Friendly Fire

by Michelle Levigne

  "Keep working on your side of the impass," she said. "I'll figure out how to deal with the captain." Closing the communication channel with Decker, she braced herself on her side of Wexel's desk and shrugged.

  "Part of the problem of dealing with the Ankuar is that they passed themselves off as gods for a few generations, in the surrounding star systems," Wexel said, slouching back in his chair.

  "With technology stolen from the Gatekeepers. For all their ability to get into space about thirty years ahead of Le'anka, they couldn't get out of the solar system without help, and more stolen technology." Genys nodded. "Kind of hard to convince anyone you're a god when you can't just wave your hand and fix things. And your point is?"

  "With the old gods, sometimes all it took to fix things was a Human sacrifice." Only half his mouth managed to smile. "Sorry. I get nasty when it looks like my station is about to implode underneath me."

  Genys nodded slowly while the image of Jorono Cynes tied hand and foot, hanging from a pole, trotted through her mind. "I'm half-convinced Cynes isn't really Human."

  She caught her breath as the image got as far as Cynes tied up on a thick slab of greased rock, poised to slide down a slope into a volcano. Then his grimy pseudo-furs wriggled and hooples popped out, Cynes turned into a hoople, and they all avalanched sideways, right on top of the snarling, scowling band of white-haired, blue-eyed, cocoa-skinned, muscle-bound Ankuar.

  "He's just a nasty trick left by anti-Gatekeepers, to really mess with our minds. Any chance of proving he's a totally new lifeform?"

  "That's the last thing we need. With the Ankuar insisting they aren't Human, to come up with proof …" Genys caught her breath. Maybe she had tipped over the edge of "enough," because some of the insane images filling her head made sense.

  "Whatever makes you grin like that," Wexel said, sitting up, "I want some."

  Genys signaled him to be quiet, then opened a channel to the Defender. Treinna and Tahl were together, so she only had to explain her idea once.

  "Do-able?" she asked.

  "Oh, very," Tahl said. "I assume you want me on a private channel, feeding words to you in case the captain decides to argue?"

  "Please. Tell Treinna I can hear her snickering. Where are you two, anyway?"

  "Medical sleep unit. M'kar."

  Genys knew exactly what that meant.

  "Ah. I suppose that's one of the lower-priority alerts I haven't dealt with yet."

  With the way her day was going, the Ankuar would team up with the incoming Nisandrians, even though they usually despised each other.

  They made their arrangements for dealing with the giggling Ankuar problem. Treinna got her amusement under control and headed for her station on the bridge. Genys closed the channel and stood to change places with Wexel. The visual feed could pivot to include anyone and any angle in the administrator's office, but the high, severe black back of his chair made for good staging.

  "Medical emergency?" Wexel asked, as they set up the controls on his desk and a sanitized earbud popped out of the attachments drawer, to allow her private communication with the Defender.

  "Hmm? Oh, M'kar. No. More of a cultural and diplomatic problem. My Chief of Talents is half-Nisandrian. Right, they claim no such creature is possible. Well, her relatives are as royal as you can get on Nisandros. They want to sell her into slavery disguised as political marriage. First, they have to get their hands on her. Medical hibernation hides her psionic signature. You have a Nisandrian diplomatic vessel approaching the station, by the way."

  "I noticed, but it just didn't seem like a big enough emergency right now." He sighed and took a few steps back, to lean against the wall out of the visual pickup range. "Life must be very interesting on board your ship, Captain Arroyan."

  "Unfortunately, this is only a few degrees away from routine. Did I mention my CMO is Ankuar? That's why I need her whispering the best trigger words in my ear while I deal with Captain We-should-be-ruling-the-universe."

  Wexel snorted, his smile finally taking over his whole face. "You've dealt with more than your fair share of Ankuar officers, I see."

  "I was lucky enough to stand on the sidelines while some true masters of insanity tied their teeny-tiny brains and enormous egos into knots and decorated them with ribbons and balloons." The signal came through. All the connections were set up and ready. Silently asking again for Enlo's protection and guidance, she tapped the button to ignite the process, for better or worse. "Captain Arroyan of the AFV Defender, raising the torch to reveal and char all falsehood. Ankuar ship Kuellain. For the sake of honor and dignity, awaken your captain. His wisdom and clear vision are needed in dealing with a matter that threatens the safety and future of two races." Swallowing to make her throat muscles relax, she repeated her salutation in Ankuaran.

  She barely got past "the torch" when the controls in front of her lit and the Kuellain's communications officer barked at her. Before he could finish, his captain broke in. Genys let him rage. The translator displayed his words in Alliance Standard on the desktop screen in front of her. She found some amusement in seeing that she translated in her head faster than the computer did. Wexel did have the most up-to-date program, because half a dozen times the program offered multiple translations of several words and phrases. Choosing the wrong interpretation could lead her into trouble. Treinna had once noted that many language experts believed the Ankuar deliberately added words to their language and gave them multiple and often contradictory meanings, just so they could confuse their opponents and claim insult. They were an argument waiting to happen.

