Molossus n. An ancient guardian dog breed from Greece, bred since the age of Alexander the Great to protect livestock.

There Is No Such Thing As A Standard First Contact

- The Unofficial Motto of the Coalition Exploration Bureau

The general-quarters alert blared through the wardroom, a harsh staccato buzz which warned all aboard that they were about to lose gravity. A moment later, that warning came true. Captain Sadaf Ta'Shakka gripped the edge of the table and in a habitual manner ignored the protesting from her guts at the sudden lack of any sense of 'down'. She reached up with one claw and tapped at her commnode, a fleck of nanoelectronics hidden within the collar of her pristine black, silver-trimmed uniform.

"Kifa, this is the Captain. What's going on?"

A tinny response sounded out from her collar. "We intercepted a possible artificial signal, Boss. It triggered an automatic drive-cut."

The Captain’s big amber eyes narrowed. "Do you have an analysis yet?”

“It’s a simple signal. No informational content…maybe some sort of targeting radar? Anyway, Nadash is still studying it.”

“Is it a Breaker?”

“Not likely, Boss. Doesn’t fit any Breaker signals on record.”

Captain Sadaf blew out a silent breath of relief. “I’m on my way. Keep the drive off for the moment, begin standard triangulation procedures." She flicked twice more at her collar, a gesture that put her on ship-wide broadcast. “All hands, this is the Captain. Secure any loose material at your stations and prep the ship for sustained high-g maneuvering. All crew assemble in the bridge after securing.”

With ease borne of long practice, Captain Sadaf pushed herself up and towards the ship’s spinal stairway. Her golden horns flattened back against her blue-scaled scalp as she wondered just who or what they’d discovered.

__________

Matthew ‘Toke’ Tocco woke and let out a grumble when he saw that it was still dark out. Old habits die very hard, and thus his body’s internal clock still thought he was in the US Marine Corps and therefore needed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at O’Dark Thirty. Well, at least this early rising meant he could watch the sunrise.

He rose and padded into the kitchen with a slight limp in his step, his tall and wiry body clad only in boxers and a gray tee shirt. As his coffee-maker burbled away he reached down and scratched absently at a long and ugly-looking scar over one knee. Already Matt was mentally checking through what gunsmithing jobs he had underway in his shop…and how many of them he could safely let slide into tomorrow. He’d just bought a nicely blinged-out AR and wanted to test it out rather than actually do some paying work. That urge was partly to get such a good bit of kit sighted in, but mostly because shooting stuff was always fun.

Although…it had snowed last night, and he should check to see how much white stuff was on the ground before making any plans for today. He threw on some sweatpants and a jacket, poured himself a hefty mug of java, then headed outside. He sipped his coffee as he leaned against his porch railing and watched the sun as it started to peep over the horizon and through the evergreens around his property. His house was a modest ranch-style dwelling with a big two-story garage and workshop next to it.

Fortunately, it looked like the dirt road leading to the highway was still passable, and thus he wouldn’t need to do any plowing. Matt drank more coffee while he debated the pros and cons of staying up here and doing chores versus going into town and interacting with other people. As someone whose past had turned him into quite the misanthrope, he had to admit that the former notion held much more appeal.

The sun now warmed both him and the side of his house, and judging by the clear deep blue sky overhead it promised to be another cold yet sunny day in Colorado. After a bit of reflection, he decided to go ahead and sight in his rifle this morning. He could deal with a little snow.

However, the new snowfall turned out to be a little thicker than he’d expected. Matt grumbled to himself as he trudged out to set up a paper target at twenty-five yards then trudged back to his shooting position. He lay himself prone and peered through the rifle’s iron sights to set up the shot. Twenty-five yards was an insultingly short distance given his prior training.

At least today he didn't have to worry about heat waves throwing off his vision. No, today he just had to worry about freezing his dingus off. Matt ignored the cold seeping up into his snowsuit as he lined up his sights. The time passed in a happy meditative and familiar set of activities. Rack in a new round, line up the shot, breath out and squeeze, check the shot placement, and adjust his sights accordingly. After another round of adjustments at three hundred yards he had his new rifle set at the tack-driving accuracy which he considered ‘merely adequate’ thanks to his former career.

