Darkeyes (2178)

Darkeyes (2178)

Spacer Series Book 03: Lieutenant Commander Chen

by B. B. Irvine

Copyright 2022 B. B. Irvine

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Chapter 01 - Darkeyes

Jade, Mufrid System

15 November 2177 - Sunday

DELARIDEL

The contrail in the sky was good and bad. Bad because some poor InterWorld Group pilot was about to get toasted by missiles, and good because that would light those sites up. She could add them to her map and get on to her next op, leaving the attack or other assault for others, just as her orders read. Just as I was designed to do.

Delaridel always got this way when people died, and it rankled her. It was a stupid thought, technically true, but Irrational in its power to make her mood roil with internal anger. What’s wrong with making the best map humanly possible and getting on to the next one? Recon saves lives, and great recon can lead to good pay-offs. Why does missing the fight... piss me off, as I heard a Sol human say? Anger over not fighting?

Space, don’t tell me I’m here because I want to fight? Cara Delaridel nearly fell out of the tree at that realization, she was so shocked.

Niv were supposed to be ready for what the Universe might send their way, not go out looking to beat people up. Not even her. All along she had permitted rational arguments presented to her objections to change her mind and agree with the new construction...

And I’ve been pissed off most of my life as well. Cara sighed, her eyes tracking the contrail. No matter what they had said to her, she was still here because she had decided to be here – she was a volunteer. She had thought it was a way to strike at the Organization of Planetary Projects before desperation or meaness – or insanity – led to another loss of Niv lives. She does not want to think about the PANTHER now!

Whoever is flying that Runner is pretty good. Balancing the drive fields was always tricky for computers, and novel conditions like nearby explosions tended to drop flying back to compuSys assisted, translating the movements of a stick into signals the drive fields could read.

Was there a Niv at the controls? Delaridel frowned.

There were no other Niv in the Jade system, as far as she could tell. There was no hint of anyone Speaking when she Listened or Called now. They would be too busy to Speak much, but most Niv would respond, if only to indicate who they were, in case they died – for the Records (except for the PANTHER, the loss had been that fast...)

She shook herself. The local installations should start shooting in a few seconds...

There was a roar, then another, and two missiles went streaking up from the treeline across the river, just downstream. Delaridel mapped them in and sighed. The next part of the drama would be ugly and unhelpful...

The O.P.P. missile trails were going right toward the IWG entry contrail.

She debated moving away, getting started on striking her camp; with the last sites identified it was time to go. At the same time, her eyes were unable to stop tracking the incoming ship. Delaridel had nothing she could use to change anything about to happen, so there was no Rational reason to watch one more IWG ship explode out of the sky. It was just... fascinating, somehow. It was a contest, one the poor pilot wouldn’t know they were in until it was too late.

Delaridel looked around, making sure there were no watchers or other O.P.P. moving through the area. She would leave – it was childish and harmful to indulge her Irrational side by watching the ship die, and she was too old and combat-wise for that.

XIU-LI

The orbital minefield the O.P.P. had situated in geosync above the planet Jade had caused the first mess, from which she had somehow managed to get a few survivors extracted, and now it targeted her. Great.

Well, Jool likes a challenge, they all said. Every last fekkin’ one of them, no matter how ridiculous the mission task.

The medium tactical cruiser IWG MTCc THUCYDIDES sent Lieutenant Commander Xiu-Li Chen and her IWG SR-T CATFISH on the toughest medical search and rescue calls because she was the best Captain Barbara Garney had, one of the best in the whole InterWorld Group Space Fleet.

Of course, today she was flying a FireScout – a Scout Runner frame equipped with fire gear to get the job done (CATFISH could do a lot, but fighting fires in space was highly specialized). No one knew what had started the fire in the SquadRunner, but after arriving at position for an orbital ground survey mission in support of the ops on the ground below, a fire had started and contact was lost. As Xiu-Li came off the launch rail in the FireScout, poor contact regained from the SquadRunner (broken telemetry of dead and wounded crewpers) indicated some casualties and a verbal report of fire believed out.

The uncertainty was the amount of wiring in fly by wire ships. A fire on the inside could cause ripple effects in other systems leading to cascade failures and ship destruction soon thereafter – even with the fire out.

Going on board a ship drifting into a minefield for search and rescue was crazy, as was going on the op alone, but the FireScout held only eight, limiting response to one pilot alone. Coming up with an option besides trying to help out was impossible for Captain Garney, as Xiu-Li well knew, so she had suggested a solo fire ship rescue mission, and Garney had agreed. Another smashing idea!