  "I have a solution that should salve your wounded dignity," she said, when the captain paused to inhale loudly. The Ankuaran word for "salve" could be translated as strong liniment for poison in the blood or parasites, or a sweet-smelling numbing agent used for little children who skinned their knees. Genys loved how the Ankuar sabotaged themselves in their effort to trip up others.

  "Salve?" Captain Skahndbern made a hack-splat sound. Either he cursed in a dialect she didn't know, or he had spat on his deck.

  "A peace offering, of sorts. A token of friendship. And forgiveness on the part of the Alliance."

  Wexel pressed both hands over his mouth. His eyes looked wet, like he was laughing hard enough to cry.

  "Forgive -- Ankuar? For what?" the other captain roared. The speaker grill rattled from the force of his voice.

  Decker was right. Some parts of Ankuaran voices did rise high enough to be nearly impossible to hear.

  "We are prepared to return to you the bio-terrorist Ankuar has sent wandering through the Alliance for the last twenty-plus years. One Jorono Cynes, breeder and sower of hooples. Only Ankuar schemes, nearly violating all we understand of science and nature, could have come up with the hooples. We have determined that your adamant insistence that there is no such thing as hooples, either mechanical or organic, is clear proof that your ancestors were actually the source of hooples in the universe."

  "Are you insane? Why would --"

  The signal crackled, and Genys guessed someone had slapped the damper on the communication link while they argued with their captain. Or corrected him. As the case might be.

  "He has us right where we want him," she murmured. Wexel sat back in the chair she had been using and gave her a raised eyebrow. He was definitely in wait-and-see mode.

  "Captain Arroyan." The Ankuar captain sounded entirely too jovial. "Mechanical hooples, you say?"

  "Yes. Would you like technical specifications?"

  "Ah, no, thank you. We would prefer to examine these mechanical creatures, to verify if in fact an Ankuaran cultural treasure may have been stolen and adulterated in an attempt to profit from violating serious taboos."

  "I will have my people deliver a sample hoople to your ship as soon as the air has been cleansed in Docking Arm Two."

  "You will hand over all the hooples in your possession." He coughed. "We are sure that a cursory examination will reveal hooples are indeed of
Ankuaran origin, which means it is entirely illegal, a violation of sacred Ankuaran laws, for any inferior race to possess them."

  "This includes the organic hooples, of course, along with their purveyor?" Genys chuckled softly, trying to sound like the dizzy twit the Defender had encountered two years ago, who imagined herself a genius at diplomacy. "Just between you and me and vacuum, we'll be so relieved to get that troublemaker and his smelly little balls of fur off our hands. All they do is eat and breed. There's no controlling them. And the stink! Yeah, can't wait to get all your sacred Ankuaran relics back into your hands. You know how to neutralize the stink, don't you?"

  "No! I mean, no, we want nothing to do with either the criminal or his biological abominations. You don't seem to understand, Captain. What you call hooples are no such things. The criminal thought he could deceive you and us -- well, he certainly deceived you -- by slapping a false name on our Ankuaran treasures. No, just deliver the mechanical. You can deal with the biological."

  "There's something you need to know --"

  "We know all there is to know about our cultural treasures. That will be all." He cut the connection before Genys could say anything more. Maybe he expected her to try to talk him into changing his mind.

  That was the last thing Genys wanted.

  "What did you just accomplish?" Wexel asked.

  "Hopefully, a paralyzed Ankuaran ship. They'll be expecting gas bombs they can take apart and copy and use against us. They won't be expecting sounds and lights that get inside their brains."

  "They'll just blast the mechanical hooples to pieces."

  "Probably. And have nothing left to work from when they try to find the right modulations for the antidote." She leaned back and rubbed at her temples, while Wexel's eyes widened and he slowly smiled, then finally chuckled. "We have it all on record that I tried to warn them, but they cut me off and broke transmission. I'm guessing they'll suffer for at least three ship days before they're miserable enough to ask for help. Or more likely, demand it." She nodded and got up out of the chair before it got too comfortable. "I need to talk with my people, to get that calculation down pat. Care to place a wager?"

  "You're betting on what? How long it takes the entire Ankuar ship to fall victim, or to ask for help?"

  "Hmm, several betting pools." Genys winked and stepped around his desk. Wexel shook her hand as he changed places with her, and was still chuckling when the door to his office hissed closed behind her.

