“When you’re getting ready to launch into space, you’re sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.”

–Dr. Sally Ride

“My question is, at what point do we attack?”

The question seemed to hang in the air; the various world leaders who fielded Admiral Harwell’s question seemed almost taken aback by it. It was Robyn Martin who found her voice first.

“Admiral…we aren’t going to attack. Not in the near future, anyhow.”

“But they’ve got the crew of the Lem! When this becomes public….”

“…the people will demand blood, yes, they will,” said Lǐ Wáng, quietly. “But it is up to their leaders not to plow heedlessly ahead into a war we cannot win.”

“But….”

“I’m not saying it will be ignored,” Martin said, sternly. “We will not forget this. Ever. One day, we will get revenge. But we cannot rush to war. Not yet.”

“Believe me,” Esmée Xylander said, “if we could imagine a way to win this war…we would.”

“Have you found anything at Groom Lake?” asked the Russian president.

“Quite a bit, really,” Martin replied. “They preserved her quarters. After a while, didn’t even realize they had – just knew the hangar was supposed to be locked, secured, and preserved and that its contents were above top secret. We’ve found all sorts of things so far. Their nuclear DNA, for example, overlaps ours almost 98 percent – although the mitochondrial DNA is completely different than any we’ve seen on Earth. But have we found out anything we can use? Not really. They’re mortal, they’re a lot like us, they’re still gigantic people with technology we can only imagine.”

“We have not discussed what might happen if this is just the beginning,” said Rosalia Naboa, the Ecuadoran president. “What if they bring the fight to Earth itself?”

“Oh, Rosa, don’t bring that up,” First Minister Filfi Adjaye, the African leader, said. “I am dispirited enough.”

“I think it’s pretty simple,” said the Australian premier, Jody White. “If they attack Earth, they win.”

“We need to develop weapons,” said President Mohammed Bouzoubaä of the North African Alliance. “We may need to halt the destruction of nuclear weapons.”

“Nuclear weapons will kill more of us than them,” Robyn Martin interjected.

“They can travel from one star to another,” Naboa added. “Nuclear weapons will be like stones and spears to them.”

“We could use nanoweapons….” Xylander began, but she quieted as the channel erupted in outrage.

“China will enforce the Treaty of Jakarta against any nation that attempts to deploy them,” Lǐ said.

“As will America,” Martin said.

“Are we better off surrendering?” Xylander asked.

“Than what those things do to us? Fuck yes!” White retorted.

As the uproar died down, the Secretary-General finally spoke. “We are not going to use nanoweapons. If it comes to that,” he said, quietly, “if that is what it takes to survive…then we do not deserve to survive, I think. We will need to discuss this with our various militaries; we will need to plan. And I know, I have no authority in this. This is for the multilateral alliances to discuss, and the Security Council. But I would strongly urge you all to remember that it does us no good to fight them off if it kills us in the process.”

“Well said, Mr. Secretary-General,” said Naboa. “Thank you.”

There was another brief silence.

“Admiral, when the time is right, we will get revenge. I promise,” said Lǐ. “But on our own terms, and when we know what indignity our people have suffered. We do not know that they have been harmed; perhaps, in time, we will find them safe.”

Harwell didn’t like it, but he understood it. “I just hate to sacrifice them. They’re good people.”

“On that, we all agree,” Xylander said.

* * *

“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to slow down just a bit…I don’t know as I can keep up….”

“You’re in your twenties, Princeps!” Rixie shouted, as she sprinted for a lift. “You should be able to keep up.”

“To be fair, Magister-Imperator,” Ulala huffed, “your legs are a bit longer.”

Rixie came to the lift and jammed the down button. “Don’t let her snow you,” Alex said from her breast pocket. “She runs at least once a day, with antigrav at 75 percent. She should be able to sprint fast.”

“Others of us should be running every day,” she said.

“Hey, I go running with you all the time!”

“Hanging out in my bra while I jog isn’t work,” Rixie huffed.

“Hey, have you ever tried hanging out in your bra while you jog?”

The lift opened. Ulala felt she should probably just get on and stay quiet.

“All right,” Rixie said, “it may be work. But not cardio. When do you get that?”