During the next few hours Matt worked through his backlog of jobs and managed to put a decent dent into them. By the time he’d finished it was late afternoon and he figured a short hike was a good way to end the wintry day. He strapped on some snowshoes and headed out into the forest feeling very pleased with the world in general. Most of that good mood was due to the fact that he’d been by himself the whole day.

But less than an hour later his elation was well and truly gone. Matt came across a campsite that he knew well, a nice little clearing with a good spot for a fire. But somebody had trashed this pristine piece of nature all to hell. They’d scattered red-stained coffee filters around, on top of leaving other detritus such as plastic bottles and empty match boxes. Matt sighed as he surveyed the mess and pulled out his phone to gather evidence. He had to head to Manitoba Springs tomorrow anyway and drop off a bunch of completed gunsmithing jobs to his customers. It would be a good opportunity to track down the county sheriff and give him an earful about this bullshit.

As he regarded the resulting set of pictures, Matt supposed he should count his blessings. After all, he’d come out to the middle of nowhere to get away from his previous profession and live a peaceful existence far away from most people. Thus far, he’d been successful in that goal. Taking care of some dumb-ass litterbugs was, without a doubt, the most annoying thing he’d ever have to deal with for the foreseeable future.

__________

The Coalition Exploration Bureau Vehicle Exultant Finger Of Rithro popped back into normal spacetime as she successfully transitioned through a jump point from one star system to another. The ship’s appearance was that of a standard Coalition corvette-class exploration vessel. A human would have thought it looked a little like a giant arrow with a broadhead-style tip fixed to either end. A narrowly-tapered cone of armor at the front protected the lifesystem within, while at the farther end of the ship a less-tapered armored cone protected the ship’s fusion reactor and drives. The latter armor also sported holes which allowed the ship’s engine nozzles to poke through. The spine running along the center of the ship was barely visible beneath a stack of toridal fuel tanks.

As the Rithro coasted, large rectangular wings unfolded from her middle, a trio of radiators spaced equidistantly around her spine. Those wings began to glow red as the ship began to shed the incredible amount of waste heat she'd accumulated during her jump.

A communication buoy then popped out of one of the ship's side-mounted ejector tubes. The buoy coasted to a halt with a flare of its own fusion thrusters and took up station next to the jump point which the Rithro had just used. The ship had scattered these devices during her voyage, leaving them behind like breadcrumbs so that her findings could be transmitted to the rest of the Coalition.

On the ship’s bridge, the pilot Kifa was the first to recover. The blue-furred, six-legged xyrax blinked its four huge oil-drop eyes as it came to. "Everyone good?" it called out in its piping voice.

Kifa glanced around the bridge. The bridge consisted of a ring of couches which surrounded the central spine of the ship; this spine was normally ‘invisible’ beneath the bridge’s main holographic display. The Rithro’s crew lay strapped into their individually-shaped acceleration couches, all of which showed nominal indicator lights. Kifa relaxed when it saw that there were no cases of catastrophic jump fugue. The spiderlike creature unstrapped itself from its own couch and with practiced ease pushed off into the open space of the bridge. It drifted over to check on Takh dal P'Tama, the ship’s first officer.

The gross violation of spacetime which constituted an FTL jump adversely affected anything with a nervous system more complicated than a few thousand neurons. The XO’s species, the udhyr, were usually the most affected by jump fugue.

The big sometimes-centauroid nodded his mandibles in response to the pilot's gentle tapping on his leathery flank. "I'm doing okay, Kifa. At least that’s our last jump for a while, eh?"

Tofa, the ship’s other xyrax, was now busy at its own astrogation console and double-checking the ship’s position. "We're right in the middle of our planned trajectory, captain," it called out.

Captain Sadaf Ta'Shakka blinked her big amber eyes as she came back to herself. The auhn’s golden horns twitched as she released herself from her couch and drifted over to release Dhuz, the ship’s medic and biologist. The two auhn nuzzled each other with obvious affection before Sadaf broke away to drift over to Tofa.

