Outside JTF Quarters, RNS Defender

"Any changes since your last report, Chiara?" Eric asked as he strolled down the plain gray corridor, matching steps with the freakishly tall Italian spy.

"Nothing much, sir. The XO had a severely negative response after learning of your assignment here. She's been fighting to get her own command for nearly a decade now."

Chiara noticed the look on her friend's face. "You'll be fine. She might be angry and hurt, but she's a stalwart professional."

Eric scoffed. "Her dream command was just ripped out from under her by an admiral's son. Excuse me if I'm skeptical of how professional she'd be."

Chiara's stride stuttered for a split-second. "Fair point, but it is what it is now. The Federation gambled our entire military reputation on this, so we have to make it work."

Eric snapped his head forward as they stopped in front of the bulkhead separating JTF quarters from the rest of the ship. "I'm well aware what the Federation is risking, Ensign. I'm well aware." With that, he entered his new clearance code.

And got a stun bolt to the face.

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"Hey Asiila, get up!"

Kremric got a metal tube to the face for that. "It's 0540. Fuck off."

"We got intruders onboard."

That got the Nagai up and uncoiled immediately. "What!?"

Kremric nodded. "Yep. Just found out from the night shift commander. Five Terrans are onboard."

Asiila slithered out of her perch in a hurry. "We need to get to the armory before them! Get your gear and meet me-"

The main bulkhead keypad started chiming and both soldiers froze for a second before retrieving their weapons and taking their positions behind the lounging seats. "Switch to stun," Asiila hissed. "We take them alive for interrogation."

Kremric just nodded silently and aimed his blaster at the door. Not a moment too soon as well, with the door opening almost immediately afterwards.

Five Terrans, spread out. They weren't even in the proper breaching formation, the amateurs. Asiila got her shot off first, those ambush predator instincts kicking in and nailing what he assumed was the leader right in the head.

Kremric didn't get a chance to shoot. The Terran leader stumbled to one side as the rest pulled their weapons on them. Kinetics. Shit. Those things would rip right through the seats.

The Terran leader, who shouldn't have even been conscious at that point, approached their position, stumbling slightly as the others spread out to control the room. "Drop them, guys. This is either a misunderstanding or you're traitors. In either case, you need to drop your weapons before my people turn you both into minced meat."

Asiila coiled herself, ready to spring out. She gestured for Kremric to distract them, and he did so by lifting his blaster up and out of cover. "Alright, alright. Don't shoot, I'm coming out." He tossed it in the opposite direction as where Asiila was before stepping out the same way, making sure the attention was all on him.

The Terran opened his mouth to speak, probably to make demands. Before he could, his Nagai teammate launched out of cover, fangs out, aiming straight for the neck.

Faster than Kremric could react, the Terran turned on his feet, pulling his neck away and bringing an arm up, letting Asiila bite down on his forearm.

Three of the others rushed to rescue their leader while the other two surrounded him, tackling him to the ground. Kremric felt something in his secondary cuticle strain under the weight of Terran muscles.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ALL DOING!? IT'S NOT EVEN 0600 YET, FOR FUCK'S SAKE."

Kremric turned around slowly, singular eye widening in horror at the sight of Commander Thuriam, unarmed and unarmored, glaring at them in her sleepwear. "Sir, we've been boarded. Run!"

The Terran, somehow not experiencing complete organ failure, raised his eye fur. "Sir? You're the commander?"

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"You're Eric Grayson, I'm guessing?"

"I am."

Maskiva let out a frustrated chitter. Kremric was confused. What the fuck was going on?

"Asiila, you're trying to poison our new CO. Release his arm, please."

Asiila mumbled a protest, still trying to rip his flesh out to no effect. Maskiva glared at her. "Petty Officer Vassuki, that's an order. Let him go, now."

Asiila hesitated visibly before retracting her fangs, letting herself drop from the man's arm. There was barely a scratch on him, just pale red bitemarks. Every xeno stared at the dark crimson blood pooling up around the open wound, fascinated. It was one thing knowing that Terrans could be harmed, nearly a billion died in the Crevton Invasion after all, it was another thing entirely to see it up close.

It was like seeing a deity bleed.

It made them..... mortal.

The man, Eric Grayson apparently, looked at his wound with mild interest, eye fur raised and eyes slightly narrowed, an expression completely unbefitting of a being with Nagai poison flowing through their veins. "Nagai are poisonous, right?"