Alex looked up at her with a wry smile. “Gosh, I don’t know, Rix. What do I do pretty much every day that requires me to both utilize all my muscle groups and get my heart rate up near max?”

Rixie looked down, and chuckled. “Okay. All right, I concede: you get plenty of exercise.”

“Exactly. And the scenery beats anything jogging has to offer.”

* * *

“Excuse me. Pardon me, Centurum,” called a shopkeeper. “The comms all seem to be down!”

“Yes,” Kir sighed, as they rushed across the bazaar. “On our way to fix them.”

“Oh…thanks!”

He was grateful that he had focused on the peacekeepers in putting Solis’s orders into practice. By his quick count, they were all detained right now. It would be a headache to sort out, but providing they survived the hour, Navarchos Bass would find a way to make it right.

He knew that his command was over; Bass couldn’t trust him, and frankly, he couldn’t trust himself. He had failed his test. This was about departing his command in a way that he could stomach, leaving it without a twist in his gut.

“All right,” he said, as they reached the airlock. “Each of us should grab a thermal suit.”

“Good. Hala,” Naskia said to the woman she carried in her hand, “can you tune your comm unit to a wavelength of 2.299u? That’s….”

“Right, um…96.7 meters…Ted, turn comms to 3.1 GHz.”

“Roger that, Hala.”

“All right,” she said, as Naskia set her on the bench; Nas realized quickly that her skirt and her thermsuit were not going to work well together, so with a shrug she ditched the former, shoving it into the locker; she really hoped she would be able to retrieve it later. “So you’ve got the protocols, you’ve got the backdoor; now I’m going to have to walk you through the wavebands. I’m sorry, stop me if I’m going too quickly.”

“You remind me of Prof. al-Sabah,” Hala said with a smile. “I’m fine, keep it coming.”

“It’s true,” Ted said. “Dr. Chandrasekhar asks Hala to do calculations for her. She’s faster than a gool.”

Naskia zipped Hala carefully into the breast storage pouch of the thermsuit – accessible from inside and outside – then zipped herself up; Hala thought it a bit of an indignity, but understood that it was better than freezing to death. Ted, for his part, fought hard not to view the prospect with a grin, losing when he noticed that Tigoni was making no such effort.

Tig zipped up, and Ted rested contentedly in the pouch, supported comfortably by Tig’s right breast. If this all went south, he thought, he could think of no better place to die.

* * *

“Any ideas, Niall?”

“Very few,” Freeman said, examining the code on the screen. “Sorcha, are you familiar with this?”

Sorcha looked at the screen, and sighed. “It’s quantum coding, I recognize that much. That’ll be tough.”

“Excuse me,” a small voice spoke up. “I believe I heard you mention quantum coding?”

The eldest member of the Lem’s crew stepped forward. “I know a bit about quantum computing,” Gustavo Dantas said.

“Capitão de corveta Dantas is being modest,” Xú said. “He made quantum computing practical on Earth. He could have retired to Rio. Instead he decided to go into space.”

“I did nothing. I had a good team,” Gustavo said, smiling.

“Yes, you and your first AI.”

“Well, if you know quantum computing, you know then that it’s almost impossible to hack,” Sorcha said, stepping closer and kneeling down to his level.

“Almost, young lady, means not. Let’s see what we’re dealing with; can I trouble you for a lift?”

Sorcha smiled, and offered him her hand; he stepped onto it, rather dazzled by the experience of being held entirely within the hand of a pretty young woman; she carried him carefully over to the terminal, and he looked up at it.

“All right, Dr. Freeman, can you walk me through these symbols?” he said, looking at them carefully; he could see the pattern in them, he felt that given a few hours, he could almost make them out on his own. But they didn’t have that kind of time.

* * *

“Time to intercept?” Gwenn asked.

“Four minutes, eight seconds,” Rovlan Tam replied.

“All right, hail the….”

“Captain!” Rovlan said. “Sensors are picking up the Minatar. She’s also en route to the Xifos.”

“Their time to intercept?”

“They’re less than a minute behind us.”

“That’s good enough,” Lauryna said. “Crewmate Haedta, prepare a firing solution but hold weapons until my order. Crewmate Riases, hail the Xifos.”

