“…and this, here, is the wardroom of the Rithro,” said Chao as she floated up through the central ladder which was mounted alongside the ship’s spine. She then panned herself around, making sure that her body-cam caught everything. “As you can see, it’s not at all strange-looking. The ship itself is laid out with vertical-stacked decks, like a skyscraper, and not horizontal like on a boat or as in Star Trek. A few decks above us is the bridge…we can’t show you that, at least not yet. That’s thanks to concerns with tech-transfer shenanigans. If you do want to look at that, then get in touch with your own senators and lawmakers and whatnot to push through the bills which are now stuck in committee within the various powers-that-be.”

She regarded the empty expanse of this particular floor. “I know this deck looks a bit Spartan right now, but that’s because all of the furniture has been folded into the floor. During normal use, there are always a few couches and tables extruded, so that the crew can relax, exercise, and eat casually.”

Moquon let forth a snek-like hiss. “You biggies are too used to your creature comforts!” The knuall-toua was currently wrapped around Parvati’s shoulder; the latter was rapidly getting used to being nothing but a big warm tree which the snek-aliens could climb upon, just as Chao had to get used to back at the beginning.

“It is nice to rest oneself upon occasion,” said Parvati, in a mild protest.

The lifesystem expert waved her hand-tail. “Eh, we properly-sized people don’t have time for such things.”

The actress grinned. “If you say so. Still, might I press you or your crew to show our global audience how such furniture is extruded? We could then repose our too-large selves upon your kind largesse.”

“Why, I do believe I can do that very thing.” Moquon gave her a brief tug over towards the far wall. Parvati followed with the tug, pushing herself off of the ladder with just the right amount of momentum to bring her and Moquon right to the indicated controls.

Chao watched Parvati in envy, even though she herself was reasonably fit. Still, the Indian actress was even more in shape and had a better sense of how to manipulate her body; the Thai woman figured that doing all of that Bollywood dancing must have paid off. She and Corporal Martinez had done a watch of ‘Ashutosh’ at the latter's insistence, and she had to admit that the music and dancing in that movie were very much on-point.

Moquon hummed a familiar little ditty as she tapped her tail at an apparently blank section of the wall. Upon her tapping, a round table and conformally-round couches rose out of the floor, as if by magic.

Chao made sure her chest-mounted cam was pointed at the bit of technological flair before them. “Well, folks, as you can see our alien friends can make this place much more homely. Um, not that I’m complaining, but I do have a question. Why don’t you use the gravitic drive tech to make the floor ‘down’ no matter what the ship is doing? Why only use constant thrust to create artificial gravity?”

“It takes far too much energy,” replied Moquon. “Sorry to burst any bubbles among you monkey-boys, but gravitic drives, while they’re great for getting off of planets, are hideously inefficient in terms of converting energy into thrust. Even worse than that for a pure photon-drive!” The little alien performed her equivalent of a cackle. The translator bead in Chao’s ear shifted into the dry, professional tone which told its user that they were getting units translated. “Imagine, over [Three hundred megawatts per Newton!] I mean, I’m no engineer like Grakosh, but it’s much better to store reaction mass onboard and use the fusion drive to get ourselves going with proper efficiency.”

The little snek-expert coiled herself back up against Parvati’s head, while Chao absorbed what she’d just been told. The rest of their human contingent continued drifting up the ladder, including the big figure of Ravindar and the smaller, leaner form of Ramirez. Upon meeting the latter’s eyes, Chao gave him a wink that he couldn’t misunderstand.

At some point in the near future, her body-cam would suffer a mysterious accident and shut itself off. And right after that, Chao Me Chu and Luca Martinez were going to make the mile-high-club look like amateur hour. But she wanted the both of them to get some better understanding of how to maneuver in freefall, otherwise they might go drifting out into some common area for everyone to see while they were in the middle of…shenanigans.

“Your FTL drive must eat up so much energy,” said Chao at last.

Her statement didn’t faze the little alien-snek. “Of course. Also of course, we have pulled back from telling you how such feats are performed. There’s a little trick to how we manage FTL transits with merely ‘mortal-level’ technology…but we’re not going to tell you that. Not yet, not until your so-called ‘UN’ is, well, more united.”

