for the lift. His quarters, palatial in his estimate, were not far from the bridge, but he still had to walk several corridors overshadowed by the preposterous trees to get to them. That his rooms looked more like an apartment, complete with a window, only nagged at him more. At least someone had removed the flowers from the windowsill. And despite the remarkable size of his quarters, Wyatt could not understand how the Alliance with its obvious obsession for comfort had managed to do away with stewards.

"Ah well," he said aloud as he entered the living room. He pulled off his uniform tunic with a sigh. "Another day in wonderland." He smirked briefly at his passing reflection as he stepped into the bathroom and stripped out of the two-piece stretch leotard mandated in lieu of underwear. The wet showers, at least, he would not complain about.

Twenty minutes later found Wyatt in a clean leotard sipping coffee and studying the packet Fleet Central had bussed them on their normal traffic transspace channel. He had a few pieces of personal mail, viseos from friends in the Navy eager to know what it was like to serve in Fleet; he saved those for later and instead reviewed the official documents, starting with the T&S list. Several of the ships previously listed as 'Suspicious' had been upgraded to 'Threats', and he stared at their designations for several minutes over the lip of his mug before thumbing to the next transfer. While his science people were responsible for IDing any moths, it was still good for the commanding officer to stay informed. When next he glanced up from his data tablet, the ship's artificial night had descended in the corridors outside.

"Computer...chronolog, please."

"Chronolog is currently AMT 462-301:18.27.31."

Wyatt nodded and slid the data tablet across his desk. He still had roughly an hour and a half for a nap. Though the odds were against them finding anything in Black-257, he liked to be present for their translations in-system. "Computer. Set the alarm for 19:30, please."

A soft chime followed him to the couch, where he tossed a pillow and then himself. Minutes later, he fell asleep.

*

Wyatt stepped back onto the bridge at 20:02 and into a hushed activity so fierce it startled him. "Second Commander?" he asked, coffee mug in hand.

Branagh Mariengard, the brindled brown wolf, stood from the command chair. His green eyes remained level and polite. "Captain. We just dropped in-system, and there's a sensor trace on scans."

Wyatt frowned, glancing toward the holographic display. Scout bridges were too small to have the usual division of command and lower decks, so he didn't have to look far.

"Jesus!"

The wolfine cleared his throat, and Wyatt grimaced. He'd forgotten how seriously the Hinichi wolves took their adaptation of Christianity.

"Pardon me," he said. "Do we have any preliminary information on that monster?"

"Scans are calling it a probable merchant. We're not close enough to pick up any hull information, though, and she's not running an ID-beam."

Wyatt's frown creased his forehead. "Strange."

Branagh nodded. "As soon as we're close enough, we'll run a T&S assessment, but from all preliminaries it looks like we have a moth."

The human sat in the command chair and sipped from his coffee, frowning. It would be their first 'moth', a transgressor. He glanced around the bridge; Branagh sat the science station, with several other level heads at navigation, sensor control, engineering... he paused at the platinum blonde at weapons.

"Branagh," he said quietly.

The wolf was instantly at his side, tail weaving an idle pattern behind him. "Sir?"

"That lieutenant."

A brief frown fluttered across the Second Commander's mouth. "Lindsey Majors, sir." He hesitated, then added in a steady voice, "Do you want her relieved?"

Wyatt's lips tightened into a grimace. "That won't be necessary," he said, but he framed it deliberately as a command.

"No, sir," Branagh agreed.

Wyatt schooled his face into a mask. The pretty feline -- Asanii, he corrected himself; there were at least three races of catlike creatures -- sitting at weapons had a face as sweet as any model's, her fur a pale egg-cream to match the nearly white hair, but just as the scar that ran down her forehead to her golden-brown eye was badly hidden by the lock of open curls that fell over it, her beautiful exterior could not conceal the rancor she bore for pirates like a halo shield. He privately wondered how she'd passed the psych evaluations; her files had been demure about where she'd acquired such a virulent hatred, but the scar, at least, left little to the imagination. He had no reason to distrust her, but having her at weapons while they investigated a moth raised a few hairs on the back of his neck.

"Time to positive ID?"

"We'll be in range to check hull-datings in...one hour, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Wyatt said, then sipped from his coffee. He watched the stars creep past on the holographic display; even on a 'scout' this 'small', the display was still nine feet tall. The gas giant's edge smeared a crimson arch against the southwest corner, swelling against the glitter of asteroids that reflected sunlight as they tumbled in ungainly grace through their orbits. He listened to the quiet talk of the officers at their stations, eyes half-lidded as the chronolog display on the southeast corner of the starscape patiently measured the time.

