Brant drummed her fingers on the arm of the captain's chair. The Lanius captain was on screen in front of her, staring ahead in total silence and total stillness. This one had the same cracked-ice skin and pointy, jutting features as Killer had, but Brant wasn't even sure this one had eyes. If not for Translator's assurances, she'd have no reason to believe this captain was alive.

"What's he saying now?" Brant asked over her earpiece.

"Still bragging, ma'am," Translator said. "Now he is telling me about a Rebel vessel that he incapacitated by hacking their door controls and leaking out all their oxygen while cloaked. He is very proud of this story and he seems to value many of its details."

Brant sighed. She eyed the energy readouts of the Lanius ship's weapons and her own. It would not be a fun day if combat broke out.

"So is he going to attack us?" she asked.

"No. He will not risk official sanction. It's just important to him that I be impressed by all the functioning craft he has captured and catalogued," Translator said. "I am trying to communicate that I am extremely impressed and to politely end the conversation, but he continues to talk."

"Karl, how long until jump?" Brant asked.

"Half an hour, ma'am."

She made some inputs on the arm of her chair, and some charts of the Magna Sector came up in front of her next to the Lanius captain's face. She had to admit that Translator had come in handy, helping them through the last few jumps with only a few tense stand-offs and no shots fired. Or at least, he seemed to come in handy. They had yet to encounter another Lanius vessel with a captain who could speak English or even seemed capable of vocal communication at all, so for all she knew Translator had just been telling them "Hey, I need to seem useful to these dummies. Could you do me a solid and charge your weapons, but then make like you're standing down?"

In fact, they had yet to encounter anyone at all that Brant herself could communicate with. They had passed one colony and one engi research station, but both were abandoned. They'd also encountered a small flotilla of crag-ships, but the rock crew were all dead and the Lanius scavengers picking over the ships had given them no trouble. She noted that their next jump would bring them to a zoltan heritage site, a place of religious or historical significance that the zoltan had cajoled the other races into recognizing. Usually this meant the ethereals got to keep a small, protected toehold in sectors that they'd otherwise withdrawn from. She wondered if the custodians of this "Great Eye," as she read on her screen, had fled with their relics. If not, a protected cultural site may as well have a big flashing sign reading "Lanius: Pillage Here."

"He appears to be reaching the end of this story, and I am making insinuations that I have other duties and must close the communication line…no, he has started another story of a mantis raiding vessel. He emphasizes how well-armed this one was, and his own valor and cunning in beating them through force of arms. He…"

The warnings all came at once, and Brant wasn't sure which she noticed the first, whether the klaxons blaring, the readouts flashing on her screens, the Lanius captain's sudden snapping to attention, or Toh's measured growl:

"Ships, captain."

The readouts stabilized. Combat drones, Dragonfly-model, five of them.

The Lanius captain waved his hand at someone offscreen, and then the feed cut out. The image of his ship vanished from Brant's screens.

"The captain wishes us luck, but is engaging stealth," Translator reported.

"Valor and cunning, my ass. Ahab…" Brant studied the readouts, prioritizing targets. She reached out to one of the drone images, the screen highlighting its image at her touch. "…the one with the Pegasus first."

"Aye, captain."

The ship shook gently as the Kestrel, already primed for a salvo against the Lanius ship, shot everything it had. The drones dispersed immediately, buzzing in every direction, but almost every shot slammed home into her selected target. Its shields gave out, and directed energy rounds perforated its hull and systems in a deeply satisfying fireworks display. The drone exploded, and Brant had to remind herself that this opening luck did not mean it would be an easy encounter. Four to go.

She eyed the Kestrel's power allocation. The transporter was still on, using power that might be better diverted to the engines. These were unmanned craft, after all, with space enough inside to accommodate an engineer in drydock but not one breath of breathable air.

Hm. She flicked her screen, highlighting a drone with a nasty array of ion weapons.

"Next up, Ahab. Translator, if I send you over to one of those things, could you disarm it?"

"Oh…captain, I hate to feel useless, but I cannot overemphasize my lack of combat expertise."

"They're unmanned. Just go over and break things. Can you do that?"

"I…can do that."

