With a clunk, the airlock sealed. The Hev ship's lock couldn't fulfill its end, and they'd had to force it. It wasn't a solid connection, but they all had sealed suits and air supplies. It would have to do.

"All right, Pirra, drones go then you. We don't want the Hev to panic by going all digital."

It was a given, in her mind. Most beings did panic, and Hev were particularly prone to it, in her experience.

Most Hev were bothered by the high pitched noise many drones produced, but the other solution was her just walking straight in. No one had any doubts that she was likely to end up dead that way.

"Ready," she said.

The airlock was forced open. "Go!"

Drones zipped past her head, and she dove through.

There was no gravity on the Hev ship, whether they relied on spin or artificial, it was out, and it was too dark to see much. Her spotlight switched on, and she took a deep breath as she scanned the area for crew.

It was some kind of cargo area; other airlocks nearby for larger vessels, and the stacks of crates along the walls, made the environment cluttered. Lots of places for a being to be hiding. Though the drones didn't detect any movement or large lifeforms, she was still cautious.

"[Best of fortune!]" she cried the Hev phrase for parting ways. It had mostly mercantile connotations, and it was an absurd thing to say.

But maybe it'd keep one from shooting her automatically.

Her eyes and sensors both told her, though, that there were no Hev in this compartment.

"All clear, move in," she messaged back.

"Press forward until the Drones make contact. We're coming in behind with emergency power sources."

A drone winked out. The others noted the sound of a weapon discharge.

"Drone contact, hostile," she said. She felt her blood pump faster. Just like a human, Dessei had fight or flight instincts.

There were sounds down a corridor, and she cried out. "[Best of fortune!]"

There were the sounds of movement, and a chittering noise. If it was a word, her system didn't pick it up, but it sounded Hev.

She repeated her call, and dared wave an arm into the hall.

There was a scream of a Hev, and another shot.

Yanking her arm back in, she held back her own scream and felt lucky the shot had been wild; she could be missing an arm now if they'd had their heads about them.

"[Best of fortune], damn it!" she cried.

This time, she got back words; her system caught the high-pitched, chittering tongue of the Hev and translated it in real-time.

"Intruders!" it cried. "Call security!"

"[No, no! Best of fortune!]" she cried. "[Good deals!]" She cursed herself for never having added the words 'help' and 'friend' to her lexicon of Hev. If she made it back to the Craton, she'd practice the word until she fell asleep with it on her lips . . .

"[They speak?!]" one Hev voice said.

"[It's a trick! When they charge, open fire!]" another snarled. It had to be from a soldier caste; only they tended to be that bloodthirsty.

"[No charge!]" she shouted. It was the wrong usage of the word; hers meant a monetary charge. But perhaps they'd understand.

"[Sounds like it's not an enemy,]" the first voice hissed quietly.

"[Gibberish! Not Hev, not friend,]" the second replied. "[Troops coming, we'll soon kill them.]"

"Pirra, how's it going?" Caraval's voice came to her radio.

"Not good," she replied. "Captain, have to do something stupid."

"Wait for me," he replied. "I'll try-"

She could hear the sounds of more movement. The Hev troops were starting to arrive.

"No time," she said quickly. "Have to move."

Taking a deep breath, she put her arms up and pushed herself fully into the hallway.

"[Fortune!]" she said, as calmly as she possibly could.

Ten meters down the hall, she saw nearly a dozen Hev. Most were as tall as a human, large for their species. Soldier caste, as she'd thought.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

And they were all staring at her with absolute shock.

She knew that Hev frequently bared their teeth as a sign of friendliness. She didn't even have teeth to bare.

"[Good deals,]" she added.

Slowly, carefully, she gestured to her uniform. The logo of the Sapient Union. "[Fortune,]" she repeated.

There was a single Hev that wasn't a soldier. It grabbed at another, its voicing identifying it as the more reasonable Hev.

"[They're from an SU ship! I think they're here to assist!]"

She could see the Hev Captain's face contorting in a profusion of emotions. It was panicked; it wanted to kill. It wanted to vent its frustration.

The lack of gravity and her push into the hall made her hit the other side and bounce, moving gently towards them. She considered stopping herself, but she was too uncertain to move that much.

"[Lower weapons. It's just a Moth-Owl . . . from the SU.]" His face contorted. "[Moth-Owl! Do you understand?]"

"[Yes,]" she replied. The moniker of Moth-Owl was a common nickname for her kind, though it irked her a little as Hev could use their proper names. Cautiously, she ventured in her own tongue. "Are your translators working?"

