Ellis and Jack, unlikely co-crew of the survey ship Walküre, ended last chapter looking at an unfamiliar planet. Now they come to terms with their new environs, make a new friend, forge a new plan — and learn a new word, which implies a lot more than they could really guess.

Well past the halfway point of this story now. No smut in this one... not really, anyway. But a bit of a revelation because I'm the author and I get to do things like that. Enjoy! Two chapters left :D

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"The green hills," by Rob Baird

---

I had no idea what a
Cosmodromo Federal was, but the first word sounded a lot like
"spaceport" to me and I thought we were probably in more or less the
right spot. I inched
Walküre downwards until I could just feel the
landing struts nudging the ground, and then cut power to the engines so that
she settled down on her gear heavily.

"We can take off
again, right?" Jack asked.

I turned to the jaguar and
blinked, flattening out my ears. "Oh, shit. I hadn't thought about
that."

Jack rolled her eyes.
"Smartass."

Guilty as charged. But not
so forgetful that I wouldn't make sure we had plenty of delta-v budget to make
orbit again if we had to — not that it would matter much if we didn't find a
source of jumpdrive fuel on the planet. And, you know, a map.

Initial scans of the place
suggested it was pretty congenial, so far as we were concerned. Mid twenties,
one gravity's worth of acceleration, and a breathable atmosphere. Nothing
particularly disturbing was coming up on the pathogen detectors — that's
always what you worry about first, when landing on a new planet, that you'll
pick up some virus that'll melt your brain or something.

Naw. It looked like a
peaceful, quiet, amicable place. It was just that there was nobody home, and
that was a little bit confusing. Jack became increasingly restless, the longer
it took for the scans to complete, and when a few hours had passed with nothing
to threaten us I gave up my own nervousness and went down to lower the boarding
ramp. It had settled just off the metal apron, into grassy dirt.

I took the first few steps
carefully, until I could feel the gentle puffs of a warm breeze curling through
my fur. It seemed so peaceful that there wasn't much of a point in tarrying; a
few hops later and my booted feet met soft earth for the first time in quite a
few years.

Someone had come out to
greet us, I saw. It looked rather like a wolf, except that it walked on four
legs. Curious eyes swept over me — and Jack, who had followed close behind
on the ramp. She leaned over to take a closer look.

"Hello, there..."

The quadruped didn't
answer; when I took a step forward, it cantered back, keeping its distance.
"I don't think it understands us," I said. Then, to the creature, I
raised my voice. "Go on — get!" This caused it to retreat a few
paces, and it stayed in place as we wandered further from the ship.

At first I'd kept my hand
on the holster of my sidearm — an older laser pistol without much punch, but
good enough for a warning shot or to remind the unwary that I was armed. The
longer we spent, though, the more I decided that I didn't need it.

As was her wont, the jaguar
was less reserved. "It's beautiful," she sighed. Then she spun
around, and took a kittenish leap into the air that ended with her sprawling in
the grass, her tail twitching happily. "Ellis! Isn't it beautiful?"

"It's pretty
nice," I agreed, though in truth it had the same problems all planets did
— it was too open, for one, and smelled of too many mysterious things. Like the
wolfish quadruped, for example, who was eyeing the prone jaguar with more or
less the same skepticism as me. "Come on, spots, get up."

She did, brushing down her
skirt, seemingly oblivious to the grass stains on it. "You should take a
moment to enjoy this, you know," she said, skipping up to join me as I
made my way over the apron towards one of the big hangar-like buildings at its
periphery. "We're not dead."

"Nope."

"Worth something,
right?"

"Yup." 'Not dead'
don't mean quite as much if you're still stranded on a planet that a highly
advanced species saw fit to leave behind. I glanced up towards the huge
pyramidal control tower, and then shook my head. "Don't you wonder what happened
here?"

"Whatever it was
doesn't seem to have been too destructive. Like they all just...
left.
No rioting."