Chao, as was her wont, felt a bit slighted…then she realized that she knew the ditty her little snek-friend had been humming.

“Was that ‘Les Miz’ you were sort-of singing there?” she asked. She’d been at the front, of course, during the initial media firestorm when the Rithro crew had been invited to a Broadway re-release of the classic musical…or was it a sub-classic? She’d have to ask Victor Hugo’s ghost about that. Chao had carried Grakosh (as was the sacred tradition) during the gala, while McCoy had carried Moquon. Both had been provided with stunning black-and-silver dresses, courtesy of Teresa Vila, and both had cut quite the swath on the red carpet even if one didn’t count the aliens perched upon them.

For the most part, the alien crew had been politely appreciative of the affair and viewed it as just another standard cultural exchange. But the two little snek-aliens had been utterly enthralled with the musical, and even explaining the dry (and ugly) political and sociological history behind the play’s events had not dampened their fervor towards this very human art form.

In response to Chao’s question, Moquon began a piping rendition, one which resounded in Chao’s ear…but not through her earpiece. The human realized she was hearing the knuall-toua sing this in English, in an Earth language. “Do you hear the people sing…?”

“…lost in the valley of the night?” sounded out a similar piping voice from somewhere below the ward-room deck. Again, it didn’t have the slight lag of a translator, this was an alien also singing in English.

Moquon both clutched tighter at Parvati’s shoulder but also managed to straighten up her upper head-neck more. “It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light…”

Grakosh’s voice sounded out again from below them, now closer. “For the wretched of the Earth, there is a flame that never dies…”

Parvati’s shoulder-mounted snek-friend responded. “…Even the darkest night will end and the sun will riiiise!”

An off-white streak launched itself up from the central spine located at the ward-room’s floor. Parvati, much to her credit, only gave out the tiniest of shrieks as the missile which was now Grakosh collided with Moquon, who had pushed off of Parvati’s shoulder at the first glimpse of movement. Chao saw the much-bigger figure of Ravindar twitch his turban-clad head around upon hearing his charge’s sound of fright, but the Sikh relaxed when he saw that there was no real danger.

The two ‘sneks’ (as they would be thereafter be called by humanity) coiled around each other, and somehow Chao knew that this was not some kind of mating ceremony. This full-body-contact meant something deeper to the knuall-toua. The two knuall-toua continued to sing, in their harmonizing, piping voices. Singing in a language of the planet which had given them sanctuary.

“We will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord, we will walk behind the plough-share, we will put away the sword…”

Chao was wise enough to simply stand back and witness the pair. She knew in a distant way that the entirety of humanity was watching through her eyes, and maybe a cheesy musical knock-off of a popular ancient novel was the way to get everyone on board.

She still had no idea of what she was witnessing.

That was because, with no translator earpieces, the two sneks’ harmonies sounded out in a chorus which could not be denied, even for the lowliest human. This was the moment where everyone on Earth could look at their various screens and say, “Yeah, those aliens might be cool. They sing real good, after all.”

The two intertwined aliens continued to sing, intertwined like lovers. But this was just because knuall-toua just had no concept of ‘personal space’.

The intertwined pair sang with piping voices. “…Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing? Say, do you hear the distant drums!...”

Chao just sat back and watched, allowing her body-cam to capture the moment. She thus witnessed something which might be called the Ideal Moment. Much like Churchill’s ‘we shall fight them on the beaches’ speech right before the Battle of Britain, this was the one perfect moment in time to show all of humanity that…yeah. These aliens could understand us, on an gut, emotional level. One single thought resonated throughout anyone watching.

Yeah, they’re just like us. And yes, we will join in that crusade.

“…it is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!” The entwined sneks then unwrapped themselves from each other, and Grakosh gave a triple-jawed grin at the watching humans. “Oh! Sorry, I should have mentioned that the initial attempts at patching are going quite well! Your alloy works wonder, so we should go retrieve the SpaceX package!”