"Captain! We're getting a read on the ship. She still has a few of the original date-plates from the shipyards."

Wyatt leaned forward. "And?"

"She's six years old, sir. They stripped a lot of the plating from her, but there's plenty of the original material on her spine and belly." The short foxine at the sensor station squinted at her display, ears flipping back. "We have a positive match on the T&S, sir. She's a threat."

Wyatt's hand tightened around the handle of his mug. "Confidence?"

"We have a ninety percent match, sir," the lieutenant replied, looking up at him. Her voice lowered. "She's listed as a slaver, Captain."

The low snarl that sounded into the silence was not his own. Wyatt glanced sharply at Lindsey, whose mouth bore fangs in a rictus of unrelenting venom. He agreed with the sentiment, though long custom masked his face. "Any signs of an escort?"

"None, sir."

Wyatt frowned. "Could they be that overconfident?" he murmured, seeing Branagh's ears perk from the corner of his eye. "Has the Fleet been so lax that they feel they can waltz all over God, the universe, and everything like this?"

"Begging the captain's pardon, sir, but the Fleet is not lax," Branagh said solemnly, with a hard spark in his green eyes.

Wyatt decided not to reply to that. "No escort. Is she loaded?"

"Sensors make it at about five million tons, sir. I would say yes."

"Bigger than I'd expected," Wyatt murmured, brows clenching over the bridge of his nose. "How soon before she sees us?"

"I'd make it another ten minutes."

Wyatt sipped from his coffee, now cold. "Is there anything else listed about her in the T&S?"

"No, sir."

The human shifted in his seat. The merchant massed several times his vessel's size. If she was indeed a slaver, he did not have the space to take her crew into custody, nor could he send enough people to overpower them.

Wyatt laced his fingers before his chest. "Where's the nearest Fleet vessel? Something more this girl's size."

"There's a Parallel Class warcruiser two sectors away, sir. The UAV Mantlethorn, Captain Vernon Messick commanding."

Wyatt spent a few minutes hunting down the Navy equivalent; a dreadnought, then. "Send a message to the Mantlethorn. Inform them we have a slaver-ship too big for us to handle. We'll disable them and leave her to them."

"Message away, sir."

"Bring us up her port side, then. Hail her."

"Channel is open, sir."

"This is the UAV Spiralwhite, Captain Isidore Wyatt commanding." Pride made his voice tight. Tin can...'scout', or not, it was still his ship. "You are not listed in the Alliance Registry of ships licensed for space travel. Shut down your engines and prepare to be detained."

"No response," the comm officer said in a low tone.

Wyatt frowned. "Send this. Merchant vessel, if you do not desist, we will be forced to fire on you. Shut down your engines and prepare to be detained."

The comm officer's ears perked. "Sir, we're receiving a reply." He twitched a few fingers, and a rumbling bass filled the bridge.

"Spiralwhite. Be advised that we have two thousand people worth of cargo spread throughout our ship. Fire on us if you want to risk killing them."

The silence on the bridge was electric, and Lindsey Major's hiss was the spark that set it afire. "We should kill them now!"

Branagh cleared his throat. "Lieutenant. We're here to preserve civilians, not to destroy them."

The feline's gold-brown gaze unnerved Wyatt even without bearing its brunt. She said, "Better dead than the way they're living now."

"Enough," Wyatt said. "Where are they going?"

"They're heading straight for the gas giant, sir. They'll make it there in two hours."

Wyatt curled one hand into a fist. The magnetic field of the gas giant would wreak havoc on communications, which was indubitably their intention. "Any response yet from the Mantlethorn?"

"No, sir."

"Lay in a pursuit course, Lieutenant, then, and contact me when the Mantlethorn replies." Wyatt stood. "Branagh, call the First Commander to the state room, then join me there. Walthers! You have the con."

"Aye, sir."

*

Wyatt laid his hands flat, palm down, on the table in his state room. "Gentlemen. I need options."

"We need to get them before they get to that gas giant," Faisal said, ears slicked to his head. "They probably have an escape vessel; the ship is large enough for that. We've backed them into a corner, and if they take off they know we can't follow them."

"They could even sabotage the ship so it'll fall into the gas giant," Branagh added.