The SquadRunner was drifting toward the active field area, beyond which a response from the O.P.P. ‘botmines overhead was increasingly likely, as Tactical had put it. She had to match drift and dock, but would be unable to alter their drift; the FireScout didn’t even have a small field inertial recycler and the SquadRunner’s was damaged. Xiu-Li could set her autopilot to slow their drift as much as she could, but the FireScout was half the size of a SquadRunner and the main solution was her getting in and out fast. She was only worried about how to get the ten or twelve people she hoped to find into a FireScout ship with only six medic-tubes built in, maxed full at nine.

It was sadly easy. The fire was out and they’d vented smoke, but she’d found five dead, two dying, and five with serious burns and other injuries.

Xiu-Li had dosed the dying with pain block, glider-dragged the five clear, shut both hatches, then floated her FireScout free and clear of the SquadRunner. She started the FireScout back very slowly to avoid easily detectable large movements and exhaust (she really, really wished she had the frigid gas maneuvering jets CATFISH had for stealth missions on this thing right now).

With an autopilot running the flight, she had finished quick-stabilizing each injured crewper before putting them into a medic-tube for the CompuDoc stabilization, knockout, and cool down. Three were critical, two urgent/emergent, but all would live if they got into the THUCYDIDES medical bay within the next forty minutes of their major trauma golden hour. Easy enough... Dashing forward to her seat, Xiu-Li saw it was not going to be easy much longer.

The ‘botmines had finally detected the SquadRunner as it drifted forward, and two were well on their way toward it; the other units would now do a simple backsweep of the Runner’s course and find the FireScout, which had appeared since the last automatic sweep, thus would stand out as a new target.

Contact alarms for incoming began to sound.

She applied a thrust program that would keep the SquadRunner between her and the incoming ‘botmines. If the angles of approach and retreat worked out, the ‘botmines would be locked onto the SquadRunner and never see her, delaying their alert to other units.

It was a sound plan, and it worked, but two more ‘botmines now detected the FireScout moving, and started hard drive thrust. As pure machines, thrusts at 30 gravities could be tolerated and sustained, so any attention at all was potentially deadly for the recipient, because their speeds at impact would destroy whatever they hit, while at the right range, they could not be dodged.

Neither could they enter an atmosphere... She took a deep breath. "THUCYDIDES, FireScout, got five tubes, telemetry sending. Attention attracted, requesting atmospheric entry."

Do you need our help, Mariposa? Captain Garney used her Tactical comms name.

Attracting other hornets to you won’t help me, and I think they are pretty much locked on now. I wish you could, Captain.

Me, too, hon. Okay. Go for atmospheric. Call us when you’ve settled it down, Lieutenant Commander Chen.

Aye, Captain Garney. Final sign-offs merited real names. Xiu-Li was going to dive her ship into the atmosphere and short re-entry. Shield technology permitted higher speeds and temperatures on re-entry than the first days, when an Apollo spacecraft returning from the Moon streaked down a narrow corridor on an ablative heat shield at some of the fastest chemical engine speeds ever.

She was a third of the way down when she saw the two flashes in her rear cam view. The ‘botmines had finally blown up behind her.

Her ship’s compdrive cut out.

She expected it. Most IWG ships weren’t truly battle hardened and their comp systems generally defaulted to human control pretty easily. Xiu-Li loved to free-fly and this op required evasive patterns as she dropped in, so this was going to be sort of fun...

New incoming alerts made it clear her contrail was visible at this time of day. They would have used her contrail to assist in missile plot and now it would be up to her. There were some anti devices in this Runner, to make up for the absence of G-less turns an inertial recycler provides, and she could handle three gravity turns for brief bursts, but flying free of those missiles in atmosphere was a novel experience.

Her ship was still fly by wire, of course; that part of the comp system was still operating. Because of shield and drive technologies she could do a great many maneuvers, but atmosphere and gravity now imposed major constraints and the FireScout was hardly a trick ship for fancy flying.

Xiu-Li laughed once and maximized thrust. She was in a basic blocky Scout-frame box, with a slightly more powerful FireScout engine, and all she could do was use speed and subtle timing to trick or lose the missiles. She had some decoys and countermeasures – this was an active war zone, and Captain Garney was fiercely protective of her people, which meant she kept every vehicle stocked full (the one time a recently promoted commander in the Quartermaster Division made a change in her request and sent less was the only time anyone had ever heard her curse loudly in public, or threaten anyone: Hon, the next time you short me on my order, I’m going to come by and kick you in the ass before getting you a court martial. As it is, you better go put yourself on report until I have a discussion with your supervisor.)