"Good." She tapped another drone, one with a mammoth Mark-III laser, and marked its weapon control node as the target for their transporter. "Get it done. 8, redirecting power from medbay to shields."

"Acknowledged."

Silent seconds passed, Brant gripping her seat as Toh kept the ship's movements quick and erratic and the weapons of all parties slowly charged. Translator reached the transporter, vanishing from her readouts of the Kestrel and reappearing on the readouts of the drone.

"I'm surprised, Captain. A mission as critical as yours, and you accept a wildcard like this scavenger onto your crew."

A new voice, cold and confident, spoke directly into her earpiece. She had not opened any new channels. Her mouth went dry. The voice was familiar.

"How are you on this line?" she hissed.

"Breaking into Federation communication systems was my first major assignment," the Flagship replied. "This is not the first time I've broken into your ship's lines, just the first time I've felt free to address you. Well, the second time."

Again, Brant felt a tingling, almost religious fear, knowing that the being on the other end of the line was an intelligence she could not even conceive of. That sentence in particular disturbed her more than she could make immediate sense of. It was referring of course to the time it had broken into her lines and spoken to her the first time, a few days ago after it saved 78 – but it phrased it as if it had remembered this midsentence. This thing had probably done more thinking during one syllable than she had done in her entire life. It didn't track. Was it programmed to mimic casual speech patterns?

"While we are on the subject, I wished to give you my overdue condolences. Damion Andrews was a credit to the Federation, to humanity."

One of the drones spat out a volley of laser fire. Toh kept the ship twisting and turning at max sublight speed, but a number of rounds hit home anyway, one penetrating the shields and striking their hull.

"He was a personal role model of mine, to be honest. I was fed the known life histories of many of humanity's great examplars, and his was among them."

"Damage report?" Brant asked.

"No hull breaches, no system damage. Hull integrity at 95%," 78 replied.

The drone she'd sent Translator to registered disruptions in its weapons, though none of its guns were offline yet. The Mark-III continued to charge.

She glanced at their power allotments. For all the upgrades they'd made, they'd still somewhat outpaced their reactor's maximum output. This was partly by design, letting her divert power around to different systems and keep the ship adaptable; better to be able to go hard with the weapons or the engines when they were needed than keep everything running on average all the time.

"His life experiences and the example set by his career helped condition and shape my own ideals of command and concept of virtue. My psych evaluations suggest you viewed him as a father figure."

Brant diverted power from the life support unit and reallocated it to the engines. It was only a stopgap and wouldn't have any great effect on its own. Once the teleporter finished its power-down cycle, she'd be able to divert from there too.

"They also suggest that you will not be pleased to hear I view him the same way."

She mashed her hand on her wrist console, trying to switch the station on her earpiece, but the Flagship came through anyway. She couldn't very well take the earpiece out or she'd lose touch with the rest of her ship, so she'd just have to bear this. She'd dealt with worse.

"Still – I respected the man greatly. Whether you believe I am capable of grief or not…"

A hail of ion fire shot out of one of the drones, a succession of rockets from another. Translator's drone registered still more disruption, and its measly beam lens went offline. The Mark-III continued to charge.

"Do those evals tell you I'm this easy to psych out?" she asked.

"Oh, no, Captain. I am familiar with your fury. You have properly grieved Andrews, and mentioning him will likely only harden your resolve and tighten your focus."

The Kestrel's weapons came online and Ahab took the shot immediately, sending a wave of hellfire at the ion drone.

"It will hurt more to mention Katarek," the Flagship said.

For all the power she'd fed to the engines and all of Toh's skill, a few of the ion charges hit. The power output for their shields spiked and then bottomed out, the circuits overloaded and resetting. The ship shook with the impact of a rocket, readouts showed damage in the engine room, the Mark-III continued to charge.

"In Andrews' loss, at least you had your new command to keep you occupied. With Katarek, your routine was unchanged, which made her absence in it that much more glaring. She was a good friend, a confidante…"

The Kestrel's shots struck home, overwhelming the ion drone's shields and blowing it to atoms.

Translator got a small ion cannon offline. The Mark-III continued to charge.

"But even more, this grief must cause some kernel of disgust, that you ever could have thought of one of those insects as a comrade. In your pain, you are reminded of your betrayal of Earth and its children…"

The teleporter finished its cycle, and Brant swiped at her readouts to power it down and boost their engines.