Asiila, still weary, slithered to a safer distance. "Yes, we secrete poison from our fangs when we want to."

The darker Terran in the back started pulling something out of his pack and placing it on the table. Kremric recognized it as disinfectant, but the smell was more like engine cleaner.

"You know the chemical composition of that poison, by any chance?"

He found himself speaking up, drawing attention to himself against his better instincts. "Diacetylmorphine, I think you Terrans call it."

All Terran eyes snapped his way. There was a pause.

...

"Nagai poison is fucking heroin!?"

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Eric walked to the nearest chair and sat down, letting Ralph disinfect his arm as his eyes started to glaze over.

"Narcan?" the medic offered.

"Nah, I'll ride it out. Not my first time."

Chiara looked at him, eyebrow raised. Eric returned the look with equal sass. "I went to UF. This is nowhere close to my first ride."

Adira butted in, still straddling the Chitan's lower cuticle - any other situation and Eric would've thought he'd walked in on something. "I would've thought the great Eric Grayson was an academy brat."

Ralph chuckled. "This one flunked out of West Point three weeks in. His mom went ballistic. Cut off his college fund and everything."

Eric sighed. "Lucky for me the football scouts at UF still needed a wide receiver. ROTC there, then OCS."

Chiara draped herself over the back of the nearby couch. "Why'd you get kicked out?"

The Chitan, who he hadn't gotten the name of, spoke up. "Can someone please inform me as to what is going on, exactly?"

Eric sighed, leaning his head against the backrest as his eyes found the Rimlaka woman that would be his XO for the foreseeable future. "Who have you told? I know Chief Mitali knew, and you know, but who else?"

.....

There was a point, being a Terran in the USR, when you knew whether someone not making eye contact was them hiding something from you or simply being nervous around Terrans.

Eric got to that point a long time ago. This was the former.

"Commander Thuriam, who else knew about us before we boarded?" He was well aware of his tone shifting, aware of the way he was sitting upright, the way adrenaline and indignant annoyance were overriding the heroin in his system.

He didn't notice the way Thuriam was backing away, tails coiled, eyes dilated, breathing heavy.

"Answer the question, Lieutenant Commander."

He got up and took a step forward.

She bolted for the bulkhead and out the room.

Everyone paused for a moment, just to comprehend what happened. Chiara, being the intel officer she was, was the first to react. "Someone go get Chief Mitali. Wake the rest of the team up too, save us all having to repeat ourselves."

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"So they're our new squadmates?"

"Yes."

"And that" pointing at Eric. "is our new CO?"

Ilinara felt a subvocal whine escape her throat at that. "Yes, he is." Introductions have already been made through the entire JTF by the time someone pinged her door, it seemed, which saved her from having to do it herself.

"Why didn't you tell us, Chief?"

The whine was vocal this time. "I thought Commander Thuriam would've told you all herself once she calmed down. I had paperwork to submit and forgot." She looked around. "Where is she, by the way?"

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Maintenance Closet, Secondary FTL Drive Room

She was fine. She was fine. Sure, they were pissed, and rightfully so, but the Terrans were her teammates. Most of them were her subordinates. They wouldn't hurt her.

Then why the fuck was she hiding in a closet with her tails wrapped around herself?

Oh, who was she fucking fooling? The moment a Terran so much as looked at her with anything resembling hostile intent, she froze. The moment her new CO, who she logically should be kissing up to for any chance of a promotion at this point, took a step in her direction, her instincts took over and she ran from the room.

"Like the weak, soft piece of peaceworlder trash you are."

"No. Stop. Stop it, Maskiva. You earned this post. You're a JTF operator. You're a commander."

"Lieutenant Commander." that little voice in the left side of her brain snided. "You really think you can take a JTF command from a deathworlder?"

She ignored it like always.

"You in there, sir?"

Maskiva let out an embarrassing squeak as something banged on the door. "Wh-who is it?"

"Lieutenant al-Allee, sir."

She didn't recognize the name. "You're one of the Terrans?"

"I am, sir. Do you need assistance?"

For a species of supposed killing machines, the voice on the other side of that door was deceptively soft. She gurgled her throat clear and wiped the tears back onto her dried out face. "No. Th-thank you, Lieutenant. I'll be out in just a moment."

"Alright, sir. Commander Grayson wants to see you and Chief Mitali in his office first thing, I'll tell him you're on your way."

Maskiva's hand jerked mid tailstroke. Oh fuck.