Xiu-Li snap-rolled and tossed flares as the first missile neared, and it took the bait nicely, following them as they flew off.

The second was not going for two flares, not even two more, and that left chaff or a drone. No more missiles were showing up on her tactical screenlet so she tossed the drone. This time Xiu-Li used a series of rolls, turns, dives and climbs until the drone took over her original course and she went into a curving descent.

The second missile locked onto the drone and followed it away until it hit.

Now all Xiu-Li had to do was make it to a flat clearing over in the neutral area on the left side of the river, land, get the ship re-booted, then head back up to THUCYDIDES. The radical detour had only cost ten golden minutes so far. Not too bad, considering.

She was finding flight over the river more twitchy than she expected, perhaps because of winds funneled by the trees lining it.

The dots of light coming up toward her from the right riverbank were too small to be missiles. Now they’re shooting at me! She felt her spine tingle, top to bottom and back. Any missiles getting ready back there? She banked back and forth to make shooting harder, but the ship was sluggish... Perhaps bullets hitting the flight surfaces were making it jerk, skip and twitch, but that had never happened before –

Xiu-Li bangs her head on the side window as the FireScout slews sideways.

Everything goes gray, swirls, gets a bit fuzzy... Loud bangs thud across hullmetal as the gun that has blown her right side power unit keeps her targeted, the shells trying to find something else to break... Is it her head or the ship spinning now? – no, instruments indicate it is the ship... Then all the boards go dead.

A fly-by-wire ship without power is just a metal box. No power means no instruments, no controls, and no real wings to speak of without a working shield generator to strengthen the internal lattice that assisted in forming the flight control surfaces.

At least the folding lattice combination wings do slow the ship down when it starts to hit things.

The left one tears off first, ripped free, sending the ship into a rolling tumble toward the river.

The right tears off next, slowing the ship a great deal, sending it skipping across the water.

It went sliding along through the water until it came to rest on its left side by a large tree, near the neutral left bank.

Xiu-Li lay strapped in her seat, looking up at the sky – far, far above her, through the branches of a great tree covered with green leaves.

Blue sky, sunstar going down... Pretty.

She could hear water gurgling in. It was coming in slowly from a breach in the hull, probably in the wing area, and it would be rising steadily, because she could see a fish swimming around through her front window. Her side of the FireScout was already underwater.

Everything hurt. Nothing seemed broken, but G-forces and her battering against the cockpit had hurt her. She couldn’t move yet, even to unbuckle – her arms just jerked and twitched when she tried. Her head hurt like hell; water would be so soothing when it reached it... This is not quite how I expected to go.

Xiu-Li looked up at the sky, now a brilliant deep blue as the local sunstar fell.

Disappointing to miss the sunset, as long as she was down here...

The water rose over her ears, creeping slowly higher. It did soothe the dull ache along her left neck and head, because it was still cool from the glacier melt rivers underground that fed it from Delphi Falls, not far up river from here, she recalls dreamily. She had flown by them not long ago; it was a magnificent cataract emerging directly from a solid wall of five hundred meter tall basalt (lava) cliff, remnant of a great eruption, related to the building of the mountain range just beyond – where the glaciers were.

They named it after the Temple of Delphi, because the team scientist was of Greek heritage, and had predicted glacier run-off as a source of the river’s water supply, despite the presence of jungle and the lack of any nearby glaciers. It was a prediction based on the cool temperatures and locally faster currents.

Since it was an opening in the rock with an essential substance emerging from it, and their oracle had predicted it... (he had refused Apollo Falls: said that wasn’t fair to the ladies in principle, and he wasn’t handsome enough to merit that honor)... One of those interesting navigational names stories, and a well known sightseeing destination on Jade, pre-Conflict...

Xiu-Li smiled. The cool water was great, and the ache in her head was easing slightly.

The sky turned darkly electric as the sunstar sank lower. The top leaves of the tree were shot gold with sun, but the lower ones were already muted by shadow.

It was jungle here, and night was coming down quickly.

A window cracked in, and water began pouring over her and into the ship.

Then Xiu-Li saw it was about to go over her head. Great. Just great.

The cockpit filled to the top.

GARNEY

Captain Barbara Garney swiveled her chair a little, the only sign of her intense concern. IWG-MTCc THUCYDIDES was just serving in support and not a part of this operation on Jade except for the orbital survey assistance.