Chao sighed. There was going to be a lot of running around, and thus no fun freefall-sexy-time for her and her new beau. “We should do just that. Then we have to go find an icy body to get your hydrogen topped back up to full, eh?”

The little engineer, somehow, didn’t pick up on her resignation and nodded with ferocity. “Exactly! We have a couple of candidates we can reach, even with one engine out. We’ll make sure that you view everything. This is a skill you’ll need to learn, after all.”

She glanced at Parvati, then over at the more-distant figures of Ravindar and Luca. “Sounds like a good plan, Grakosh. After we go and retrieve the other package of patching material, how long will it take your drones to complete repairs?”

“Oh, no more than twenty hours!”

“That long?” replied Parvati in a very British-style drawl. She met Chao’s eyes and winked. “Why, that’s enough time for just about anything to occur.”

Chao rallied. “Indeed.” She looked over at the two human men in their contingent; they were rapt in watching a holographic display manipulated by Takh, who was showing them the various bits of the Rithro and explaining which parts were which and where they were inside it. McCoy had elected to become the human-backpack of the group, and clung to Takh’s back while looking over his shoulder. It might have been Chao’s imagination, but she could somehow see a bit of a tremor run through the huge alien whenever McCoy brought her mouth near his head.

“Just about anything,” Chao replied, then met Parvati’s eyes in an unspoken message of you go get that as she motioned her head towards her own beau…and towards Ravindar.

Parvati nodded with no apparent emotion on her face, as if she was meeting someone in a park. “I would love to see the hydroponics deck, Moquon. Shall we go and let our audience see them as well?”

The little alien didn’t pick up on the messages flying under her radar; in some ways they were still clueless, even if they did ‘grok’ humans far better than the other species. “Of course! It’s on deck five, we can take the ladder down there…”

Chao met Ravindar’s eyes as he drifted back towards the central spine of the ship. He locked eyes with her, then smiled. He also motioned his turban towards the still-distant figure of Corporal Martinez with a big grin on his face. He gripped at the ladder, making ready to follow his charge back down into the guts of the alien craft.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She responded with an equally Cheshire-cat-style smile, then gripped the ladder…but only as a launching-pad to throw herself towards the still-clueless figure of Luca who, as it turned out, was not prepared for the love-bomb which was incoming very fast.

__________

Somewhere, rather far from the current scene, a giant thirty-kilometer-long figure of utter death and destruction received an input. It wasn’t one from an ‘interesting’ EM transmission from some random location; no, this is one that it was receiving directly through direct channels. It was a pulse from a dying one of its brethren, one which indicated that an exploration vessel of the hated ‘Coalition’ had come through its sector…and that they’d escaped through a nearby jump point. The final transmission indicated that the Coalition ship was most likely destroyed. But there should still be an investigation, especially of the system or systems linked to that final jump point.

The Breaker performed its calculations within a microsecond. There was no need for a Wrecking Crew, at least not yet. The drone could take care of this by themselves.

Still, it sent a notification into the network about its decision before accelerating towards the nearest jump-point.

__________

Secret Service agent Bartholomew Lasky looked around him again. Nothing. Not a soul stirred, even though he was in the midst of a pretty desolate back alley in Baltimore. He scanned the junkies strewn around him, looking for his contact. They should be wearing a red and very fake-looking stripe of color in their lapel. He thought that was almost too much; after all, they could just do the same with a fake rose.

Still, he scanned, and still he saw nothing. He crept forward, hoping against hope that this wasn’t a trap…

“Hey.”

The agent looked in confusion at the tall, dark-eyed man who had somehow just…appeared next to him. “Um…hi?”

“Whatcha doing?” asked the latter.

“Nothing! I was just, um, well…”

The tall man placed a big, very strong hand on his shoulder. “You are utter shit when it comes to lying, my man. I’m just sayin’.”

“I mean…I…”

“Word of advice, shut up right now.” The tall man smiled, a very evil smile. “That way, when we nail you to the wall, it’ll be that much more satisfying.”

