Ensign Toh, in fact, really did not like it.

With the ship in jump state, Captain Brant was showing their new recruit around the ship. Two Lanius engineers, their faces all sharp angles and coldness, were holed up in the life support room performing their upgrades, and for the time being Translator was wearing a form-fitting polymer suit. It was reminiscent of a space suit but completely stripped down, no communication gear or breathing apparatus. In one three-fingered hand, he gripped a small ceramic tablet with no discernible marking.

"We are going to see the pilot now? The vrachokopsi?" he asked.

"What's that mean?" Brant asked. "Fancy word for 'rock'?"

"Oh. Um, I believe it is the 'rock' word for their own species. 'People of Vrachos,' their home star, a name that suggests they adopted it after reaching space, or that the crystal folk conditioned them early on to see themselves as part of a cosmos rather than a world. They…are really fine with you calling their ancient and noble people 'rocks'?"

"I've never heard the ensign complain."

"Not even a distinguished synonym? 'Stone' or 'Lith,' something that has a bit more gravity to it?"

"Hey, don't act like I picked it!" Brant said, holding her hands up defensively. "But yeah, we're going to see him first. He seems to be…uneasy…" She trailed off.

"Yes…I am aware of our place in his people's mythology. My training as a Translator included some strategies for situations like this, when we find ourselves in contact with a race with ancient eschatological associations with us." He looked down at the tablet nervously. "We'll see if that training's any good now."

The bulkhead to the bridge opened. Toh was sitting at his console, and slowly got to his feet as the others entered. He didn't turn around, first reaching out to a small polyglass cup sitting on a coaster next to the console.

"Ensign, I'd like to introduce you to a new member of the crew." Brant started. Toh held the cup to his face, his back still turned to them, and knocked his head back. He gently replaced the glass on the coaster, and then turned around all at once.

He had a pretty brave face on. Honestly, if not for the need to down a shot, Brant wouldn't have been able to tell from looking at him that the poor guy was terrified.

"Translator, this is Toh, our pilot. Toh, this is Translator, our…translator," Brant said.

Translator nodded his head. Toh stared.

"Ensign, I would like very much to shake your hand, but I know what that is asking of you," Translator said. "I understand you are religious in the ways of your people, and I understand what the appearance of my kind and my own presence here must seem like to you. If you can give me one fragment of trust, believe me in this: the sole purpose of the Lanius race is to create the most complete record possible of all the peoples who have ever populated this galaxy. You think we are servants of the Breaker and Destroyer, of collapse and decay, but we dedicate ourselves completely to snatching the fading memory of lost cultures from that force. If your God in His aspect as Preserver has any champions, we are they."

Toh just stared. After a moment, he nodded. "Okay."

"…on reflection, it…may be that I sound exactly as a force of ancient evil might sound, were it trying to deceive you."

Toh stared.

"Um…oh! Here!" He held the tablet forward. "I was able to convince my superiors to bring this over here on loan. I'm afraid it will have to go back to our culture-ship once we reach the beacon, but in the meantime you are free to study it. I will provide a transcript of its contents, but I thought you might like a chance to see the original for yourself."

Toh looked at the tablet. "What is it?"

"A copy of the Hitamarit Tablet. It was the most sacred text of the Amarit, the dominant ethnicity of the crystal folk in the latter years of their species. Many of the revelations recorded in your Tablets of Hof are recognizable in this text. You will, of course, need a micro-reader in order to see the writing, but I think that…

Toh had begun to step forward, but at the mention of the crystals, he froze and cut Translator off. "You did know them."

"…We did."

Brant sighed, seeing where this was going. "Literally just had this conversation," she muttered.

Toh froze a moment longer. Then, apparently gathering his nerve, he walked forward and gently took the tablet in both of his huge hands.

"What happened to them?" Toh asked.

"It is an intricate study, one which the Lanius are continually trying to understand fully, but simply: their civilization grew very large, and the larger it grew the less it was able to support its varying interests equally, which bred conflict, which bred war, which damaged infrastructure and industry and social structure, which bred further conflict, and so on. Put even more simply: the same thing that happened to everyone. The same thing happening now."

"You know what my people say about it," Toh said. "About you."

Brant wasn't sure if this was a test or not. Translator shook his head anyway. "And they are not wrong, not in the broad strokes. The crystals were the dominant species of the galaxy, with every blessing one could have, but they chose to put those blessings in the service of violence. Had they been able to find a peaceful way, their civilization would have endured, and the Lanius would not have emerged to salvage what remained. They made war, they perished, and the Lanius were there. We did not destroy their civilization, but neither did we try to save it."

Toh looked at the tablet. It looked smooth and unmarked to Brant. The writing must be nearly microscopic.