She had been told a databall had been sent to the site to confirm a crash and had found the sunken FireScout.

She had been told that under the circumstances there could be no further effort, because that might cause O.P.P. movements away from the area, and they did not want that to happen. The O.P.P. had just killed one of her best officers, so Garney did not want them leaving the area either – she was angry, and she would be glad to hear they had been pounded.

It was an unsettling feeling, and she hit the comm. Commander Bayne, Captain’s office please. She nodded at her First Officer and managed to get off the bridge before gasping. She immediately caught her breath and went into her office. Commander Grimsby Bayne found her looking out the crysglas window there, onto the planet below.

He had heard, of course. The whole ship had – from the moment the ‘botmines had targeted the FireScout, word had spread: Mariposa’s in trouble!

Enough people had legitimate access to emergency frequencies that many listened in as THUCYDIDES tracked the FireScout, ‘botmines, missiles and monitored the gunfire strikes that sent the FireScout crashing into the river. They heard Xiu-Li, and they heard the OpsNet reports from their own science and tactical officers. THUCYDIDES was well off-angle, however, almost over the horizon. It was part of Jade operational protocol to stay away from the surface area to be assaulted below, and they were only an observer, in this operation (their SquadRunner had been moving in to change observational angles when the fire broke out on board).

So THUCYDIDES was out of position for a better orbital search of the crash site, and unable to move or send in a databall without violating the ground operation in progress. This left them dependent on information from IWG sources with less interest in finding a sign of survival that might alter their ops plans in any way. A survivor provoked either a rescue or forced someone to overtly order a field sacrifice – extremely unpleasant business to be part of in an after action report.

Garney had made those calls, and hated them, but was unafraid to make them. She would understand not being able to follow up right away, she would willingly write orders prohibiting follow up even if they saw Xiu-Li waving at their databall – but they could follow that up later on, and if anyone could survive a few days down there, it was Xiu-Li Mariposa Chen.

Instead, an earnest young ensign from IWG-HTC FORT VALOR had just passed on a verbal report of the local databall fly-over – not even the raw data for their own technical analysis. We usually send in hovers for these things when we know they hit hard, so that’s all we can send this time, and it hit and sank sideways – it’s under the water on its left side. No sign of life – no markings, gear, or anything in the water or on either bank, he said helpfully. Sorry, Captain.

Garney had thanked him, not certain if he was leaving things out or lying in any way, or was being honest; her own sinking feeling about Xiu-Li was beginning to affect her. She had nodded and signed off.

She sighed, turning when Bayne cleared his throat behind her. I think we finally pushed it too far, Grim.

Bayne shrugged. Maybe. We’ll just have to see if she’s down there after the operation is through.

"She crashed in the river and drowned – drowned, for fekk’s sake, if the crash didn’t kill her."

Bayne shook his head. "I once saw her get hit with an energy pulse weapon and survive it. I don’t trust those squeaky-cleans on FORT VALOR any more than you do, really. Until we check our ship ourselves, I’m not going to decide she’s dead. He grinned. Besides, there are always other assets on these big ground ops."

Ground operations had been the primary O.P.P. tactic for the past year. Following the IWG’s Operation NESTKNOCK on 4 July 2176, there had been a shift away from direct ship-to-ship assaults in space and a more subtle process fed by stealth re-supply of ground based forces, both personnel and weapons. The leaders and senior officers of the Organisation of Planetary Projects saw to it no one in their command was from the planet they were fighting on, which meant they were more likely to act without compassion for the locals, and on a personal level, less familiar with local terrain and the cities there, making desertion less likely, it was felt.

Meanwhile, IWG interviews with O.P.P. prisoners and defectors indicated that all of the mediaInfo the average O.P.P. trooper had access to since they had left their planet was mediaInfo which had been filtered and/or designed by the O.P.P. There was no real humanWeb, shipNet, or FleetNet interaction systems or traditions between O.P.P. ships, and no free access to the humanWeb, at least as far as troopers went – the only info available was sanitized.

The few O.P.P. officers who had somehow been captured (or defected) had reported even their access was limited through other tactics – long periods in hyperflight, for example, a state of flight where only the ship’s captain merited hypercomm access. That was an old Space Consortium rule, taken into the InterWorld Group, but now used by the Organization of Planetary Projects to limit access by everyone – specifically the officers.

The result was the average troop from Sergeant down only knew what they were told by the O.P.P., and that applied to the most successful officers. It seemed one did best if they never, even as a thought experiment, questioned what the more senior O.P.P. officer said (this was a complaint from several senior defectors; all of the troopers thought almost all of the officers were lamebrains, pretty much the thoughts of troops throughout human history).