"Are the fusion drives nominal, Grakosh?" called the Captain to a snake-like being on the other side of the center display.

The little knuall-toua engineer scanned his own display and gave an affirmative click to the captain. "Our reactor is fine and the engines are good to go. Shall I start them up, or do you want to float around helplessly for awhile more?" His triple jaws cork-screwed into his species’ version of a grin.

“Stand by, let me check our position." Sadaf bent over Tofa's 'shoulder' to look at its display and double-check the ship’s location. This particular star was a red dwarf and only six light-years distant from their target star system.

Tofa picked up on the Captain's musing. "Light from us will take six years to get to the target system from here," it said.

"So if that system does have a sapient race with a penchant for stargazing, then in about six years they'll pick up the light from our fusion drive." Sadaf's horns twitched up and down as she pondered. "And they'll for sure know that it’s artificial. Six years should give us enough time. Our recon shouldn’t take more than a few months.”

The results of that surveillance would then trigger a much larger and proper first-contact expedition from the Coalition. It would take at most two years for the expedition to be prepared and arrive at the Rithro’s current location. The captain pushed off and with some trepidation drifted to the couch which held the one crewmember that she found truly alien. Nadash looked outwardly like Sadaf herself, but on closer inspection one could see that her eyes were a featureless silver rather than the usual warm amber. That difference, plus the glitter of cybernetics upon Nadash's temples, was enough to show to anyone that this particular auhn was no longer entirely mortal.

Even though Nadash’s couch readout showed normal biological functions, the Exalted nevertheless lay oddly still as she stared unseeing at the bulkhead over her head. Sadaf knew that Nadash’s stillness wasn’t due to jump fugue; many times, the cybernetic auhn would simply lie unmoving as if she were nothing but a forgotten puppet waiting for someone to pick up her strings again.

The captain reached out and tapped one clawed finger against the dark green scales on the Exalted auhn’s shoulder. Nadash stirred as her silver eyes blinked. She gave Sadaf an artificial smile. “I am well, Captain. We thank you for your concern.” Nadash reached forward and activated the holographic display of her acceleration couch, moving in an almost lazy fashion as compared with the quick, darting movements typical of her species. Her display lit up in a fractal array that spun and pulsed faster than Sadaf could keep track of.

In spite of her slow and steady movements a tinge of excitement worked its way into Nadash’s somewhat synthetic voice. "Most excellent! Captain, I bear good news. Our triangulation of that initial signal was accurate."

Takh appeared next to Nadash’s couch and stood looming over them both. "You see the initial transmission?"

"Yes, and much more besides. Based on what I’m seeing now, that first signal was indeed from a scanning radar. I now detect quite a few more signals all originating from our target star system. Simple modulation in the longer EM wavelengths. We’re now close enough to detect these emissions over the galactic background noise. I don’t have a translation yet, but I can state with certainty that these new signals have actual informational content."

Another knuall-toua slithered over and wound herself up around one of Takh’s leathery legs. This newcomer's triple-jawed beak gaped open in good humor as the beady eye on the tip of each jaw stared at Nadash’s screen. "I still say it’s a seed-world."

Nadash gave the newcomer a silvery and level stare. “Mouquon, I told you that we have no records of a seed-world planted this far from Coalition space.”

Moquon’s forked and prehensile tail waved up and to the side in her species’ version of a shrug. “So you say, but this wouldn’t be the first time that our bosses screwed up.”

Sadaf gave an irritated snort. “It doesn’t matter at the moment if it’s a seed-world. What does matter is that they’re advanced enough for this type of broadcasting. We must therefore assume that they have astronomy.” Her horns lay back flat against her head. "Thus, in about six years they'll pick up the light from our fusion drive. Without a doubt they’ll identify it as artificial. Six years should give us enough time. Our initial recon shouldn’t take more than a few months.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

They were in this system thanks to the oldest and most stringent orders of the CEB. Any artificial signal of unknown origin must be tracked to its source. If the signal was indeed from a sapient race, those same orders then directed that the scouting party needed to perform a thorough and, more importantly, covert surveillance of that race to determine its threat level. Most of the time the discovered planet was a seed-world, a colony of an already-known sapient species placed upon some habitable world due to a long-ago intervention by Nadash’s…very powerful superiors.