"We don't really think you're evil," Toh said, running a hand over the tablet. Brant tried to imagine what an equivalent of this moment could be for a human – a goat-footed devil beaming aboard to give her Atlantean documents? – and decided there was nothing truly equivalent. This was a mythical force of destruction, giving him a piece of the irretrievably lost history of his people. "In scripture, you weren't bad people. You came at the bidding of God, both as Destroyer and as Preserver, to carry out His just sentence on the galaxy. I was scared to hear that you'd come again in my lifetime, scared like I can't tell you, but it was also kind of a wonder, too."

He held the tablet out to Translator.

"You watch people die, and you don't stop it. You know what to look for, but you don't warn anyone when they get close. You could have saved the crystals, could have saved any of the peoples before them, but you just watch and write it all down."

"Ensign Toh, my apologies, but I must correct you on…" Translator started.

"You're not angels of justice," Toh growled, pushing the tablet into Translator's chest. The Lanius fumbled to grab hold of the ancient relic before it fell. "You're just assholes. I don't want to see any of your prizes."

"I must clarify, I'm sorry, but…" Translator started.

Toh turned around and started lumbering back toward his chair. "Captain, we've got another five hours left in jump. If you need anything, you know where to reach me."

"Will do," Brant said. Translator's mouth was open, looking at Toh and at her in confusion. "Leave him."

"But…"

"Leave him," she said, pulling him with her as she walked toward the door. They walked out into the corridor, Brant leading him toward the crew quarters.

"That…did not go well," Translator said.

"Ya think?" Brant asked. "That was one of your strategies?"

"Hm? Oh. In a way. We are advised, as we think appropriate, to be upfront and honest with races that have ancestral memory of us. It can easily backfire if we try to paint an overly rosy picture of our involvement in the past."

"Yeah, about that. Why didn't you help the crystals, if you knew what was going to happen to them?"

"I was trying to tell your ensign that!" Translator said quickly, throwing his hands up. He mimicked human exasperation better than any alien she'd ever met. "What should we have done for them?"

"Hey, I'm not the expert on galactic collapse. Don't ask me."

"…fair enough. In my opinion, shared by most of my kind, there is nothing that can be done. Each civilization seems to follow a natural cycle of expansion and collapse, and inevitably passes a point of no return where it has expanded too far to be able to recover from collapse. We have intervened at several points in our history, and it has never worked. Sometimes our intervention has delayed the end, and sometimes it has hastened it."

May as well come out with it."Does that mean you aren't going to help us?" Brant asked.

"Certainly I will. We have given you supplies and outfitted your ship, I will help you avoid what violence I can, and I will be in touch with my people to give you details on the movements of the Rebel fleet. I have been given great leeway in assisting you so that I may witness this confrontation and record it accurately."

"I don't mean us on this ship. I don't even mean the Federation." Brant stopped walking, turning to face Translator. "What will save us?"

"Captain, please…"

"If this mission fails or if we see it through, will it even make a difference?"

Translator fumbled for words. "I will try to be clearer. I will do everything in my power to bring you to this engagement, and that alone is virtually your only chance to win the war. Until you speak to the Federation admirals, they will not know to invest the resources necessary to destroy this Flagship, and if their first attack on it fails…"

"Is deflecting difficult questions another strategy they teach you? If we want to avoid the end of the humans and engi and mantis and everyone else, does the success of this mission matter?"

Translator looked her in the eye. She saw a glimpse of the same alien coldness she'd seen in Killer's eyes.

What have you brought onto this ship, Charlotte?

"No," he said. "Our longest estimate for the continuation of this cycle is approximately four hundred years, though the average is around two hundred thirty. Those estimates take many factors into account, including a Federation or Rebel victory. Generally, either will only determine the specific manner of the galaxy's decline in this cycle and a variance of a few decades."

She realized now that she'd allowed herself to think of Translator as more or less human. It wasn't a conscious decision, just a natural reaction to someone who spoke so much like she did. She realized also that she needed to use way more caution with this one.

She realized her mouth was open. She closed it.

"Could you maybe lean a little away from the 'brutally honest and upfront' strategy for a second?" Brant asked. "Maybe a little into the 'act as though the things I value have meaning and aren't just numbers and estimates' strategy?"

"Have you had a dog, captain?" Translator asked.

"Have I…what?" Brant asked. "No. We had cats."

"Very good. I have found this to be an effective comparison. When a human takes responsibility for a small mammal, she does so with the understanding that its life will end before her own. This does not diminish the importance they assign to the mammal during its life. Just because something ends does not make it meaningless, captain."

Brant sighed. "Okay. Fine. We're doomed, but it's fine. I'll get over it."

"…I must warn you, captain, that my reception of sarcasm is highly underdeveloped. I hope that if you are upset over my candor, we can discuss this at a later time."

Brant nodded, deciding it was best to change the subject. She started walking again, eager to have this interaction over. "I've assigned you to one of our empty crew quarters. I have no idea what sort of amenities your kind need, so I hope you've brought anything necessary."