"Maybe." The
hangar door had a control panel next to it of the same type as I'd seen on the
Valiant.
This one was guarded by a huge spider, but when I brushed it away and opened
the panel up I was a little reassured by a faint glowing light behind the
buttons. "They did build their tech to last."

"This green button
here, you think?"

"The one that says
'open'?" I pushed it, and we heard the
clunk of a solenoid
releasing. The door itself didn't budge, so I pushed the button a few more
times. Closer inspection revealed that the hinges had frozen; I kicked it as
hard as I could, and it opened a few centimeters, with a hideous screeching
noise.

Once we were inside,
though, everything looked pristine. The windows had long since gone opaque with
age, but some sort of motion sensor brought up lights mounted in the ceiling,
at least as bright as the sun outside.

It looked like a museum.
Four vessels — starships, unmistakably — were parked neatly, with
maintenance equipment and bowsers still left intact around them. I caught
motion from the corner of my eye, and turned to see a small machine gliding
over the wall, leaving a glistening trail of water behind it.

Cleaning robots. If they
were still operational, then it stood to reason that the place hadn't been
abandoned for as long as I thought — or the power generators were fantastically
advanced.

The ships definitely
supported this latter line of reasoning. They were all sleek, shiny and
aerodynamic, with avian curves. The closest one was perhaps the size of my own
Walküre,
but where my ship was dominated by her fuel tanks and engines, this one's
engines were placed in nacelles at the end of arching wings. I ain't much for
art, but it was gorgeous.

"Do you think they
still work?" Jack's eyes were wide, and her voice had a reverential hush
to it.

"I dunno." There
was only one way to find out; we picked our way around the crates of tools and
machines that surrounded it, and found that the hatchway to the ship was
already open. Four stairs led up into a darkened interior. I unbuttoned my
holster and kept my paw on the grip of the pistol as I climbed them. The ship
had a familiarly antiseptic odor.

Lights came on brightly,
and I growled in surprise — a growl cut off curtly by a sharp male voice.
"State your identity."

Though I glanced around
frantically, I couldn't find a source for the voice. "Ellis. Ellis
Bjørnestad." A softly glowing green orb drifted from around the corridor.
I froze, and with my free paw motioned Jack to stay outside. "Get ready to
run..." I muttered to her.

The formless green ball
froze at eye level, and then a beam of light lanced forth, momentarily blinding
me. "Your scans aren't recognized," the voice said.

"I've never been here
before... I don't even know where
here is."

"I can't get a
downlink from the time servers. Please wait while I restart the system."
The orb, and all of the lights, winked out.

"Ellis?" Jack
sounded more curious than worried — but then, she was outside the ship, and I
was not. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. It's
still active. I don't trust these damned automated systems..." And really,
why would I after my last encounter with terran technology?

But before I could decide
to leave, the power came back on and the green ball reappeared. "A
provisional search of the database indicates that you are not the registered
owner of this vessel."

"That's
correct..." I still didn't know to whom I was speaking.

"However, analysis
also indicates that the registered captain last logged in two thousand, seven
hundred fifty-three years ago, and is unlikely to do so again. Will you submit
to a DNA scan?"

"I'm not... certain
about..."

The thing's color shifted
to a cautionary red. "Regulation 54 requires me to inform you that if you
do not comply, you may face penalties up to and including termination."

I blinked. "Uh. I
don't have much choice, then, do I?"

"Please hold out your
hand."

I did so, and the glowing
thing settled closer to my paw. I felt a sharp prick, and when I jerked my arm
back a drop of blood had appeared at the tip of my finger. "The fuck was
that for?" Silence. The orb hung in place exactly where it had stopped.
"Hello?"

The thing came back to
life, and its color became green again. "Gold protocols are now in effect.
Captain Ellis Bjørnestad, welcome aboard the survey ship
Aegis Olympic.
I am the ship's integrated artificial intelligence — you may refer to me
as 'Aegis,' or choose a different name in the ship's settings. You are now
registered as the commander of this vessel."