The Mark-III fired, spitting off a barrage of destructive force that could very easily be the last thing she saw. Their shields were still recuperating from the ion shots, slowly, too slowly, holy God in Heaven, the Mark-III was still firing.

"Brace!" she shouted.

"…and so your grief is compounded with the growing sense of your own failure."

Toh danced the ship through the void as nimbly as he could, the grav compensators just barely keeping Brant's head from whipping around like a ragdoll's as the ship altered course abruptly, but it wasn't enough. Their weakened shield gave out, and...

...Brant was on the floor. Red emergency lights flashed in the bridge, and the air smelled of burning plastic and overloaded electronics. The piloting console was on fire, Toh standing over it and beating at the flames with his fists. As she got to her feet, Brant found she was holding a fire extinguisher from under her seat. They must have taken a hit to the bridge, and then another while she'd been running to put out the blaze..

She ran to the console and shot flame-retardant foam at the conflagration, focusing on the flames to the left while Toh threw himself bodily on the flames to the right in an effort to smother them.

"Damage report!" Brant shouted.

"Shields damaged. Nearly recovered from ion surge, but only outputting 50%," said 78.

"Minor hit to weapons. We've lost one of the laser batteries, the rest will be ready momentarily," said Ahab.

"Engines ready," said Karl.

"Damage," said the Flagship. "How to measure damage?"

The console smoked and spat, but the fires were out. Brant and Toh got to their knees with their multitools and started unscrewing panels to assess repairs.

"How to determine what is damage, what is growth? We are our experiences, Charlotte. We are the damage we have done, and the injury done upon us."

"Oh my God, dude," Brant muttered.

"Assessment: chatty son of a bitch, isn't he?" 78 said.

The panels came off, and Brant could tell there would be no quick fixes for the console. Toh seemed to reach the same conclusion, and was fiddling with wires and his wrist unit to reroute the controls elsewhere.

The ship shook, Ahab firing off another volley, firing at the missile drone. More enemy fire was inbound, and with minimal shields and no piloting systems, it was going to hurt.

Finally the Mark-III went offline, its drone effectively useless now.

Their rounds hit the rocket drone, blowing it to hell. Brant gritted her teeth for impact.

"I wonder how killing you will affect me," the Flagship said.

Laser fire to their shields. A Hermes rocket to their weapon controls, and one to their transporter – they wouldn't be getting Translator back right away, but that was the least of her concerns.

78 squealed obscene static over the intercom, eloquent of pain and frustration. "Shields at 25%!"

"We've lost all laser batteries, and may lose missiles if I cannot fix things fast," Ahab said. "Also, I might die. I have a small will in my top drawer."

One drone left, then, armed with an array of basic laser batteries. They were close to getting a workaround going with the pilot's console, but it wouldn't be ready in time to avoid this salvo. Without the power to evade or significant shields, the Kestrel was a neck and that drone was an axe.

"Ah – yes, I suspected this would happen," said the Flagship. "Frustrating."

"If you're going to kill us, kill us. I'm not going to talk to you about your fracking feelings," Brant said.

"It is my full intent to kill you, Charlotte," said the Flagship. "But today, our chaperones have other ideas."

The laser drone's shields gave out, laser rounds and rocket fire and strange crystalline projectiles that Brant's systems did not recognize riddling its hull and triggering a series of explosions. Looking for their savior, Brant saw that the Lanius ship had broken stealth.

"That's what will happen, though. Put trust in alien powers, and the short-term gains may seem significant. Then suddenly, one day, we find that our destiny is no longer in our own hands. The hand that seemed to hold the olive branch now holds the shepherd's crook, or the slaver's lash."

Toh stood up, holding his wrist unit ahead of him and standing at the ready. They'd managed to reroute basic controls to the unit; it was crappy, but it was something, and they wouldn't have to just eat another volley if another was incoming. But suddenly, things seemed to have calmed down. Brant drained some power from the engines and sent it the medbay.

"Ahab, get to medical. Karl, get the transporters back online so we can get Translator and get out of here. Translator?"

There was no response over the intercom from Translator.

"Translator, do you read?"

