“I don’t like this,” Urle said.

They’d surfaced in realspace nearly three hours ago, utilizing his idea of sending a message in the pseudo-photons of their emergence.

And then they’d waited for a sign.

The Musk Field around the planet was the worst he’d ever seen, so they couldn’t even get into a proper orbit, let alone a low orbit, as he’d hoped.

Shattered stations, gutted warships, expended munitions – some of it potentially still live – and all manner of unidentifiable objects floated around the planet. In time, they’d form a hideous ring of wreckage around the world, but for now they were in all sorts of eccentric orbits, flying in all manner of direction.

A lot of those objects, he knew, would be bodies. Billions of Hev had died in defense of this world, their last resting place being the void. Urle had no idea how they viewed that culturally, but imagining himself in their place he could only hope he would have fought to the last as they had. It made him feel reverent, scared, and disgusted at his own mistake earlier of referring to it all as junk.

His system calculated that it might take ten thousand years for the majority of it to come down, or decades of dedicated clearing work. Messy work, at that, as any mistake, like letting a clearing drone get hit, or worse a ship, would add thousands of new pieces that would shake up the orbits of other meticulously mapped objects.

Guono Daa looked to N’Keeea, who had been waiting on the bridge since their emergence.

“Do you still believe they saw the message?” she asked, doing her approximation of a frown.

“Yes,” N’Keeea replied, his voice subdued. “They saw. If not, they would have launched an attack by now.”

“Then why do they wait?” Daa pressed. “Time is sensitive, the P’G’Maig will not wait forever-“

“We will wait as long as necessary for an answer!” N’Keeea snapped, his teeth clacking threateningly.

Daa was apparently not frightened by his outburst, but was insulted. She took a moment to compose herself, but before she spoke, Urle leaned forward.

“Ambassador, you are very keyed up. I suggest you take a moment to compose yourself.”

N’Keeea looked, just as quickly, quite chagrined. “My . . . apologies, Captain Daa. That was uncalled for, and I-“

Daa looked like she was ready to accept the apology, but before N’Keeea could even finish giving it, a warbling sound went off on the bridge.

“Incoming laser transmission,” the comm officer called out. “Codes indicate that it is Tul in origin, not Maig.”

N’Keeea looked ready to get upset about the lack of honorifics, but Captain Daa spoke first. “Put it through.”

The audio was low-quality, and there was no accompanying visual. Urle checked the raw data himself, and saw it was coming from a seemingly-inert satellite, bounced from who knew where. The history data was hidden carefully.

“Ambassador N’Keeea, you are welcomed back to the home. State name of and disposition of forces.”

It went silent, and Urle looked to N’Keeea, who said nothing.

“What did they mean ‘disposition of forces’?” Daa demanded.

“What did your message tell them?” Urle added. When N’Keeea had given them a message to relay, he had told them it was only a unique identifier, but laid out nothing more. It had been rather long for even a unique code, however, and he had suspected the ambassador was saying more than he’d been letting on.

“I was given a number of pre-set codes to use on my return,” N’Keeea replied nervously. “The one I chose . . . indicated that I had returned with military aid.”

Urle took a deep breath. “I trust that you will make clear the truth now, Ambassador?”

“In a way,” he replied evasively. “Please allow me to send another message, we can use our own tight-beam towards the satellite and-“

“Not unless we know what you’re actually saying,” Urle said. “If you lie and tell them we’re here to help you fight the Maig, then you’re not forcing our hand – you’re hurting your people. We cannot fight a war for you.”

“I understand the reality of the situation!” N’Keeea snapped. “But if I had not sent that message as I did – they would not have spoken to me! You do not understand the mindset of a dying civilization, Captain Urle! We are not going to be reassured that we will only lose our home and all that we hold dear. Saving our lives by helping us scurry away in the night is no victory, and if I had dared to start off telling the truth . . .”

With great effort, N’Keeea bit back his words. He trembled a few moments, then his shoulders slumped. “I will tell you exactly what I say. But I beg of you – please let me say it how I must.”

Guono Daa looked to Urle, her tentacles imparting her concern and skepticism of N’Keeea’s words.

Urle wasn’t sure if he could trust the Hev at this point – but he thought that N’Keeea was right. If they sent their own messages, or altered his, it would be an instant warning that they were probably an enemy and were attempting a false-flag operation.

“Go ahead,” Urle told N’Keeea. “Send your message – but do tell me exactly what it says. And if it’s promising support we can’t give, I will not allow it.”