Agent Bartholomew was not one to be intimidated. He puffed himself out, like a peacock trying to impress his fellow bird-ladies. “I’m a Federal agent, you can’t just walk up and intimidate me…”

The strong hand on Bartholomew’s shoulder clamped into an unbreakable hold. “Ooooh, you’re a Fed, huh? How intriguing! As if I didn’t know that. Shall I tell you who I am, my fine fellow? At this particular moment in time, I am the Right Hand Of The Lord Thy Fucking God as far as you’re concerned, you cute little Fed. So. Shall we continue this stupid little dance, or are you going to tell me everything? Trust me, you spilling your guts now will result in much less pain in your future. If you get really uppity, I’m gonna have to make a call to Tristan. And trust me when I say that you don’t want that. That vicious, smooth-talking sumbitch just got a taste of his old life. I know he’ll jump at the chance to get another one.”

Bartholomew gulped. He could sense the supposed junkies rising and gathering behind him in an immoveable wall. He realized he had indeed walked right into the mother of all stings, he could hear the ruffling sound of lots and lots and lots of badges getting displayed. “Um…”

“Cuff this stupid sonofabitch,” said the tall man. “Read him his rights. No funny stuff, he’s gonna smile real pretty for the cameras in a bit.”

__________

Dwight heard a ‘ping’ from his social-media platform of choice. This was not a normal thing from the latter bit of software; it was a very exclusive and very secure platform, intended only as a method for sharing data amongst his colleagues. However, when he examined the source of the ping his eyes widened in alarm. He opened a chat window, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t join the channel. His luck held; Dwight beheld with relief the fact that the only ones jumping in were…well, not The Dreaded Him.

“What’s up?” asked Clara.

“I just got word. He and She are finally finished with their fornicating. I mean, I honestly can’t blame the guy. I’d do the same thing in their shoes. I just wanted to give everyone in here a heads-up that pretty soon…”

Another bling noise sounded out, the noise of a new person joining the chat. Sure enough, it was him. “Pretty soon what?” asked Joachim. His voice was brusque, but then again it always was. Dwight wondered, not for the first time, how such a severe-mannered man had managed to snag such a delightful lady. The few times he’d spoken to Corina prior to her ‘tanking’, she’d seemed like a lovely and gentle person.

Dwight thought fast. “Um, sir, I just wanted the team to make sure we were all ready for the next round of design reviews.”

“Of course. Good man. Now, we need to review the ISP of the previous ‘NERVA’ testing and make sure this new engine does what we want it to do.”

"We can do that, sir. Now how about the secondary, um, engine?"

The resulting voice was, while brusque, also amused. "That is something a little extra, when the hypothetical shit hits the hypothetical fan. Still, we should go over that as well..."

__________

“Hey there, slick.”

Sergeant Malcom Shaw was right in the midst of getting ready for his big re-exposure to the world. He was checking his dress uniform…a brand new one, courtesy of the US Army. One which extended down to his two good legs, thank you very much. The new half of his leg was still kinda-sorta getting used to being there again; he could walk on it, but he’d have to re-train the new muscles before he could properly sprint on it.

He looked in the mirror, checking that the fruit-salad upon his left pectoral was properly arranged, and that the other medals which he’d managed to acquire were also properly arranged and situated…although, if he was honest, those medals had been won on his behalf by people greater than himself. As that feminine voice sounded out, he was making sure that the green beret on his head was set just so.

He spun around in surprise as the voice broke into his concentration, then his eyes widened. “Lisa?”

“None other.” The blonde woman leaned against the doorframe leading into the dressing room; her grin lit up the room just as he remembered.

“Wh…what? Sorry. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but what are you doing here?”

“Oh, there was a certain bald and bulldog-looking general on the Joint Chiefs of Staff…who somehow got in touch with me and said you’d perhaps like to meet me again.”

Shaw looked away. “You…you couldn’t be.”

Her eyes remained fixated on him, but they were not unkind. “Couldn’t be what?”

He was still afraid to meet her eyes. “Be wanting to meet me again. Somebody must have snapped you up. You were…you are, quite the catch.” He gave her a shy, half-assed grin. “Even if you don’t have the pigtails anymore. I must admit, I did like them.”