Irritation went across the Hev's face. "[Speak Hev! We don't speak your whistles.]"

Pushing her annoyance away, she tried to piece together a sentence from her limited words. "[Small Hev. Not big Hev.]"

"[Is it calling me small?!]" the Captain snapped.

"[I think it means that it doesn't speak much of our tongue,]" the reasonable one said quickly.

"[Yes!]" she agreed.

The Captain snarled. "[Get ambassador scum here! He will know their words!]"

Her comm channel was blinking, which she had been ignoring until now. She turned it on.

"-not be dying!" the Lt. Commander's words started mid-sentence.

"Everything's under control," she said back, feeling suddenly drained. "They're sending for an ambassador."

There was a long pause, and she knew that Iago was feeling grateful to hear her voice again. "Good work, Pirra. Glad I didn't have to bring Alexander any bad news."

"He'd have understood," she replied resolutely. "He knows who he married."

*******

"What we need is a lure that will keep the Leviathan's attention," Brooks said.

Cutter clicked his mandibles. "May need to keep up this level of interest for long - we can likely weaken our lure's strength over time, once we're far from space lanes."

Brooks looked to Kell. "Do you think that would work?"

"Yes," the Shoggoth replied. "It will be most interested in the thing nearest it, I believe. If we can weaken our effect as we go, all the better. We may even be able to get it to go back to sleep."

"How can we lull it to sleep? Just through lowering our Krahteon emissions?" Urle asked.

"It must become unpredictable - your scans and engines are very noticeable, due to how . . . orderly they are. It is much more apparent."

"Like how a voice stands out from natural sounds," the Captain said. "I think I can understand that."

Kell shook his head. "I assure you, you do not. But you understand enough."

"Can we scramble our emissions enough to do that?" he asked Cutter, ignoring Kell's last words.

"Difficult," Cutter replied. "Don't know how we can control order of particles that we're just dumping through engine shunt. We'd have to start actively modulating our signal." His head twitched side to side as he thought. "That much power would burn out almost any system we have . . ."

"The nature of its interest is not in power. It is in alterations that your engines make in what you call zerospace. They are like tracks that can be felt."

"So that means we can narrow our output just into the bands that will feel . . . track-like to the Leviathan."

"You only need a shadow," Kell said.

The engineer made a hiss. "A shadow! Like how a ship exhibits shadow of mass into mundane space as it travels in zerospace?"

Kell only regarded him curiously, as if he had not understood a lot of the words. Finally, he gave the tiniest nod of his chin. "Yes."

"That makes sense! Captain, I have idea."

"Go ahead."

"I want to take a shuttle and equip it to broadcast on channels that might create the shadow Kell was talking about - if we're limited to just some frequencies, Krahteon loss will be sustainable for months, even with a shuttle's engine."

Brooks nodded. "Get a team started on it immediately."

"Yes sir. We don't have much time - we have to maintain enough pressure internally to keep the system from collapsing."

The Captain's words were heavy as he spoke. "We have to consider leading it away to be of higher importance than the survival of this ship."

No one could argue.

"In case this does not go well, we need to prepare for an emergency transmission and get as many of the civilians off the ship as possible."

"Aye, sir," Urle said. "I will inform Response and Administration to begin preparing to jettison life sections and prepping the escape pods."

Brooks said nothing, only nodding.

Cutter the engineer lingered, staring at the captain. Brooks looked back at his reddish-black round eyes.

"Is there something else, Chief Engineer?" he asked.

"Captain," he said. "An emergency transmission will burn out engine."

"I am aware," Brooks said. "But since we cannot stop to build a proper charge to open an FTL communication channel, it would be our only option - jettisoning the civilian sections will do them no good if they're light years from an inhabited system."

"I understand need, Captain. It is just . . . I have worked on the Craton's engine my entire life."

Brooks nodded. "And you've done very well, Cutter. I understand the thought must be hard for you."

"Captain, I request permission to stay with the ship should the situation get dire."

The Captain stared at the Beetle-Slug. "Permission denied, Chief Engineer. Even if the Craton does not survive, I fully intend for us to. There will be other ships, and other engines."

"I do not want another ship or engine, Captain."

Brooks leveled his gaze on the Beetle-Slug. "My order stands."

The insectoid hesitated, but then snapped a salute. "Very well, Captain. I have already sent a team to begin work on shuttle, but I will go supervise it personally."