The voice of Archiploiarchos Lemm Tam came over the speaker. “Captain Gwenn, what are you doing?”

“Ma’am, we have reason to believe that the Minatar has been directed to board your ship. We are approaching in an effort to defend you.”

“Really,” Lemm said. “Why do you think that?”

“Navarchos Solis told us so.”

“Ma’am, incoming transmission from the Minatar,” Riases said.

“Add him to the channel.”

“Lauryna, what the hell are you doing?” Captain Arna Los barked, his face red.

“Keeping you from making a terrible mistake, Arna.”

“We won’t let you board the Xifos. Archiploiarchos Tam, we believe that the Navarchos Imperii has unlawfully ordered Captain Gwenn to board you. If they approach, fire on them. We’re less than a minute behind them.”

“Wait…wait. Wait a minute, Arna,” said Lauryna. “We’re not going to board the Xifos, we were going to defend it. Solis told us he ordered you to board them.”

“What? We never would. That’s an unlawful order.”

“Well. This is very interesting,” Lemm said. “The Navarchos Imperii told us that both of you had been dispatched to board us, and we should not resist. Naturally, we were preparing to resist.”

There was silence, as Horous brought the Gyfjon out of warp. “But…none of this makes sense,” Lauryna said, pacing. “Why…why would Solis tell us three different stories?”

“To sow suspicion between us,” Los said, as the Gyfjon’s sister ship slowed up as well. “To make us mistrust each other.”

“To distract us,” Lemm said, pounding the table in frustration. “To distract us from his primary goal. Comms, any word from Titan Station?”

“No, Archiploiarchos. Nothing for the last thirty minutes.”

The two captains and Lemm looked at each other in horror.

“Gwenn, Los, plot fastest controllable course for Titan Station and engage. Xifos control, this is Archiploiarchos Lem, plot best controllable course for Titan Station and follow the Minatar and Gyfjon in. What’s our time to the base?”

“Twenty minutes to Titan.”

“Come on,” Lemm said.

“Any faster and we overrun it. Deorbit for the two Kuklopes-class ships will be thirty minutes, we’ll take fifty.”

Lemm sighed. Knowing her helm officer was right didn’t make it easier. “Very well. Engage.” She thought for just a second.

“Comms, connect me with the Imperial Palace,” she said. “I need to speak with Zhalem Ro.”

* * *

“Any luck?”

“Nothing,” Ulala said, disconsolately. “Cadet Botlan! What do you see in there?”

Svenna Botlan had been rather surprised when an Imperator had come on deck, relieved her commander, and ordered everyone to look for ways to bypass the zamik pest control system. But once Decurion Janus – the base environmental control officer – had seen what was going on with it, she had ordered everyone on deck to listen to Rixie and get to work – or else face catastrophe.

“It’s magnetically sealed,” Svenna called back. “If we try to disengage it manually, it will automatically release. If we had a couple hours, we could bypass the seal, but we can’t do it fast enough.”

“Have you tried cutting the red wire?”

“I…sorry?”

“Ignore Alex,” Rixie said, scowling at him. “What options do we have?”

“It looks like either the program gets shut off, or this releases.”

“Bass to Environmental Control, do you copy?”

Rixie smiled. At least something was going well. “Navarchos, this is Imperator Tam. Internal comms are up?”

“Thanks to Capitão de corveta Dantas of the Lem. The bad news is that internal comms are probably the only thing we’re going to be able to hack. Tell me you’ve got better news.”

“Not really,” Rixie said. “Decurion Janus?”

“Navarchos, if we try to manually disengage, we all get gassed right away. We could try to use the oxygen delivery system to vent the poison out, but he’s got it rigged so that if we try it, it vents in Titan atmosphere. That would kill us all. We can manually override it, but not in the time span we’re looking at.”

“Damn it!” Aerti said.

“I’m sorry, sir?” Janus said.

“Bit of human profanity. All right. So basically, we either kill all the humans on base, or kill everyone on base.”

“Correct. I’m sorry, sir,” Janus said.

“No,” Aertimus said. “I’m sorry. We could maybe stow the Lem crew in a p-suit….”