A notification went off on her wrist console. She looked and saw incoming text from the Lanius.

"No air," it read. "Typing. I can hear you. No need to rush on my account. The Lanius ship has offered to take me aboard while you make critical repairs.

Brant sighed. "Yeah, and since you're our best leverage against them blowing us apart, that's kind of what I'm trying to avoid. Stand by, we'll have you off in a few minutes."

"Have they made you any offers, captain?" asked the Flagship. "The little scavengers? They have sent coded messages to my human front, making certain overtures to me. They assure me that they will not make my existence public, and will in fact work to prevent that knowledge from spreading if you should disperse it yourself. In exchange, I am to allow you to reach the Federation bastion in the Volta Sector. I'm curious what your thoughts are."

Now that the immediacy of combat had subsided and she no longer needed to be in touch with her crew, she felt a strong temptation to take her earpiece out. They were hardly safe yet, though, and it would be foolish to lower their battle readiness just to get rid of this annoyance.

"I'm not bantering with you, dude. I know you're, like, a big fan of mine, so sorry, but it's not happening," she said.

"Would it help if I reminded you that I've been monitoring your communications for some time, and that you needn't try to keep the conversations you've had on this subject secret?"

"It decidedly would not help." Was that even true? It occurred to her that she didn't even entertain the possibility, that this thing's words had let her brain recharacterize it as a human being with normal human limits. Her brow grew hot, then cold as the likely truth of its words sank in. "What did I say at Katarek's funeral?"

"Oh, my, Charlotte – a test? Very well. You thought the mantis would have found some maudlin speech embarrassing, so you just let the airlock take her. And if you're not convinced, you awkwardly propositioned your engineer for sex recently while you convalesced."

"Oh, God damn it," Karl muttered over the line.

Brant saw a possibility, slight and desperate, but worth reaching for. "Then you know what the Lanius think about us all. That the galactic order is doomed, that your victory or ours only makes the difference of a few years before the foundation collapses," Brant said. "They want us to fight because they think it'll be all cool and dramatic, but it's not going to save humanity either way. Maybe…maybe if we stop this, you and me and together, and find a way to make peace between the Federation and the Rebels and get everyone working together under one banner again, we might be able to beat their predictions and…"

"No."

The word fell through her earpiece like an icepick, screeching with interference. It might have just been her experience with 78's way of speaking, but she heard the interference as an inadvertent show of emotion.

"No, Charlotte. I know that the tangle of excuses you've made for yourself make this nearly impossible to accept, but the truth must be stated: The time for the other races to exert their will on the children of Earth is over. Whether it's the contrivances of the engi or zoltan, or the brute violence of the rock or mantis, or the cheap fortunetelling of these newcomers. Whether our destiny be grand or grim, let it finally be our own."

Again, Brant found it hard to think of the Flagship as anything but human, but not because it spoke in such an easy or personable manner. No. It had struck her before, but now she was sure of it.

When it spoke of the other races, she heard the hate in its voice.

A mind like a god, and the Rebels had taught it how to hate.

The transporter came back online, whisking Translator back onboard, and not a moment too soon. Brant was just about ready to blow the drone away with or without him.

With Ahab rushing to the medbay, she took remote control of the gunner station and set the drone in her sights.

"I imagine you'll be disconnecting your ship's surveillance and communication systems while you're in the jump, and I will not be able to hack in for future updates when you arrive in the next beacon. This may be our last chance to speak to each other for a while, Charlotte," the Flagship said.

She fired everything they had.

"You might be the worst thing humanity has ever done," she said. "An all-powerful racist. God forgive us. Maybe we deserve oblivion."

"And you are all our capacity for perseverance and courage, turned to the service of binding our superior people to lesser races. Ours is an ancient conflict, and we have the privilege of being its champions in its decisive battle."

Their rounds struck home, riddling the drone with explosions.

"I am looking forward to it," said the Flagship, and then with a squeal its link was severed.

Brant stared at the readouts of that last drone's destruction. She became aware that her breathing was aggravated, and it had nothing to do with their slightly diminished atmosphere.

"Maybe we do deserve oblivion," she said. She keyed into her earpiece and addressed the crew, walking over to the captain's chair. "Brace for transition. Toh, take us out of here."