The Ambassador nodded, and keyed in a message. Urle saw it in real-time;

‘Forces different than hoped. Request direct communication.’

When it was sent, they waited. A light-speed reply would take only a minute or so to reach them at their distance, but none came.

Daa looked at him, concern on her face. She slithered closer, enough to look over the arm of his chair.

“I’m not sure if they’re willing to do it, Acting-Captain. What do you think?” she said softly, so N’Keeea might not hear. Hev had good hearing, but he at least pretended politely not to be listening in.

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“We just have to keep waiting,” Urle told her. “We can continue to charge for our jump out in the meantime. How much longer on that?”

“We were able to lose a lot of our heat in zerospace,” she began. “But not as much as was optimal.”

Unfortunate, Urle thought. But zerospace did not behave as modeled, and while the . . . void or whatever they traveled through in the realm could absorb a ship’s heat through unknown means, even while a ship would accelerate well past the speed of light within it, no one had ever created a formula to predict just how much.

“We’ve had to spend forty-five minutes dispersing enough heat from our system that we could begin the build-up of the charge for another jump. At this point we are approximately four hours from full charge.”

“And ship integrity?”

“We’re pushing the Bright Flower hard, Acting-Captain, but all seems within acceptable ranges. He’s a good ship, he’ll hold together.”

It took him a moment to remember that Sepht regarded most ships as male rather than female, and as they continued to wait he let his mind ponder on the odder aspects of language.

One often had a lot of time to think in space.

Urle’s internal clock noted that it was only twenty-two minutes later when they received a signal back.

“We have received a one-word reply,” the comm officer said. “‘Yes’.”

Urle sat up. “Ambassador, are you ready to speak to your people?”

The Hev nodded, holding himself a little taller.

“Receiving live signal.”

This time, the signal was video as well as audio.

The Hev that appeared before them was tall, with broad shoulders and a face that seemed like it had been mangled at some time in the not-too-distant past and healed only crudely. Yet it fit with the flinty eyes.

“Ambassador. Who are our new allies?” the Hev demanded curtly.

N’Keeea said nothing, but gestured to Urle, who stood.

“Greetings, in the name of Union Humanity. I am Commander Zachariah Urle-“

“Human ship with Sepht crew?” the Hev demanded.

“Right now I speak to you from a Sepht ship that accompanied us, but these are the only Sepht in the system. But I am afraid we have not been introduced-“

“How many ships have you brought?” the Hev demanded.

“We are two, counting this one,” Urle said. “May I know your name?”

“Two ships?! Are you an advance force? How did you get past the P’G’Maig? Are there more than this engaged with them already?” The Hev sounded alarmed, angry, and confused all at once.

“Sir,” Urle said. “I can explain – we have achieved permission to pass through the lines. We are not here to fight for you – we are here to negotiate with the P’G’Maig for your survival.” He gestured to N’Keeea. “Our Ambassador, Decinus, will tell you more.”

The Hev would have none of it. He let out a strangled sound of rage, reaching forward for the camera, so quickly and furiously that Urle wanted to recoil.

The signal cut off.

N’Keeea was cringing.

“Th-that was Grand General G’Kaackt . . .” he said softly. “But he . . . I am afraid he does not place much belief in negotiations . . .”

Decinus looked quite worried. “Let us try again in a moment. Perhaps after the General takes a little time he will be willing to speak to us again.”

“Captain!” a sensor officer cried. “We are being painted with targeting lasers!”

Urle bit back a curse. “Maneuvering thrusters, pull us back-“

“Missiles have been launched,” the sensor officer continued.

Urle’s threat board was already lighting up. Stars, that was a lot of missiles.

“Why are they firing on us?!” Daa said, glaring at N’Keeea – who, for his part, had nothing to say, simply folding his head over and putting both hands over his snout.

“Ambassador – is this a warning, or a real attack?” Urle asked N’Keeea sharply, watching the distance tick down. The nearest missile would reach them in thirty seconds.

N’Keeea said nothing.

“They would not dare to attack us!” Decinus said. “We’re here on their behalf!”

Urle watched the missiles come closer. “It seems they do not agree, Ambassador,” he said. He waited a few more seconds, until he felt sure that this was not merely a warning. “Arm all PDCs, engage countermeasures – break their damn locks! And pull us back, we can drag those missiles through some dense debris fields if we move . . .” he sent the signal to the engines, getting them to move already. “This way.”