Wyatt tried to keep from twitching. "So we have to follow them. I don't like it. They shouldn't have defied us immediately... they didn't even insist on their innocence."

The computer chimed, and the human glanced at the ceiling. "Yes?"

"Lieutenant Walthers, sir. The Mantlethorn is on its way, but it won't arrive for at least seven hours."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Wyatt paused to massage his forehead as the computer closed the link with another chime. "We have two hours to head them off from that gas giant. We might have to risk disabling them before they get there."

"The casualties...," the Hinichi wolfine said, teeth bared.

"We can save fifteen hundred or none at all," Wyatt snapped. He sighed as the wolf bridled. "I don't like it any more than you do, Branagh. But we don't have much of a choice. We're a forty-person scout, not a warcruiser, and this is effectively a hostage situation. We're not on the high ground here."

"A merchant doesn't have military-grade shields," Faisal pointed out quietly. "A few surgical strikes, and we can probably knock out their in-system drives without doing too much damage to the rest of the ship. It's not like they're going to be dodging."

"What if they have prisoners in the engine rooms?" Branagh leaned forward. "I don't like the idea of killing the people we're supposed to be protecting!"

"We don't even have any evidence that they have slaves!" Faisal replied. "That transmission was audio only. How do we know?"

"It's carrying cargo from its tonnage. We can't risk it!"

Wyatt said, "Enough." Both pairs of eyes swiveled to him. "We have to disable that ship, no matter how unpalatable it might be. If we catch her far away enough from the gas giant, we can dispatch a shuttle to watch over her if the slavers have an escape vessel. We can't let them get away. I have never read in any briefings on pirate activity about a ring that can buy, beg, steal, and crew a merchant that size. Two thousand slaves!" He calmed himself. "We need to bag those people." He looked at them. "Right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Aye, sir."

"Let's go then," he said, and walked out.

The bridge hummed nervously as the state room's door slid open. Wyatt sensed the worried glances of the crew as he relieved Walthers in silence and the First and Second Commanders took their seats.

He cleared his throat, then said, "General Quarters!" The siren screamed its programmed five times before setting the bridge to alert light levels. "Navigation, plot me a course up that merchant's bow and take us in. Close enough to read the hull-dating. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Once we get there," Wyatt said, eyes flicking to regard Lindsey Majors, "We're going to target their in-systems and take them out. I want precision, Lieutenant. Those engines and nothing more. Those engines and nothing less."

Lindsey's hand curled into a claw against her console and her gaze seemed far too feral for Wyatt's taste. Strange that out of all the gengineered wolf-people and fox-people and God knew what other kind of people he'd met, none of them had come across as 'animals' until Majors.

"Understood, sir," she said.

"Good. Take us in, then. Fast and easy."

Wyatt leaned back as the stars accelerated. He couldn't feel the ship's increase in speed, but he'd long ago noticed the ever so slight vibration that heralded the change in power intensities in the in-system drives; the in-systems differed from the Well Drive's indicators, a subsonic hum that spoke to a deeper, more instinctive power. How the Alliance had figured out how to fold space, Wyatt would never know. But the most powerful ship in Earth's Star Navy had never had the strength and grace of even this small courier before the Alliance came. Through his agitation, he marveled.

"We're coming up on the merchant now, sir," Navigation said. The glare of silver on the holographic projection was moving too quickly relative to the stars behind it to be a star or a rock.

"Steady as she goes," Wyatt murmured.

"We'll be in range in six minutes."

Six minutes. The human closed his eyes. He was not a particularly religious man, but he sent a wisp of a prayer to whatever God there might be. If there were civilians near the engines, their strike would consign them to whatever afterlife they believed in.

"We're in range now, sir!"

"We have acquired target lock," Lindsey's voice had a hard edge. "Firing no--"

The world came apart. With a terrifying shriek, the Spiralwhite lurched to the side so suddenly Wyatt slammed into his chair with the fringe of her acceleration. The stars in the display twirled crazily as the lights flared and settled to the half-light of emergency power.

"What happened?" he barked.

"Sir!" Faisal, grabbing his console with protracted claws. "The merchant shot at us!"

Wyatt's head spun towards the display. "Nav!"

The lieutenant at navigation had his own problems. The Spiralwhite swooped across the bow of the merchant, missing her belly by less than one hundred feet.

"They're still firing," Lindsey reported, her shoulders and body taut.