So the O.P.P. fielded armed troopers who only knew what they were being told while on their ships and platform bases (NESTKNOCK was proof at least one base had existed). Once they made a landfall, no one was certain where they were or where to go looking for a good time on whatever planet this was, since these were (naturally) secret landings off in the vast unexplored areas every colony planet still had. They might need to know the name, even learn it by accident, but the name was irrelevant when it came to doing their job, that and realizing that the only sure way off afterward was on board the ship they’d flighted in on.

The change in strategy required convoy ships, so the speculation was the O.P.P. now used their heavy tactical cruisers for that duty and nothing else (there had been no serious attempts at intercepts or any other Fleet sized action since NESTKNOCK happened).

Paying off System Control agents was one way to dodge the IWG, but so did improving stealth technology, and simple daring: a quick drop of smaller ships and other packages could be covered, and the same stolen plans that had let the O.P.P. copy IWG designs also gave them stealth designs to hide them.

It meant the ship-to-ship battles of the near future would be between equals; so far Hellhole and NESTKNOCK had been Pyrrhic victories costing the winner as much as the loser, and were not battleplans to be repeated lightly. The tactical result was smuggling of troops and their weapons in heavily armed, stealthed heavy tactical cruisers, and relentless ground operations – usually vandalism using combat weapons, but they would kill any responders, IWG or militia.

Some incidents had even been designed to provoke a response which was then ambushed. Local militia and IWG forces had no choice but to respond, and every system had some sort of activity, whether it was on a planetary surface or in the Belt or Freehab platform arcologies where there were no planets. They were kept on-going by the steady re-supply of weapons, troops and money, slowly intensifying as clumsy and excessive responses by locals against fellow locals caused the disaffected to consider joining the O.P.P. – thus becoming the replacement on some other planet, serving out until they could earn posting home (some in the O.P.P. were starting to wonder if anyone ever earned a posting home.)

The upcoming action on Jade was supposed to net over a thousand O.P.P. troops; no one knew if these were O.P.P. locals (new recruits) gathered there as a staging area for deployment to an off-planet posting or O.P.P. regulars, being pre-positioned for some sort of major attack (perhaps even occupation of Jadeport).

Garney felt herself rallying, because she had read the Chen file more than once since Xiu-Li Chen had joined the THUCYDIDES after the disasterous Battle of Hellhole 29 February 2176. She had even read the classified sections (after receiving them in confidence from Bert Matisou) regarding the Qet Encounter of June 2173, which Garney still could not believe the InterWorld Group was not responding to – an actual alien contact had always been a dream of many spacefaring humans, and Xiu-Li Chen was one of two survivors of the first contact with them.

That was one of the reasons losing Chen now was so bad – her Qet experience might have saved human lives some day... On the other hand, Bayne was correct about waiting for their own examination of the site, no matter when that would be (if on schedule, they could probably get access in forty six hours, once the ground op had begun). She looked over at her old friend. That last bit – more on that?

Well, ground assets to recon before the big drive. Now Bayne looked crafty. One missed a first extraction Rally Point, I understand.

Commander Grimsby Bayne! Intercepting local IWG ship comms signal traffic and decoding it – eavesdropping – was not exactly Fleet protocol.

Bayne’s eyebrows shot up. Tactical Drills, Six Seventeen: tactical vessels will conduct light comms traffic interception training drills a minimum of once per month as conditions permit, to be determined by the vessel’s tactical drill officer. M’am.

Garney grinned. "You’ve always been my favorite salty dog, Grim. It’s times like this I’m even more glad you got kicked just that bit higher."

Bayne blushed and covered by nodding at the planet. "Jool’s the only reason why I’m even still here today, Barbara. Call it a Niv thing – you know how much she’s studied their Meditations and such, with that qetcla blade – but I’m not ready to call ‘Mariposa’ Chen dead until I find a body. Hell, she’d be able to live for years down there in the jungle. He sighed. If she’s sharp about this at all, she should hide from us a couple of weeks at least, take a break."

Garney looked at him. Bayne was troubled. She looked back out the window. You know she would never do that, she murmured.

Maybe we should make her.

That’s... Garney tried to protest, ended up sighing.

I know. Things come up, and we need her. Xiu-Li never says ‘no’ and she’s generally gotten the job done, but we’re starting to ask her to perform miracles. He looked down. "I’d hate to see her really burn out."