It was such an abrupt
change that I couldn't quite make sense of it. "What? Did you just give me
control of this ship?"

"Affirmative, Captain
Bjørnestad," the orb — who was really 'Aegis,' who was really the ship, I
guess — said. "Gold protocols direct that I inform you we must depart at
your earliest convenience."

"Why?"

"Your life may be in
dan — state your identity."

At first I wondered if it
might've encountered a software glitch, but a glance behind me showed that Jack
had decided to come aboard in spite of my warning. "Jack Palomo. Who are
you?"

"This is Aegis, voice
of the ship. Aegis, Jack is my first mate. What's this about our lives being in
danger? This planet doesn't look like it's been occupied for...
centuries."

"Twenty-seven
centuries, to be precise. That's when the evacuation order was carried out.
However, it seems reasonable to expect that your presence here has been
detected. I'm beginning preflight sequences, Captain Bjørnestad." I could
hear systems activating — the electronic chirping of awoken computers, and the
hiss of life support regulators, and the familiar, heavy thrumming of a
jumpdrive. "How did you get here?"

I made my way slowly
forward. The cockpit of the
Aegis Olympic was dominated not by video
screens but by large panes of glass through which one had a beautiful view of
the outside world. The control panels were elegant and mostly switchless.
"A survey ship of my own, the
Walküre — you can see it through the
hangar doors." Which, presumably on some order from Aegis, were opening.

"If your ship is
detected, it could cause a reincursion. Do you have a functional cloaking
device?"

"No." I knew of
such things, but they were fantastically expensive and completely useless for a
survey and salvage pilot like myself. "Incursion of what?"

"The same thing that
caused us to leave this planet in the first place. This is Earth, Captain
Bjørnestad. It is the birthplace of our species, and your genetic legacy as
well. Your ship is an existential threat. I'm afraid it must be hidden or
eliminated before we leave. In the equipment room, please find one of the small
black disks labeled 'SASA' and affix it to the side of your vessel."

"I'm not going to
sabotage my ship on the orders of a computer I just met. I mean —"

"Time is of the
essence, captain. Either we escape, or we perish, irrespective of your
desires."

"Do we have time to
get our stuff?" Jack wanted to know.

"It will take ten
minutes for the jumpdrive to finish integrity checks and come to full power.
You have until then."

The jaguar and I exchanged
glances. She was quicker at coming to terms with things like this than I.
"And you won't, like, shoot at us — will you?"

"I cannot harm you, or
through inaction allow you to come to harm. But please do not tarry."

I didn't have much stuff
— most of it was on the computer — but as I climbed back into the
Walküre
I felt unsettled nonetheless. Our own startup sequence would only take a few
minutes, and then we could be climbing back and out of the atmosphere. I
explained this to Jack quickly. "Probably couldn't hit us 'fore
then..."

"And then what?"

"Eh?"

Jack was stuffing things
back into her bag. "Still don't have any fuel, right? So we're still
stuck. This ship may have a way out. It seems to have a working jumpdrive, too.
I think it'll listen to our commands..."

"This is all moving
very fast for me."

"Don't you move at
twenty kilometers a second all the time? C'mon, Ellis," Jack nudged me.
"You got anything here?"

Everything of real value
was digital; my mementos, for the most part, were in storage somewhere. I had
enough of a sense of nostalgia that I didn't want dad's old memories to be lost
forever just because his son fucked up a mission. I took my surveying kit, and
the computer core, and everything of value from my locker.

Whiskey, trinkets, and
electronic ghosts. That was all I had to show for my life. It wasn't much. As
Aegis had instructed, I stuck the heavy black puck I'd found in the equipment
room to the side of the
Walküre, next to her hatchway. "Be back for
ya, old girl," I muttered, patting the rough skin.

"Sentimental,
huh?"

"Can it. Saved our
asses, didn't she?"