"Damage report!"

"We've lost stability in the starboard nacelle. We won't be able to use the Well Drive."

The Well Drive was of limited utility within a solar system. Wyatt's hasty glance at the tactical display showed they were running from the massive energy weapons now exposed along the side of the 'merchant'. "Did we get our shot off?"

"Yes, sir," Lindsey answered, whipping her head around to face his, eyes afire, "But when we evaded, it twisted my shot off-target. We only clipped them."

"A damn Q-ship," Wyatt said. "Pull us out of range!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Sir! They're rolling to pursue!"

The humor of the prey-turned-predator wasn't totally lost on Wyatt, even as he flipped through his choices, each less savory than the next. To run, and let the slavers get away with their two thousand prisoners? To fight, and most certainly be destroyed? If they could only disable the ship, the Mantlethorn could take over after its arrival... but to safely disable the ship now, they also had to destroy power to its weapons, and that would require a strike near the heart of the ship, risking the destruction of life support or even the entire vessel. Assuming, of course, that they could even get close enough to do any damage: the primary evaluation of that broadside put the estimate at six grasers, each large enough to be mounted on a dreadnought. If even one of those hit point-blank, not even the Alliance's halo shields could keep the Spiralwhite from becoming the Blooming Crimson.

"Captain!" Branagh was standing at his station. "Orders, sir! We can't leave the prisoners behind!"

"Sir! We have packet separation!" The foxine at the sensor station was visibly shaken. "I make it...seventeen...no eighteen packets!"

"Run!" Wyatt barked, ignoring the stare of the wolfine. The Spiralwhite wouldn't survive more than two or three of those entropy packets if they managed to hit. His mind continued to speed forward as Navigation and Weapons tied consoles and began to pick off the packets while evading. Why was the Q-ship even bothering? They had to know Spiralwhite could outrun them, so why waste the ammunition? And where had the slavers managed to find a Q-ship, or a yard to equip one?

He realized that the shudder running through him wasn't his, but the ship's.

"Shields are at forty percent, sir! DC estimates we can take two more of those before we have no shields."

It wasn't the Spiralwhite they were after. It had to be the Mantlethorn! He checked the tactical plot and hissed. The slavers had already chased them into the edge of the magnetic field of the gas giant, preventing them from warning the Mantlethorn, and once disabled the warcruiser would be an incredible prize for the slavers; even if their ship was destroyed in the process, it would be worth it to be able to limp home in the hull of a warcruiser with its military grade engines, shields, and weapons.

It was a trap.

Wyatt slammed his fist against the arm of his chair. "Nav! Get us out of this magnetic field! I don't care how you have to do it or how many hits we have to take to get there, but do it!"

Faisal's head lifted suddenly, his eyes narrowed in understanding, even as Branagh cried out, "We can't leave them behind!"

"We'll come back for them, once we're done with business," Wyatt growled.

The ship bucked again.

"Shields at fifteen percent, sir!"

"Hang in there," Wyatt said, leaning forward, watching the tactical plot. "A little farther... farther...."

"Packet separation! We're making it twenty missiles!"

Wyatt ground his teeth together until the icon of his ship passed out of the red oval. "Comm, send a message to the Mantlethorn on the priority channel! Tell them the merchant is a Q-ship. Repeat that she is armed."

"Message away!"

"Head back for the merchant, then," Wyatt said, focused. "We're going to blow her to kingdom come."

Branagh rocketed from his seat. "Sir, I must protest!"

Wyatt said, "There are no slaves on that ship, Commander."

"How do you know?"

"Because if there were, there would be no room left for their boarding crews. Mantlethorn's as big as that ship, and they're probably crushed in there as it is."

"Boarding crews?" Branagh's eyes widened. "But..."

The last entropy packet choose that moment to elude point defense and the shields, already stretched to their limits, could not bear its fury. The Spiralwhite tumbled as the packet shore off its lower port wing. On the bridge, Wyatt gripped the arms of the command chair with white-knuckled hands as the stars cart-wheeled across the holographic display. He didn't need to hear the wail of the hull breach alarm to know that his ship had suffered.

"We've lost half our packets," Faisal said grimly, hands dancing over his console. "Along with the missile tube and the entire lower port wing. Our point defense on that side is shot."

"Don't give them a clear view of that side," Wyatt said. "We've still got the maneuverability they don't. Use it, Nav. Put us in under their drive. I want concentrated fire there until it blows apart."