“No, no,” Xú said. “We’d survive, but what about the other humans on the station? Or the…Dunnermaki, is it? Or the sick, or the old? And even if all of us could get into p-suits, how long will we have to stay in them before it’s safe to come out? Will we have enough O₂ to ride it out? And who can tell us? All of you will be staggering around sick…no, Navarchos, we live together, we die together.”

“Right,” Aerti said, with a sigh. He looked down, then back at the human captain. “You’re absolutely right.” There was a long pause before he said, “Magister-Imperator Tam?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Rig the oxygen delivery system to vent the poison out should he activate the zamik.”

There was silence on the deck. Rixie finally spoke up. “Sir…you realize that will kill us all.”

“Yes, I do,” Aertimus said.

Rixie looked down at Alex, standing on the station she sat at, looking up at her, aghast.

“Rix….”

She smiled, just a bit, and stroked his back. “I just wanted to make sure, sir. Decurion Janus, make it so.”

Janus looked at Rixie, and sighed. “Ma’am…is this just about the humans?”

“No,” Rixie said. “It isn’t about the humans at all. It’s about us. We think we can protect the galaxy. Well, the humans on this station are threatened. Will we put ourselves on the line in order to save them?”

Janus nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She looked down for just a moment, just a second to collect herself. Then she raised her head. “All right. Ms. Ix, Cadet Botlan, Mr. Sundger, with me. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

“All right,” Kir said. “You should be able to see it over that ridge.”

“Little white ship?” Tig said.

“Hey, she isn’t little. You’re just big.”

“Sorry, Ted,” replied Tig, patting her breast. “And why do you keep calling your spaceships ‘she?’”

“An old tradition,” Ted said. “Very old. From way back when, when crews that staffed ships were all-male. Your ship was your true love. At least, I think that was the idea. Tradition just stuck, I guess. Something about feeling like you’re being surrounded by not just a thing, but someone that cares for you, that you care for.”

“Really? I’m surprised you’d like something like that,” Tig said.

“Are you now?” Ted said, feeling her inhale and exhale, and hoping he would get to again.

“All right, you two, stop flirting, we’ve got a job to do. We’re going to need you to activate the airlocks, Tig,” said Hala. “Without thermsuits we won’t survive long enough to do it ourselves.”

“Gotcha,” Tig said, kneeling down and looking at the aft hatchway, taking care to keep her chest elevated. “What do I need to do?”

“You should see a small keypad, with twelve keys,” Hala said. “You need to press the third key from the right in the second row from the top twice, then the first key from the right in the top row twice, then the third key from the right in the bottom row.”

Tigoni looked at it carefully; she pulled out her multitool and withdrew a toothpick from it. “Okay,” she said. “The first key should look kind of like a right triangle with the two sides that are not the tangent extending out a ways, correct?”

“Triangle…yes, it’s our number four.”

Tig carefully hit the key twice. “Okay, then first key from the right, top row…don’t know how to describe…like two semicircles stacked on top of each other?”

“Yes. That’s a three.”

She hit it twice.

“And then it looks like a parallelogram with each side extended past.”

“Exactly. That’s a symbol, we call it a hash.”

“Got it,” she said, punching it.

The door to the ship whined from having been in the cold, but it had been designed for worse; it dutifully opened.

“All right, for everyone’s sake, let’s make this transfer quickly.”

Naskia went first, pulling Hala out via the outer access portal of the thermsuit; Tig did so as well, pausing only to say, “You come back to me, you hear?”

Ted laid his hand over his heart. “Nothing could keep me from you.”

Tig blew him a kiss, and set him by the door. Shivering, he raced inside and closed it, and coded the ship to begin pressurization.

“I’m never complaining about Colorado again,” Ted said, as they moved toward the cockpit.

* * *

“Sir…are you sure you’ve got that right?”

Svenna Botlan had crawled rather deep into the bowels of the air exchange system; she and Princeps Sundger were working to undo a series of safety interlocks. She stayed focused on the job, as it kept her from acknowledging what she knew to be true – that she was carefully and quickly setting up the system to kill her.

She almost had missed what her counterpart had done. Almost.

Kroni Sundger sighed. “Yes, cadet, I’ve got the interlocks set correctly.”

“No, you don’t,” Svenna said, looking carefully at the work done by her superior. “You’ve bypassed the tertiary controls. This will fail. Here, I’ll….”