Seed-worlds were difficult enough to attempt any First Contact, and were in fact the source of the CEB's unofficial motto. Despite containing an already-known sapient species, one could never predict if any particular colony had devolved into barbarism or, worse yet, acquired a deep religious fanaticism which they could turn against anyone claiming to be from the 'heavens'. Sadaf still sported a scar on her thigh from a disastrous expedition on one such fanatical world. She'd left it in place as a reminder to herself to dodge the next time.

If positive, the results of the Rithro’s initial surveillance would then trigger a much larger and proper first-contact expedition from the Coalition. That expedition would consist of a fleet of giant ships, packed with the best specialists in every scientific discipline which one could think of. It would take two years at most for the expedition to be prepared and arrive at the Rithro’s current location, well before any incriminating photons could make their way into the native’s star system.

The Captain looked around and made sure that nobody was floating unsecured, then nodded to Kifa. "Light them up." The deck began to vibrate, accompanied by a soft but audible rumble supplied from the distant fury of the ship’s fusion drives. The crew gratefully felt weight return as the Rithro accelerated away from the jump point.

Sadaf turned back to Nadash. "Can you decode those signals?"

"Yes. The transmissions are fragmentary, but I believe they contain both visual and auditory data. Give me…hmmm, about ten hours. I should have an initial translation by then."

"We need to figure out how best to proceed. Your data is critical for that. Take your time, and let us know when you've got something."

The captain smiled as she felt Dhuz’s tail-tip curl around her own, which was a prelude to the biologist hugging the captain from behind.

“Could this be a First Contact? I mean, a real one?" Dhuz asked. “It’s been many centuries since the last discovery of a separate sapient species.”

Sadaf smiled as well while her own tail gave Dhuz’s a loving squeeze. "It might be. It looks like you'll have to do some actual work for a change." Dhuz snorted as her tail broke free from the captain’s tender caress. She gave Sadaf's back a mock-slap before walking away.

__________

Manitoba Springs was small even compared to most mountain towns. But on the plus side it did have a post office, a restaurant, and a town hall. Matt pulled his ramshackle silver pickup off of the state highway which passed for the town's main drag and headed for what was charitably called the ‘downtown’. The town hall was a brick building with a square profile and a big antenna array protruding from its roof. Matt parked his truck in one of the two visitor spaces and swung himself out of the vehicle with ease.

Janelle Watkins looked up from behind her desk as the bell over the front door dinged. She was a matronly-built woman who came installed with a perpetually good mood. "Hey, hon! How's my favorite jarhead?"

“Can’t complain. Is Ernie in?”

She replied with a wave towards a side-door bearing a plaque with the words ‘EARNEST CLIFTON, KENOSHA COUNTY SHERIFF.’

Matt knocked on the door, only to be greeted by an angry yell of “WHAT?” from the closed office. He looked back towards Janelle in puzzlement.

“New computer system,” she whispered in response, then gave an apologetic shrug.

He nodded his understanding with a grin. “Easy, there Ernie,” he called through the door. “It’s just me.”

The door swung open to reveal a towering and barrel-chested man in a gray uniform. His mustachioed and florid face broke into a smile. “Toke! Just the man I need to talk to! What do you know about destroying computers?”

Matt chuckled in response. “I’ve found that a hammer works just fine.”

Ernie walked back around his desk and flopped into his chair with a growl. “That’s not nearly destructive enough. What’s the biggest rifle you own? I want to see what kind of damage it’ll do to this piece of absolute shit.” He pointed with extreme hatred at the computer tower perched at the edge of his desk and gave the offending hardware an extra sneer of contempt for good measure.