Daa was up in N’Keeea’s face. “Ambassador, we have to know if this is a false attack or not!” she was saying sharply.

“Leave him be, Captain,” Urle ordered. “I need you to take command – helm, give me control access. Defense grid, let me interface with the PDCs.”

The ship was smart, like all ships, but he could add his own intellect and reaction speeds to both endeavors. Sitting back in his chair, he lost visual with the rest of the command center, leaving only audio on, and began to see through the eyes of the sensors.

A handful of missiles had struck debris as the ship had put it between them. Not too smart, then.

The Bright Flower had very little in the way of armaments, not when so much of her space was taken up by her specialist equipment. But at least that equipment told him a lot about the missiles. He scanned them all, noting any that seemed jittery, like they had a bad thruster. A lot of them did, and he devised a counter-fire pattern that could exploit that, predicting their likely maneuvers, and aiming to put flak into those paths.

They had only two missile tubes and a dozen missiles of their own, but several were designed for destroying enemy missiles, so he loaded them and with the ship’s help gave them headings.

“Two away,” he declared.

The missiles were twelve seconds out. The Maig had, at least, detonated theirs by now. And these were far more threatening – not just because the Bright Flower had far fewer defenses, but the missiles themselves were larger, with heavier payloads.

Several were intercepted and destroyed by the counter-missiles, others by their PDC fire in short, controlled bursts. But they didn’t get them all.

“Rotating the ship – all crew, brace!”

Most were already in their seats, but Daa and N’Keeea weren’t, the ship told him. Through the eyes of the ship’s internal cameras, he saw as the Sepht Captain grabbed N’Keeea, throwing him into his seat and herself over him, gripping on with every limb.

Urle tried to slow the turn as much as he could so as not to hurt her; but it would be close.

He couldn’t dodge the last two missiles. But if he angled the ship just right . . .

He felt the g-forces pulling at his body, saw Captain Daa holding on for dear life. Just a few more seconds of these Gs . . .

The ship rotated on another axis, and he hoped his calculations were right . . .

“Brace for impact!” he cried. A klaxon was going off, a deep, throbbing sound for Sepht ears.

The ship shuddered as it was hit.

But the alarm sirens were not declaring catastrophe; he fired the counter-thrusters, finding they all worked, while damage reports poured in.

“Impacts,” an officer called. “On radiators 7 and 31.”

Urle turned his vision back on, decoupling from the system. He saw the eyes of the crew looking at him, almost in awe.

“You moved the ship so they’d hit the radiators instead of the main body?” one asked.

He saw that two crew members were helping Captain Daa, who looked nearly unconscious. He moved over and helped bring the Captain to her seat. She had risked her life to save N’Keeea, who was still just sitting there, saying nothing.

“Yeah,” he finally answered the crewmate. “Too much risk of loss of life if they hit the hull. Or a reactor breach. Are there any other launches?”

“Negative, Acting-Captain. We’re pulling back, and they’ve stopped target-painting us.”

“Continue to pull back,” Urle ordered, feeling suddenly exhausted himself. Daa was rapdily coming to, and he was grateful for that.

“Damage report,” Daa said, shaking her head, rubbing a tentacle across her brow.

“The two radiators are at 32 and 17 percent efficiency – all others fully intact. Debris from the hits caused minor damage to seven sensor nodes, and pierced three spots on the hull – decks 7, 8, and 12 have depressurized hallways, but not in occupied areas. A minor leak from water tank 3.”

“Casualties?” Urle asked.

“None that we know of, Acting-Captain,” the officer said, his relief palpable.

Oh thank the Stars . . .

Urle’s legs trembled, and if they’d been in gravity he might have had to lock his knees to keep upright.

“Captain Daa – how are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said shortly, glaring at N’Keeea. “What are your orders?”

“Given that she’s your ship, I’d like to know your recommendation,” he said.

“We get the flaff out of here,” she grumbled. “And put Ambassador N’Keeea in the brig.”

Urle looked at the Hev, who was now shivering as well as unresponsive. “I agree with the former. As to the latter . . .”

Decinus stepped over, putting his hands on N’Keeea’s shoulders. “Please,” he said. “Allow me to speak with him. He was just fired upon by his own people. I don’t think it takes an expert to understand that he is having some difficulties.”

Urle took a deep breath. “I agree, Ambassador. Take him somewhere, see if you can get him calm enough to talk to us again. But as soon as the zerodrive is charged, we are heading back to the edge of the system.”