As soon as we were back
aboard the
Aegis Olympic, the hatchway closed. I looked for a place to
stow my gear and settled for the equipment bay, which looked solid enough that
I didn't think anything would be too badly damaged if one of my bags struck it
in zero-g.

All the lights were on and
flashing in the cockpit when Jack and I made our way forward. "Are you
ready to depart?" Aegis asked. Its voice was still a bit bossy.

"Reckon so." The
pilot's chair had a more or less familiar manual steering setup, and I strapped
myself in, closing my paws around the controls. "What was that thing I put
on my ship, anyway?"

The Walküre was
directly in front of us, blocking our exit. As I watched, though, the little
black dot near her entryway started to spread, becoming a silvery coat of paint
that seethed over the ship until it was formless — and shrinking.
"Self-assembling, semi-automatic drones," Aegis said. "They're
deconstructing the ship so it can't be found."

A minute later there was
nothing left but a shimmering puddle on the ground, and then even this lost its
luster. My muzzle hung open. "Can it be...
re... constructed?"

"Probably. But we lack
the time. Captain, please feel free to take us out at your leisure, although it
would be helpful if your leisure could be expedited. The throttle is the
control on the left. Translation is handled through a small — yes, that
one." A glowing display popped up on the glass, showing our position
relative to the ground.

It wasn't exactly like the
system on the
Walküre, which was — here I realized the need
for the past tense — a bit more complicated. In this case a small
pressure-sensitive four-way switch rested on the throttle. I touched it
carefully, and the
Aegis Olympic drifted up a meter or so. "Fore
and aft translation, is that this little switch right next to it?"

"Correct, captain."

Well, at least my piloting
skills weren't obsolete. We glided from the hangar deck, and I fired the
translation controls again to lift us up and above the tallest part of the
hangar. Whatever I could say about her AI, the ship itself handled beautifully
— light and maneuverable, like something half her size. "Retract the
landing gear."

"Already done,
captain. Transorbital checklists are complete."

"Hang on, Jack."
I saw her claws come out as she felt for the armrests of the chair. The main
engines rumbled politely when I advanced the throttle fractionally, and the
ship began to pick up speed handily. I pulled back on the stick, until we could
see bright blue sky above us, and slowly added on power.

There was no real sensation
of speed, and no kick in the pants when we accelerated — but the clouds
tore past us, and the sky darkened swiftly to deeper blue, and then familiar
black. The numbers on the glass showed us at a hundred kilometers up. Then a hundred
and fifty. Two hundred.

"You can stop. I'm
charging the jumpdrive now," Aegis said. I backed off the throttle, to the
idle point, and waited. A series of glowing hexagons appeared on the glass.
"Please follow the indicated course and speed. The jumpdrive will activate
automatically on synchronization."

As I turned Aegis
Olympic
onto her new course, I noticed something rather peculiar — we
did not seem to be feeling the shock of acceleration at all. "Does this
ship have artificial gravity?"

"Of course," it
said. "Inertial dampeners should also remove most of the shock of
acceleration and maneuvering. You're more than welcome to give its
maneuverability a try — after we jump. Three kilometers per second,
please."

I inched the throttle up,
and shook my head. Brave new worlds, these. At least Jack was having fun; she
had leaned forward in her chair, and her tail was waving briskly. Good old
jaguars.

We had almost reached our
target when there was a bright flash, and in the second before I felt the
constriction in my chest and our jumpdrive kicked in I had the apparition of
some massive construct appearing before us — vast, ugly, blocking out the
stars. "What the —"

Then it disappeared, along
with Earth, and all her constellations. We were in empty space.

"... fuck?" I
finished weakly. "Jack, did you see something?"

"Yeah. It was another
ship! I
told you that place had to be inhabited!"

"It's not quite what
you think," Aegis said calmly. "I'm beginning a scan of the target
area. We have reached our destination with an accuracy of... point two
AUs."

"What was that
thing?"