“It’s not the computer’s fault, Ernie,” said Matt as he seated himself in one of the chairs in front of Ernie’s desk.

“Yeah, but if I don’t shoot the computer then I’d have to go hunt down and shoot whatever idiot bastard came up with this new record-keeping software. There’s a lot more paperwork involved in homicide than with destruction of government property.” He sighed in resignation as he began hunting and pecking with his two index fingers at the keyboard. “I suppose I’ll figure it all out eventually.”

Matt looked over at the sheriff’s holster, which hung on the room’s only coat rack off in one corner. “How’s that Barretta working out for ya?”

Ernie continued to stare at the screen as he typed. “It’s working great. I don’t know what you did to the trigger but I can safely say that my gun now shoots way better than my current ability.” He cocked an eye at Matt. “So…what brings you here? I’m assuming it wasn’t due to you missing my charming personality.”

Matt reached into his jacket pocket and took out a few pages of printed photos. “I took these pictures yesterday afternoon. It’s at a campsite about three miles north of my place, off of the trail to Lake Norah.”

With quite evident relief, Ernie gave up his laborious typing and picked up the photos. He examined them minutely as Matthew kept talking.

“Whoever it was built a fire recently, probably in the last few days. I’m gonna head back out there tomorrow and clean up all of that crap. I know it’s just a bunch of littering but I don’t want to keep doing this, ya know? It’s county land, not fed or state, so I’m not sure where I should go to and register a complaint….”

Toke trailed off as he noted the sheriff’s laser-like focus on the photos. “Ernie?” he asked.

The big, portly man let out a little graveyard chuckle. “Did it stink?”

“Pardon?”

“The clearing. Did it smell, whaddyacall, acrid, like it was clearing out your sinuses?”

Toke nodded reluctantly.

Ernie held up the photo from the top of the stack, one that showed a red-stained coffee filter. “You don’t know what this means, do you?”

“I sure as shit don’t. Care to enlighten me?”

“This ain’t just normal littering. Somebody was cooking.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I just told you they’d built a fire…” Matt’s eyes widened as the penny dropped. “Oh. You mean meth cooking?”

“Yep. Those red filters, plus all of those match boxes? That’s a dead giveaway.”

“Crap. I figured it was just a bunch of teens out having a party. Why the hell are those assholes trekking all the way out there?”

Ernie tossed the photos onto his desk and leaned back, lacing his hands over the swell of his belly. “The DEA’s been cracking down hard on meth production for the last few months. I guess a team of cooks have found a new place to work.”

“Aw, fucking hell and damnation. What do I do?”

“You do nothing. If it’s okay with you, I’ll turn these photos over to the feds.”

Toke waved a hand towards Ernie’s desk. “They’re all yours. I have the original image files if the DEA wants them. What do you think they’ll do?”

The sheriff blew out a breath as he shrugged. “Best guess? They’ll probably set up a stakeout to nab ‘em at the trailhead. If they have the manpower, of course.”

Matt frowned. “’Probably’ isn’t gonna cut it.” He stared off into space as he ruminated on a possible stakeout of his own.

Ernie’s chair creaked as he leaned forward and put his elbows on the desktop. “Toke? You better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking. Leave this kind of crap to us actual lawfolk, okay? From what I’ve heard, a lot of the guys cooking are also using their own product and you do not want to have to tangle with a bunch of tweekers. Don’t go and try anything…cute.”

Captain Matthew Carver Tocco, formerly of the Force Reconnaissance Company of the United States Marine Corps, smiled gently into Ernie’s grim-set face.

“Oh my friend, ‘cute’ is the farthest thing from my mind.”

__________

The small wardroom of the Rithro just barely held the ship's nine crewmembers, even with all of its furniture folded away into the floor. Dhuz was a little disappointed that the Exalted was so competent at her assigned task. The biologist and Captain Sadaf had finally caught a few moments of free time and were in the midst of some very pleasant mutual ravishing when Nadash’s call came.