She crossed her arms and performed a more dramatic lean against the doorway, a pose which somehow accentuated her bust. She also took the opportunity to accentuate her southern drawl. “Why, Sergeant Shaw. Whatever could you possibly mean?”

He performed a double face-palm. “Dammit, Lisa, call me Mack like you used to. Look, I’m due to go out in five minutes…”

Shaw’s protest was cut off as he felt a warm, gentle hand on his elbow. He un-buried his face to gaze down at her. “There was another one,” she said up into his red-bearded face. “But it ended a long while ago. Because he wasn’t…well, he wasn’t you. That sounds nasty on my part. I’ll be the first to admit that he wasn’t a horrible person, but he…I just somehow knew I needed you instead.”

The sergeant gazed down at her. “I’m warning you right now, Lisa. I’m broken goods at this point.”

“You’re my broken goods, slick. I get a chance to choose, just the same as you do. So how about it?”

The big man straightened, as if he’d had a steel rod inserted up along his spine. “Well, then. Would you like to take part in the upcoming festivities?”

Lisa grinned. “I would love to. Somehow, I wound up with what you could call a ‘backstage pass’ so that I can go anywhere I want to. Even out on stage, when the main showing-off to humanity starts. How do you think that might have happened?”

“It does seem like a mystery for all time.” He offered her his elbow. “However it happened, I think we should take advantage of it.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Lisa as she took hold of his elbow with a grin.

As he walked towards the stage, Shaw kept ahold of the small and warm hand on his elbow.

“I’m not going to disappear, you know,” said Lisa.

“I know,” replied Shaw with a genuine smile. “I just like knowing that you’re there.”

The pair then met a trio, coming out of another side-entrance which led to the main stage. Mack’s eyes glanced over the equally-large body of the man in the midst of that trio and was very, very pleased to see the proper number of arms now present.

“My man!” he exclaimed, as he extended his fist for a proper bump. In the moment, Shaw just wanted the latter to do either fist.

But, Agent Milton reached up and bumped him with the right fist…the one which he didn’t have a month ago. The fist-bump wavered a bit, it was clear that Milton was still trying to gain control of his freshly-regrown appendage.

Shaw just grinned. “Takes a bit, don’t it?”

“That it do,” responded Milton with a matching grin. “But now I get to do this.” He reached down with that somewhat-shaky hand and gathered his grinning son towards himself.

“Hi again, Mack!” chirped the latter.

Shaw couldn’t help but smile. “Hey there, slick.”

Lisa smacked him in the chest. “No, that’s my term!”

Teresa Vila smiled. “So, Mack, who is your lady-friend?”

Both Shaw and Lisa replied with “Well…” Then they looked at each other for a moment before busting out in laughter.

“Call it a reunion,” said Shaw at last.

“Exactly,” added Lisa as she hugged Shaw’s beefy bicep to herself. “Now, shall we go out and do our duty for all of humanity?”

__________

General De Vries was now rather regretting his current career path. At the moment, he would love to be nothing but once again a lowly TACP, AKA a ‘Tactical Air Control Party’. It was a nice way to designate someone who had the responsibility of protecting his grunts by calling in warheads on foreheads.

And yes, back when De Vries was involved with such things, he viewed them as his grunts. Anyone messing with that which was his would get the literal Finger Of God called down upon those doing the aforementioned messing. De Vries would make sure of that, which is why he was so beloved amongst his grunts. If anyone messed with them, he’d make sure to rearrange the landscape so as there was no problem anymore. He’d kept that attitude, even as he’d rose through the ranks.

Even Toke…that fucker, he wasn’t even proper Air Force. No, he had to be a filthy Marine. Force Recon, which mean he was pretty good at a bunch of stuff. Not necessarily a master, but still able to muddle through somehow. Then again, Tocco had probably done enough to earn himself another quite-secret medal or citation or some damn thing. The man had never asked for any extra commendation, which was a big plus in the general’s mind.

“What do we do?” asked the President to her cabinet. Since De Vries was the one who had kinda-sorta taken charge of the investigation into the whole Camp David debacle, he had managed to score a seat at the table. Strictly as a subject matter expert, of course.