Captain Barbara Garney straightened her uniform and got ready to go back onto the bridge. If she survived the crash. She looked at Bayne. We’ll go out to geostationary. I want a maser carrier signal sent to the neutral side of that river, narrow beam. Prepare for any return from a burst to a visual.

Bayne straightened and saluted as she passed. Aye, m’am, and I draw your attention to the science and tactical observation drill that was logged in for the next sixty minutes at least.

Which one was that, Commander? Garney asked over her shoulder as she walked onto the bridge, eyes sweeping to confirm all was still running smoothly.

"The scan proposal by Lieutenant Poulos, based on the two MapRunner configurations made on WHEELER."

Oh, right. Right! Yes, this is an excellent time to get some science done – might as well do something until we can get down there. She looked over at her first officer, whose grin was as poorly hidden as the rest of the bridge crew’s was: Granny’s going in to get Jool!

If she survived the crash... Barbara Garney sat down in the bridge command flight chair and began giving orders.

DELARIDEL

Cara was still in her perch, unable to stop watching the drama.

The river missiles were converging... Then the first veered off and went along a bit before exploding. The second missile did the same. But the flight path required to evade the missiles had lined the ship up so it was now flying right down the river, at a low altitude and right into many O.P.P. crosshairs. She saw the waves of metal shoot out from the opposite bank as the O.P.P. opened up. It was standard conventional gunfire (magrifles), but a lot of it, plus at least seven heavier guns she had seen test-firing: two .72mm and five .60mm railgun units. Now they were all well targeted on a low ship trying to lose speed, and they began to fire steadily at the approaching dot.

The IWG ship was a small one, Cara could see now, not much larger than a Scout Runner. It was not heavily shielded, and had no offensive capability. As she watched, the right power unit exploded.

The ship twisted sideways and the flight wing on the left side caught on the treeline and tore off. That spun the ship, and the right wing tore off as it smashed down and hit the river – at this point, the only actual open space to land in. Had it flipped the other way, it would have smashed into the trees and been destroyed instantly. Instead, it skipped once, flew back into the air for a few meters, then landed full on, hard. It skimmed along the river, hitting the riverbank on Cara’s side of the river before rolling onto its side and settling heavily into the water.

She turned to go. The ship was close by and might explode; it would certainly attract O.P.P. attention. It wasn’t dark enough yet to just wait around.

The Cat sitting at attention in her path made her stagger.

It was an orange and white Tau Ceti Cat she recognized as the Ship’s Cat on NSS SNOWLEOPARD. Ahh – sorry, little one, but this is a dangerous area. We should go.

It stared balefully at her and would not move.

She stepped over it, and she heard it growl slightly and glare at her. Hey, I’m sorry, Cat, but I’m not rescue-rated, she half lied; she knew advanced combat first aid.

The Cat frowned at her, and gave her an outright hiss!

Cara scowled. Cats were scarcely around since the PANTHER had been destroyed last December, now this usually nice one was unhappy with her.

A black Cat she had never seen before literally blocked her way before she could take another step. It just sat there, looking up at her as she towered above it, and it seemed... Determined. She did not know this one, and she had never seen a Cat look so... Angry.

Cara stopped, shivering a little.

Two Cats – and their message was unmistakable.

Cats had never been other than very sweet to her, no matter how difficult she was being to others, and she could not very well be the angry rebel about Cats. They had been on the planet at Tau Ceti long before humans from Sol had arrived, had tolerated and befriended them (both before and after The Great Change!) and were innocent. Even in the First Days, Corvel himself had never had the heart to dissect or do an autopsy on the rare Cat that was found dead and brought to him at the new Niv Sciences Institute.

And this black one looked... Well, not mean, but... Angry.

Cara bowed her head in salute and nodded at it. You remind me of me, little one.

It stopped frowning and just looked expectant now – sort of a give me food look, but none of the noise of feeding time. This was a bit creepy. These Cats clearly expected her to go rescue some dead crewpers from a sunken Scout Runner, while the nearest O.P.P. patrol unit was just ten minutes away and already en route to take a look.

The Cats looked at each other, then at her. So what are you waiting for, young m’am? (The orange and white one specialized in that expression, having been around so many young Niv during their training service on board the NSS SNOWLEOPARD – including her own). Cara took one slow, deep breath, then another, and turned back toward the river.

The small ship was on its left side, filling with water as it settled deeper into the riverbed. The two Cats took positions on different branches of a nearby tree, each well out over the water, watching her as she crawled onto the hull, wishing she was invisible, rather than a dark green uniformed