The Exalted’s tone was professorial as she described her initial findings. "I must warn you, I’ve only assembled fragmentary images and sounds. But they do provide a fascinating look at those who might become our newest Coalition members. Thus far, this is the longest bit of data I could capture and decode."

One wall of the wardroom flashed with static; Dhuz stared in intense wonder as the static faded to show an overhead view of a deep green field. Crouching bipedal creatures lined up in two rows facing each other, with several more of the creatures scattered behind the two rows. It was hard to get a sense of how big these beings actually were, but they wore helmets and thick armor that gave the impression of brute strength. A chattering voice sounded out over the scene, behind which she heard a distant roar formed from many voices calling out. She caught glimpses of a great crowd of more of the creatures arranged around the field, sitting in tiered oval rows.

At some unspoken signal the two lines charged at each other, each creature slamming hard into their opposite number in the other row. The other creatures darted around behind the clashing giants, and one of them shot out its arm. A small brown ovoid flew from the creature's hand, and after a graceful arc it thumped into the chest of another. As the receiver caught the ball, the background roar went up in volume. The catcher then got promptly smashed into the ground by a pursuer. The hit looked hard enough to make Dhuz wince in sympathy.

The image and sound faded back to static. "I should be able to get many others," said Nadash. "It will take some time to unravel it all. Most of what I’m getting are fragments."

"That looked like some sort of...a, a ritual combat, perhaps?" mused Takh. The XO's mandibles clicked together as he thought. "Nadash, do you have any idea of how large these beings are? I couldn't see anything to give a sense of scale."

"Scaling could be difficult," admitted the Exalted. "We have no direct size reference for anything within those images. I'll do what I can." She turned to face the Captain. “Orders?”

Sadaf stared into the distance as she rubbed under her jaw with one clawed finger. “Hmm. My instinct is to map out and use the next jump point, then do more reconnaissance within their system. But that means they’ll see our drive plume.” Now she looked up at Nadash. “Can you get what information you need from this distance?”

For the first time Nadash looked…not peeved, exactly. But there was a slight frown on her face. “Their broadcasts aren’t very powerful. What I can get at this distance will be every bit as fragmentary as that sample which I just showed you.” She waved at the display. “We won’t have much context for our data, and context is vital when dealing with any new culture. After all, there is…”

“…no such thing as a standard First Contact,” chorused the rest of the crew.

Nadash’s slight frown relaxed into a slight smile, the first in a long while. “Exactly.”

Sadaf sighed. “Okay. Tofa, have you plotted the most probable location for the jump point to these natives’ star system?”

“I have. We’ll need to refine the exact location as we approach and get a better idea of the spacetime fluctuations around it, but we do have a rough estimate of the point’s coordinates.” The astrogator gestured at the display which obediently lit up and showed a three-dimensional view of their current trajectory, the red dwarf star, and the next jump point in question.

“Set our vector towards that jump point, standard acceleration. Continue scanning this system in the meantime.” Sadaf peered at the display. “Let’s map out all the rest of this system’s jump points. At the same time, we’ll record whatever information we can on these new sapients. What are our fuel reserves like?”

“We’re good for at least three more months at full burn, plus two jumps,” replied Grakosh. “After that, we’ll have to find a suitable icy body for processing more hydrogen.”

“Good. Moquon, how are the rest of our consumables?”

The other knuall-toua was their lifesystem expert. She was, at the moment, hitching a ride on the shoulder of the ship’s planetologist, an udhyr named Kexal. She tapped her three-fingered tail against Kexal’s leathery flank as she thought. “We have at least seven months before we’d need to head back. That will still leave us two months of reserve for emergencies.”

“Understood. Here’s the current plan; we’ll orbit in this system and monitor for two months, then reevaluate based on what data we’ve analyzed to date. Then we decide how best to proceed. All right?”

After a chorus of assents the Captain nodded. “Good. Let’s go and make the Bureau proud, people.”

As it turned out, the Captain’s grand plan lasted less than twenty hours.

__________

"Boss? We gotta big problem."