"One of the
adversary's motherships. I told you that we were pressed for time, captain. As
expected, I'm detecting a large body of metal two hundred thousand kilometers
off the starboard bow. Captain, I recommend we open hailing frequencies."

I had not the first clue
how to accomplish this, of course. "Then... do so?"

"Frequencies
open."

"This is captain Ellis
Bjørnestad of the survey ship
W... of the survey ship Aegis Olympic,"
I corrected, "to anyone who can read me. Please respond." Just like
back on Earth, nobody answered — guess it's hard to keep the welcome mat open
for three thousand years, though. "Aegis, can you
show me this
metal body?"

The glass rippled, and a
dark image appeared in the center of the screen.

"Make it bigger?"
Jack asked.

At suitable magnification
it was clearly identifiable as a space station — huge, larger than Tartarus by
far. It was also possible to see the black scoring along its skin, and the
inside of the station, too, where it had been opened to space. The damage did
not look particularly recent.

"I don't think
anybody's going to pick up, Aegis," I said softly. "Those guys've got
bigger problems..."

"It must've been
discovered. I will refer to the gold protocol handbook for determining the
appropriate course of action."

"Which is?"

"Unfortunately,
security concerns prevent me from disclosing to you our contingency
plans."

"But you can tell me
what's happening?"

The adversary, explained
Aegis, was a powerful interstellar empire. Earth's colonies had encountered
them some time in the 44th century. The next two hundred years had seen defeat
after defeat, and when they appeared on Terra's doorstep the inhabitants had
fled, scattered to hidden space stations and asteroids separated by many long
parsecs.

Aegis did not know who the
adversary really was, nor where they came from, nor how many Earth dwellers
might be left. "Perhaps none," it admitted — the evacuation, it
said, had come thousands of years before. That was a long time for someone
suitably dedicated to track down any remaining threats.

The AI told us that it
would take a few hours to decide on the next course of action, and so Jack and
I left to find something better to do. It was a well-furnished ship, although I
found it a little strange to be able to walk normally through its corridors.

We found a cabin, with a
relatively nice bed, and I took a seat on the edge of it, looking at the smooth
walls. "Hell of a day," I grunted.

Jack nodded, and sat next
to me. "You do have an exciting life."

"You would've wanted
to stay on the planet awhile, huh?"

She nodded again. "I
really liked it. It was gorgeous..." she sighed. "Wish I could see it
again." On command, the coloring of the walls changed — everything
vanished but a vista of the terran jungle as seen from, I suppose, somewhere up
in the control tower of COSMODROMO FEDERAL QUINTANA ROO. Jack giggled.
"Not bad."

It wasn't, really, I guess.
The images cycled slowly — a huge red and tan canyon, a massive waterfall, and
rolling green slopes that I guess could beckon to anyone suitably hungry for
natural gravity and atmosphere.

I was thinking more about
my ship, and how I was going to explain what had happened to Nichi, or to
Natsuki Tanba, or to anyone, really. My plans for a quick buck had been
summarily undermined. Now I was caught up in... well, I didn't know, exactly. A
millennia-old war.

Folks who believe in Earth
have lots of different reasons why they assume we left it. Pollution or an
environmental catastrophe tend to be the biggest ones. Religious or political
differences come next. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything about
a war, and certainly nothing about us being on the edge of extermination.

On the other hand, by the
Caledonian calendar it was also only five hundred and thirty years since 'year
zero,' and if Aegis was to be believed that meant the
Valiant had been
floating around dead in space for more than two millennia before anybody even
got the idea to leave Caledonia in the first place. So there was a rather
lengthy gap of time I had no real explanation for.

But suppose it was all
true? Suppose I had just set foot on my ancestral home — maybe the only living
man in the entire universe to have done so. I took a deep breath. This survey
trip had gone awfully cerebral. "What does Australia look like?" I
heard myself asking.