“I don’t think you want to mess with that, cadet,” Sundger said. “I think you’re going to leave it alone.”

Svenna looked up at the young officer who she was paired with. He was holding an autotool – not a surprise, she supposed – but she could see that his safety was off. An autotool was hardly a disruptor, but wielded effectively, it could kill.

“Sir,” Svenna said, swallowing hard, “don’t do this. We have our orders.”

“You want to die for a bunch of humans? Make a move, Cadet Botlan. Someone had to set up the manual lockout. You think Navarchos Solis hasn’t chatted with a few of us on the station?”

Svenna stared him down. She didn’t particularly want to die today – very few people do.

“All right,” she said, quietly. “You’re right, sir, they’re just animals.”

“Good, cadet. Glad you’ve got your head put together. Now, I need to disable this node here, it will cause a chain reaction fail in the venting system,” he said, probing into a junction. “It will keep the exchange from venting in Titanian atmosphere. You see….”

Sundger was rather surprised when he felt something strike him on the side of his head, and even more surprised when he felt something sharp poking into his neck.

He looked up at Svenna Botlan, who was holding her autotool, safety off, to his jugular. “Don’t even move, sir,” Svenna said, angrily. “Botlan to Janus.”

“Janus here, what’s going on, cadet?”

“Princeps Sundger is working for the Navarchos Imperii, ma’am. I have him covered, but I’m not sure for how long….”

Sundger was abruptly pulled feet-first away from Svenna. “Nice work, cadet,” Rixie said, locking the officer’s hands behind him. “Decurion Janus noticed things weren’t going offline like they should.”

“You’re killing us all,” Sundger growled. “Fraking blue-faced mikpios-lover.”

Rixie causally slammed him against the side of the access tunnel. “Federationer, eh?” she said. “Or just an Aementi with delusions of grandeur? At any rate, you tulli, I’m a damn proud human-lover, and a damn proud Jotnar, and you? You’re a gorram traitor. Cadet, can you finish the work?”

“Uh…yes, yes ma’am,” Botlan said, staring at the large woman who, despite the awkwardness of the task, was dragging Sundger back through the accessway.

“Good,” Rixie said. “If we find a way to survive this, cadet, you’ll make a fine officer. And if we don’t…well, then you’ll have made a fine officer.”

Botlan straightened just a touch. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said, and she immediately set to work undoing Sundger’s sabotage. She might die today, but she’d die in an effort to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. And truly, that was a cause worth dying for.

* * *

“You know, the only thing that makes sense about you and Tigoni is that she’s a kid,” Hala said, taking her position at engineering, and starting to bring the reactor online. “Even here, you go for the twentysomethings.”

Ted laughed out loud. “You beat me here; didn’t you talk to them about aging?”

“Hm? No. Alex mentioned something but…oh. Oh, you’re kidding.”

“Yup! They age six, seven times slower than us. Tig’s 158 years old.”

Hala looked over, and guffawed. “All right. So you’re finally dating an older woman. Nothing about this makes sense.”

“The only thing about it that makes sense is that I love her, Hala. Plotting launch trajectory.”

“She loves you too. Reactor Q at 2.0 and climbing…you guys took this down to the line, didn’t you?”

“We were motivated,” Ted chuckled. “Cabin pressure 0.2 atmospheres, one minute, nine seconds to full pressurization.”

“I can see that. You were awfully close to stranding yourselves here. And that’s…well, we’re all going to have to hug and cry about this when we get a chance. Including Tig. I think she’s part of the family now. All right, based on Titan gravity and fuel reserves, we need to get to a Q of 25, should be there within four minutes, thirty seconds,” Hala said, setting the pad Alex had lent her on her desktop. “Valentine system online, aft, fore, ventral, port, and starboard are green. Dorsal is offline…obviously. All right, we’re just waiting on the reactor, engineering is go. Let’s go send a message so we can get you back to her.”

“Roger that. Comms are online, opening vox. Sally Ride actual to Belfsec, we should be ready to depart in four minutes.”

“This is Belfsec, good luck, Sally Ride,” Tig said, watching in muted amazement as the battered little ship began to power up.

She turned to look back to the base.

That’s when the first shot rang out.