Tofa's voice roused Sadaf from her slumber. She lay spooned against Dhuz in their cabin, and as Sadaf stirred the biologist gave a sleepy grumble. The Captain leaned forward and gave Dhuz a tender lick along the softer scales of her lover’s neck. "Sorry, my dearest. Duty calls."

She extricated her arm out from under Dhuz, donned her uniform, and quickly made her way up to the bridge. Tifa was already there, and the two xyrax considered the astrogator's screen with clear concern in their multiple bright black eyes.

As usual, Sadaf didn’t waste time with pleasantries. "Report."

"There might be a Breaker in this system,” said Tifa without preamble.

That statement woke the Captain all the way up and then some. "What the frinx do you mean might?"

"We're still not sure that it is one," said Kifa. The pilot pointed at a blip on the display. "We've detected a faint infrared source. The signature matches that of a Breaker, but it's nowhere near as bright as normal. That means it’s either a lot physically smaller than the standard or it's been heavily damaged in some past battle."

"I'm voting on the latter," said Tofa. "If it was operational, even a smaller Breaker would have detected those new sapients' signals and called in a wrecking crew."

"Oh, frinx," muttered Sadaf as she regarded the suspicious blip. A hopeful thought struck her. "Maybe…maybe it's a probe launched by the natives? Even if they're limited to travelling in normal space-time it's only six light-years. That’s not all that far."

"It’s not that," said Tofa. He called up a tactical view of their current position in the star system. "The IR source is maintaining an orbit right next to the jump point from here into the native’s home system. Any probe from the natives would be travelling through the system at high speed."

“Frinx and chipped horns,” was all Sadaf said in reply.

"I've deployed a few sensor drones," said Kifa. "With their improved baseline, we’ll have a more detailed image inside of thirty minutes."

Sadaf stared at the mystery infrared source with a grim set to her horns. Next to that tiny blip lay an enhanced image, showing a blurred shape which resembled a grasping hand with extended claws. Such shapes were all too well known to the Coalition, and there were a host of burned-out star systems to attest to those shapes’ deadliness.

"It sure looks like a Breaker,” she said at last. “It must be so damaged that it can't take action. Or it's following its most basic commands and waiting to attack anyone going into or out of the jump point. Its long-range sensors must be damaged as well, since it’s not vectoring to attack us."

The two xyrax exchanged a look. "That's our initial assessment as well," said Tofa. It tapped on its console, and the center display expanded out to show the entire system of the red dwarf. Their current orbit and the jump points into the system showed as bright white against the blackness. “We could avoid the Breaker…if it is one,” Tofa continued. “I can reroute us into a larger orbit around the red dwarf which will keep us out of its detection range.”

“That orbit should allow us to stay here and collect what information we can on the new sapients,” added Kifa. “We wouldn’t have to worry about tangling with that damned thing.”

“No.” replied Sadaf. “We have to destroy it.”

She saw another worried exchange of glances between the two xyrax. Her horns rose in determination as she continued speaking. “Think about it. This new species has lived under a threat of sudden death for their entire history…and they’ve been none the wiser.” Her clawed finger stabbed at the center display above them, pointing right at the Breaker’s position. “That ‘damned thing’ may be in standby mode, or it might be repairing itself however slowly. If it wakes up all the way, it’ll sense the same EM signals that we did. Sacred Mothers, if that’s the case then there’s a wrecking crew already on the way. We have got to investigate and take it out, for the sake of that new species if nothing else.”

The pair of xyrax hunched their legs tight against their abdomens in a sign of stress. However, Kifa’s piping voice remained steady. “I understand, Captain. Nine lives in exchange for possible billions. We’re…we’re behind you.”

Kifa’s declaration gave Tofa additional strength. It straightened its legs back out. “Agreed. Orders, ma’am?”

The auhn Captain felt the fizz of adrenaline course through her body. As was typical of her race, now that she was set upon a course of danger her biochemistry welcomed any oncoming challenge. “Maintain our present course. Get whatever imaging you can. I'm calling an all hands meeting in one hour. We've got sixty hours before we reach the next jump point and that damaged Breaker. I want a complete battle plan in ten."