The view changed again.
Scrubland — red desert, and patchy grasses, and an imposing rock face
stretching up and before us to a darkening sky. It wasn't all that bad, to be
honest. I leaned back on the bed, and as I watched the stars began to come out,
one by one.

"It's gorgeous. This
where you're from?" Jack reclined with me, and I felt her head resting on
my side.

The image was so faithful
that in the artificial gravity I could almost
feel the warm breeze in my
fur. "That's what they say. My birth certificate says my folks were both
Australian koolies. It's pretty common on the continent where I'm from. They
said Australia was a place on Earth but I always just figured it was... a myth?
I dunno? Just somebody's name or something, and they made up a place for it so
it didn't seem like we were homeless."

"But we're not."
A meteorite blazed across the night sky and Jack gasped softly. "Oh, I never
thought I'd see one of those again..."

Even fictional, it struck a
little pang for me, too. Sitting on a hill, near the quarry where my dad
worked, and watching the stars — that was my only real memory of the time
I'd spent with my mother. "They say you're from somewhere?"

"Jaguars? Nah.
Jungles. Earth, of course. Everyone's from Earth..." She laughed, and
stretched one of her arms over my chest to play with my vest distractedly.
"But when we landed, I just... it felt right."

The planetbound and their
landlubbing ways were no great novelty to me, and not particularly convincing,
but I turned to look at her anyway. Something in her tone had caught my ear.
"Yeah?"

Young as she was, and new
to the promise and perils of space, she met my gaze and held it. "Yeah.
I'm gonna go back some day." And the conviction with which she said it
spoke of pretty stern stuff beneath those spots. "Those jungles, and those
clouds." She smiled at me. "No... the cool, green hills — isn't that
the line?"

"What line?"

"Some old song my mom
used to sing."

I shrugged. "Not heard
of it."

Jack's ear flicked, and she
rolled onto her side. After a moment, when I turned to face her, she slipped
her arm 'round me in a hug. "Sorry about your ship, Ellis."

"Nothin' lasts,"
I muttered, though the truth was I had been rather fond of the old crate, and
part of me hoped Aegis wasn't lying when it said she could be rebuilt. I had
reasons of my own to return, if that was the case. "Anyway we got out, and
that's what counts."

She nodded, and snuggled up
closer to me. The warm breeze I'd felt earlier, I discovered, was not an
illusion — for at a quicker movement of it, I could see the jaguar's fur
ripple. Clever environmental controls. "You know, um. Last time. I didn't
mean to make it seem like I just slept with you to get a ride..."

"I knew what you
meant. No hard feelings."

"None?" Her
eyebrow arched, and a claw skimmed along my shirt teasingly.

"I said feelings,"
I clarified, and Jack grinned. She brought her muzzle forward, and I met the
kiss with surprising gentleness, letting her drive. She deepened it swiftly,
and her eyes closed. I felt the slightly rough touch of her tongue, seeking
entrance, and I met it with my own as my hunger built, and smoldered.

She moaned at the touch of
my paws as I felt down her sides, and hooked one of her muscular legs around my
hips to pull me closer, grinding against the growing hardness constrained by my
jeans. It was as good an excuse as any to find the edge of her skirt, pulling
it up to reveal the backs of her thighs. I seized her rear as she gasped out
again, pulling her against me firmly.

The pressure around my
crotch released suddenly as her fingers undid the buttons of my jeans and I was
just about to get rid of the things altogether when I heard a voice and froze.
"Captain Bjørnestad?"

"What?" It came
out as a flustered and not particularly dignified squawk.

"I wished to note for
you that the ship's automated pharmacy is capable of dispensing prophylactics
if you require them."

"Were you watching?"
Jack hissed.

There was no glowing orb in
the room, and to be truthful I don't really know what its function had ever
been; Aegis seemed to be omnipresent. "It's my responsibility to track
environmental functions so that I can properly assist the crew. In this case,
when I detected that you were becoming amorous, I wanted to make sure that you
were aware of the functions available to —"

"Stop!" I
growled. "Fuck you and your 'becoming amorous.' Jesus, stop monitoring
this room."