"The only amenity I need is my work. For this mission I was given a communicator entangled with one of my supervisors, and I will need to get that set up to fulfill my initial…"

"Well, you can get on that," she said. They reached a door to one of the crew quarters, and it opened at her approach. The interior was completely bare except for a plain gray bed and plain gray table. There was a booklet on the table. "This room's sealed, so if you need to want to take off that suit, be my guest."

"Ah. Don't mind if I do, captain," he said, entering. "Once the life support is fully operational, you'll want to give this room a few minutes to recycle the air before you enter."

"Cool. I left some light reading." She pointed at the pamphlet. "I'm sure you'll find it enlightening."

"Thank you, captain! Is it a work of human literature? Poetry, perhaps, or drama?"

"It's instructions on how to operate the sensor array," Brant said. "The simplest post on the ship, but important and one which we've had to leave unmanned for some time."

"…ah," Translator said. "I will give it my full attention."

He went inside, the door shutting behind him, and Brant walked off.

She found herself walking in a haze, and lumbering like a zombie into the recreation area. The rest of the crew was gathered, 78 with a small tray of toxchips, Karl with a glass and the bottle of Doohan 12-Year, and Ahab with a shot glass and a decanter full of a thick gray fluid reminiscent of concrete. As Brant understood it, just as toxchips interfered with engi social cognition software in just the right way and scotch interfered with human brain function in just the right way, this stuff deadened the energy field of the zoltan body in just the right way.

Ahab was shuffling a deck of cards. "I think you'll like it. It is an old game, from before the zoltan were spacefaring or ascended," he was explaining. "The name translates to 'Moonrise.'"

Brant walked slowly over to the table.

"How'd you have playing cards before you met humans?" Karl asked.

"We invented our own, Mr. Vossler. The mantis invented their own, as well. An interesting case of convergent evolution," Ahab said.

"Anyway, rules?" 78 asked.

"Ah, yes. Moonrise is a simple game, the object of which…"

"The object of which is for the zoltan running the game to confuse and distract the unfamiliar players with its many rules until he is able to take all their money," Brant announced as she reached the table. She grabbed the Doohan from in front of Karl, twisted the top off, and lifted it up to her mouth.

78 and Karl looked at Brant, perhaps in some concern, but then shifted their gaze to Ahab with more pointed emotion.

"Well, our illustrious captain has rather overstated the…" Ahab began, but Brant held up a shushing finger to him as she glugged down more of the scotch. She set the bottle down and inhaled.

"The Lanius don't…" she started. Then the Doohan hit her. "Yugh! Yuuugh! Oh God it's like engine grease…"

"Yeah, the peatiness…" Karl started. Brant held up her shushing finger again as she shut her mouth and waited for the spasms of disgust to subside.

"…as far as they're concerned, we're all dead already," she said. "They've run the numbers and we've probably only got another two hundred years left, much of that no doubt spent in societal freefall."

Silence fell over the room.

"I thought he seemed pleasant," Ahab said. Most of the crew introductions had gone well.

"He is pleasant. Our imminent destruction doesn't even bother him," Brant said.

"Not surprising. Species has supposedly seen many cultures come and go," 78 said.

"Yeah, but it's more than that. Clinical detachment is one thing. I think I'd be okay with that. But they want us to face this Flagship, and they want to see it. It won't make a difference, he said it himself, but they want it to happen anyway and they're willing to sacrifice one of their own to witness it," Brant said. "They don't just want to record history. They want to make it worth recording. It's like we're just some vid serial for them, and they want to make sure we reach our exciting series finale before we're all gone."

Another moment of silence. Everyone was looking at her. It was 78 who finally broke it.

"Your orders?" he asked.

An interesting question. If it really didn't matter – like, really didn't matter – then what was the point of seeing this suicide mission through? If they really wanted it, would it be so hard to fake their own destruction? Scuttle the Kestrel in a star, hide from the Rebels' scanners in some abandoned mining operation, live out their days planetside? And really, look at who was sitting here – 8 was the only one with Fed loyalty, and he'd follow her no matter what.

They could annihilate the Rebellion, become legends, secure the dominance of the Federation and its values. For a time.

They could retreat, or fight and die in messy, heart-wrenching violence, and the Rebellion and its Flagship would be the new face of humanity in the galaxy, a power that would be separatist at best and supremacist at worst. For a time.

The things that changed her mind were thoughts of what Andrews would think if she gave up, or how disappointed Toh would be in her, or how Katarek would have screeched and moaned over this cowardice. She thought of how her pride would prick at her, and of the dullness of the colonial life she'd have to settle into in hiding. They were not, she knew, the sorts of considerations that should influence someone in a position to shift the fate of the galaxy, but she was in over her head – quite possibly over anyone's head – and they were the only lights she felt she could follow.

Theirs not to make reply. Theirs not to reason why.

The words of an ancient Earth poem she'd read in some class in the academy, maybe even back home in the colony.

Theirs but to do and die.

"We stay the course," she said. "The hell else is there to do?"