"That'll kill almost everyone," Branagh said.

Lindsey only smiled.

"Go, Nav! Now!"

The Spiralwhite dove beneath the lumbering behemoth, rolling to glide beneath its belly where it could not bring its energy armament to bear, but the Q-ship was already twisting in an effort to lock target. The hull breach alarms continued to shriek in Wyatt's ear as the slaver ship loomed impossibly near in the holographic display.

"I have a lock," Lindsey said, her voice almost obscenely hungry.

"Not yet," Wyatt said, eyes fastened to the tactical plot, "Not yet..." The flared and bulky wings of the Well Drive nacelles flashed past as they flew up the tail of the Q-ship toward the in-system drives. They loomed ominously close. "Now!"

The Spiralwhite had only one packet tube left, but she slung all the missiles she could reload in the fifteen seconds of her flyby. She mounted only six small energy weapons, but they went to continuous fire. As if attached to the Q-ships' in-systems by a thread, the scout pivoted around them in a precise arc, and for all its incredible firepower the slaver ship was only a jumped-up merchant, without military grade engines...or shields.

The blast tossed the Spiralwhite like a toy, coasting out on the pressure wave like an anchorless skiff. The Q-ship blossomed red and white at its tail.

Wyatt dragged himself into the command chair. "Report!"

"We smacked her hard, sir," the lieutenant manning the sensor station sounded weary. "She's a-drift. Not broken, but pretty hurt."

"We're not going anywhere either," Faisal said. "We took the heat right on our underbelly. Our in-systems are fried. The Well Drive's inoperable, we lost two of our sensor arrays, and the port entropy packet wing is completely gone. We're lucky we didn't lose the Well nacelle on that side."

"Casualties?" Wyatt asked, one hand clenching.

"Six wounded," Faisal reported. "No dead."

The human bowed his head. When he felt suitably composed, he lifted it and said, "Hail the slaver shi--"

He closed his mouth abruptly as a series of detonations ripped up the spine of the Q-ship. A few minutes later she was gone, the after-images of a white explosion her only requiem.

"Dear God," Branagh whispered.

"We'll never know now, what they had aboard, or what they intended," Faisal said.

Wyatt's voice lacked any tone. "That was, I believe, the point."

*

Wyatt stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the tiny shapes of suited personnel swarm over the broken wing of his ship in the docking cradle. Mantlethorn had arrived on schedule and towed their crippled ship to the nearest starbase. The carpet beneath his feet felt too plush and the light in the room too warm -- that was his ship, and he'd had it less than three weeks before he'd lamed her. Though none of his anger and guilt showed in his face, his hands, neatly clasped behind his back, twitched occasionally.

"Ah, Captain." The door opened for a slender woman, a literal vixen whose almost completely human face only accentuated the shocking vulpine ears that jutted from her short-cropped brown hair. "Please, have a seat."

"Admiral," Wyatt said quietly, and took one of the proffered chairs.

"Your report was fascinating, Captain. We've never seen pirate activity on this scale before. The magnitude of their apparent plan is simply incredible."

"I found it rather difficult to believe myself, sir," Wyatt murmured.

"We've found some debris, not much that might give us any more evidence," the woman said.

"Evidence?" Wyatt asked.

She nodded. "We've lost several ships in that sector. Intelligence sketched some scenarios but we weren't sure which applied. Your sensor logs should give us what we need to refine a strategy for dealing with this . . . rather distasteful situation." She quirked a brow at him. "You do still have your logs?"

"Of course," he said. "You'll have copies at once."

"Good," she said. "I probably don't have to tell you that the Admiralty is disappointed the Q-ship self-destructed before you could take prisoners; we also realize that wasn't your fault, nor was the Spiralwhite big enough to take on something that size. Under the circumstances, you did rather well, Captain."

"Thank you, sir," he said quietly.

"While you're here, feel free to take advantage of the base's facilities."

Wyatt stood, recognizing the dismissal. "I'll have my exec arrange it."

The Admiral smiled. "Good day, then, Captain Wyatt."

The scent of fresh air and spring leaves ran through the human's nose as he stepped out of the Admiral's office. The end of the corridor was another of those ubiquitous floor-to-ceiling windows, and the Spiralwhite's nose could be seen from its edge as Wyatt turned on a booted heel, his shadow lost against the gloss of the flexglass pane, and walked away.