"Very well, captain.
When you've finished your copulation, please note that I've planned and
programmed your next jump. This room is no longer monitored."

Jack blinked blue eyes, and
her ears swiveled back. "'Finished your copulation'? That makes it sound
so..."

"Tawdry?"

She frowned. "A
little."

The moment had been upset,
and I was no longer feeling quite so needy. "Well, these encounters can't
all end the same, right?" The jaguar grinned, and when I slid my arms back
up to encircle her back she pressed up against me, cuddling into my chest with
a contented purr.

"You want to go see
what's up with the jump?" she finally asked.

"Not really," I
grunted. It's hard work, being a captain. "But I guess we should."

Aegis didn't have anything
apologetic to say when we made our way back to the bridge; the course steering
indicators were already broadcast up on the cockpit glass. "Jumping in
five... four... three... two... one... location established. We have entered
approximately one hundred sixty thousand kilometers away from our planned destination.
Beginning a scan of —"

But an alarm bell cut Aegis
off before it could finish. "What's that?" I snapped.

"Targeting systems
have illuminated us. Captain, we're being hailed."

I was not having very good
luck with these Terran things. "Put it through!"

"Attention vessel
inbound bearing zero eight zero declination negative three-five. Identify
yourself immediately."

It was a very martial
request, with a very authoritative sounding female voice. "Ah, this is
captain Ellis Bjørnestad of the survey ship
Aegis Olympic."

"Aegis Olympic,
your ship is not in our records and from what I can tell your IFF is completely
obsolete. I can't get a reading one way or the other. What the hell are you
trying to pull?"

It was an excellent
question, really, and of course I didn't have a very good answer. "Uh. To
be honest, um, I don't know. I'm new to this ship, and to this part of space. I
don't know where I am, or who you are, or —"

"Aegis Olympic,
do not approach closer than one hundred thousand kilometers or we will open
fire." Aegis helpfully brought up a map that showed our target, and I
began to decelerate to avoid causing further offense. "This is Terran
station Alexandria — Deep Space Torus 3. Access to this sector is highly
restricted. Whoever told you to come here is in violation of about twenty
different penal codes."

"I didn't mean to
screw anything up. Look, uh, Alexandria — I'm as confused as you are." I
checked our velocity vector to confirm that we were indeed slowing. "We're
going to hold position as you requested — no need to shoot at us, that's
becoming a theme I'd like to give up for a bit. Can we talk?"

"Activate your
viewscreen."

"Aegis?"

The cockpit glass snapped
into a view of what, I presumed, was the inside of the station — manned by what
I would've considered grotesque aliens, had they not identified themselves as
Terran. They looked something like monkeys, only with hardly any fur — the
one who had been talking, I presume, had a proper mane, but most of the others
did not and one was completely bald.

Fortunately the strange
bipeds seemed as startled by me as I was by them, for I saw their leader blink
in surprise. Her mouth opened — closed — opened again. "Lieutenant
Malcolm! G-get the station-master!" she suddenly spluttered. "And activate
gold protocols immediately."

This was the second person
I'd heard mention 'gold protocols,' which meant absolutely nothing to me — but
now amber lights were flashing in the background of their control center. The
person she'd addressed was no less perplexed. "Commodore Farrell is
asleep, ma'am."

"Then wake him! And
bring that damned ship in!
Aegis Olympic, you're cleared for
high-priority docking, bay four, entry vector gamma two. Lieutenant Barabak,
tell the USS
Shenandoah to wave off; we'll find her another berth."

Lieutenant Malcolm was one
of the odder looking ones, bald and lanky as a cheetah. "Sir, I don't
—"

"Goddamnit — are you
blind, lieutenant?" She pointed at us through the viewscreen, across
thousands of kilometers of space. "
They're moreaus."