And then, also of course, everyone gathered around this rather expensive-looking table looked at him as if seeking guidance.

De Vries sighed and looked at someone who could be considered his ultimate boss…minus, of course, the Chairman (Chairperson?) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…and above that was the President herself. The secretary of the Department of Defense looked back, and nodded.

He cleared his throat. “We have successfully located one of the moles in the Secret Service. They are giving us valuable intel…given while their lawyer was present, I might add.” He placed a pile of folders in front of him. “Here is what we have so far. Agent Bartholomew Lasky’s information, plus what the FBI was able to recover from the home-made mortar round…it all points to one person.”

What followed almost looked like the beginning of a round of poker, as everyone received an identical folder of their own. De Vries thought that the Secretary of State might just pass out, based on how pale he got.

“That fucking son of a bitch!” burst out the latter man, then he looked sheepishly around the room. “Sorry. I’ve done gala dinners with him. I thought he was a solid guy.”

“Not so solid, I’m afraid,” said De Vries. “Edward, goes by Ned, Struck. Made his bones in the tech industry. In terms of net worth, not up there with Musk or Bezos, not by a long shot. But he does have a pile of cash on hand and is well-connected with a lot of heavy-hitters.” He made an apologetic wave towards the Secretary of State. “Understand, sir, that we have no evidence that he’s suborned anyone at a high level.”

The Secretary of State sat back and stared at the table without seeing it. “I’m going to have to do some serious housecleaning, though.”

“We’re all going to have to clear house,” said President Correa. “I suppose it’s no surprise that I knew of this report before you. Understand, nobody at this table is currently under suspicion. But I say once again…what do we do?”

De Vries cleared his throat again, with an apologetic glance towards the Defense Secretary. “We do this properly. At the moment, we can present proper evidence in open court which will lead to serious prosecutions, especially the main person.”

“Do we have eyes on this ‘Ned Struck’ character?” asked the president.

The Space Force general was content to let the Secretary of Defense take point on this one. The latter did not disappoint. “We will within the next thirty seconds, ma’am. If he so much as farts into a handbag in Miami, we’ll know about it. Speaking of which, may I step away for a moment to make some calls?”

President Correa leaned back in her chair. “Make whatever calls you need to.” The Defense Secretary nodded, rose, and took out a phone as he moved off towards a far corner of the conference room. The president continued as he made his hushed call. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I appreciate the need for doing distasteful things in the immediate heat of the moment, but as of now the shadowy black-bag bullshit ends, and that goes for me, for everyone at this table, and for everyone under us.” She met De Vries’ eyes. “We have to show this evidence to the world, not just to a grand jury. And, if need be, to any other Coalition aliens who happen to waltz on in within the next few months. Agreed?”

De Vries didn’t care if he looked like a kiss-ass as he replied. “Agreed, ma’am.”

__________

Ryan Szimanski’s bearded face quirked up in a frown as he beheld the pair of…wait, were those admirals? The pair of US Navy admirals waited for him at the top of the ramp which led to the museum of the battleship “New Jersey”.

“Sir?” asked one of them, and Ryan almost snapped into a salute before remembering he was a civilian and didn’t need to do so.

“Wait. What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a courtesy, Ryan,” replied the other. “It’s a huge ask, but we need to borrow your boat.”

“My…” Ryan looked out over the mighty engine which had become his reason for living. “No. No, this ship is a museum! It’s not fit for combat anymore!”

Then the proverbial penny dropped. He stared at one of the generals. “Is it…”

“Yes. It’s because of that, my dear Szimanski.” The admiral pointed behind him, at one of the gigantic turrets. “More specifically, we need to borrow those.”

Ryan had watched the news as much as anyone else. Of course, the aliens and their proclamations of doom and gloom and ‘Breakers’ had been spread around everywhere. He looked behind him at those indicated turrets. “For real?”

“For real. Are you willing to put up?”

“Nut Up Or Shut Up, amirite?” responded Ryan with a grin. Although, inside, he was grieving. There was no way he was getting those turrets back in their original condition…assuming he got them back at all.