  In the lift going down to the access level for the Defender, she checked with Decker. The situation with the hoople-intoxicated Ankuar had been resolved. First the station asked all the ships docked on that arm to keep their airlocks closed for the next four hours. Then they flooded the general area around the embattled airlock with several "flavors" and strengths of tranquilizer gas. The affected men were right this moment sleeping rather noisily in the Sheffroab Station brig. Decker sent Genys images, complete with sound. There was some comfort in knowing that Ankuar sucked their thumbs when they slept. They also snored loud enough to rattle the lenses of the security monitors focused on them.

  Genys knew better than to congratulate herself on dealing with half the disposal problem of Cynes' hooples. Still, she couldn't resist mentally patting herself on the back, after giving the order to send all the mechanical hooples to the Ankuar ship -- and slip two or three live ones into the crate, as a parting gift.

  "We need to cover our backsides," Veylen said, when Genys finished relating to him over the inter-ship link the discussion with the Ankuar captain.

  "You're right. Admit we did it on purpose, but be as obsequious as possible. Ask Tahl for the right wording, but basically say that we want to be helpful. We included biological hooples so they can do their own comparisons. Our highest concern is to return national and cultural treasures to the race that most deserves them."

  She was still grinning, with Veylen's snickers echoing in her ears, when she stepped out of the lift close to the isolation chambers on the Defender, where the hooples, mechanical and biological, were being kept. Unfortunately, Jorono Cynes had to be held in the brig, instead of in a soundproof, airproof, impervious, dark chamber.

  The sound of a child crying reached her as the door to the isolation anteroom slid open. Ensign Trascue stomped out into the corridor, gripping a weeping Tress Lore by one shoulder. Trascue was still wearing the helmet/breather mask combination Jasper Lore's engineering geniuses had devised, to block the effluvia from both types of hooples.

  Tress wasn't.

  "Aunt Genys!" Tress twisted free of Trascue and hurtled down the corridor, to fling herself at the captain.

  Genys gathered Tress close and then thought about holding her breath, in case any residue of hoople farts clung to the girl. In for a crumb … She took a tentative sniff. The air was clear.

  "Baba, you shouldn't be down here," she said, going down on one knee to look the nine-year-old in the eyes.

  "I know, but …" Tress rubbed her big, teary silver eyes and gave Trascue a look that should have set him on fire. "Aunt M'kar wants hooples to put on the Nisandrian ship."

  "Oh, she does, does she?" Genys found that more than believable, but she couldn't imagine M'kar, even in the depths of hoople-induced insanity, ever asking Tress to do it. "When did she ask you to do it?"

  "Well …" The little girl shrugged and hung her head.

  "Trascue?"

  "Captain." The ensign pulled off his helmet. He looked a little too wide-eyed and pale for someone who had passed Decker's most stringent standards. "Ma'am, she had two of them in her arms. I ran the bio-scan over her before I pulled her out." He swallowed hard and looked down at the child, who was busy studying her interlaced fingers. "Nothing. No effect."

  "Maybe they didn't --"

  "The air was thick enough to see it."

  Chapter Four

  "O -- o -- kay." She wrapped an arm around Tress's skinny shoulders and pulled the little girl against her side. This was going to require some fast thinking, but she had already used up her allotted burst of genius for the day, dealing with the Ankuar. That reminded her. "Veylen is on his way down here to pack up the hooples for shipment."

  "Yes, Ma'am. I was down the corridor, prepping the shipping container. Just long enough for …" He nodded at Tress.

  "Send him to my ready room when the package has been delivered." She gestured at the door. "Come on, baba. We need to have a talk with your mother." She shuddered as a new thought came to her. "And maybe your father."

  "Sorry," Tress whispered, as Genys led her down the corridor to the lift.

  Genys barely heard, her mind whirling. Jasper Lore was something of a mystery. He and a handful of presumed orphans had been found adrift in a derelict ship nearly forty years ago. The ship had been reported damaged and scuttled during a confrontation with Hivers several years before that. There was enough air and heat in the slowly tumbling ship for the children, between the ages of three and five Standard years, to stay alive. They wouldn't freeze, they wouldn't suffocate, but there was no sanitation, very little food or water, and they clung together in the dark for no one knew how long. The children were a mixed bag of every known race at that time. Genetic scans had provided no ties to any known family lines.

  Jasper didn't talk about the mystery of his childhood and origins. Genys only knew because she had grown up with Treinna and was invited to the wedding. There, she met Jasper's family, the children found on the derelict ship. Enough of them were willing to discuss their mysterious origins and search for answers, Genys got the full story during the festivities.

  Figuring out why Tress was immune to the effects of being exposed to hooples might give them a clue to her father's biology and ancestry.

  "Definitely your father," she murmured, as the two stepped into the lift. "He always takes credit for anything incredible you do, so he might as well take the blame for this, too." She grinned down at the little girl. The answering grin trembled just a bit and Tress leaned in cl
oser to her. The tension leaking out of her skinny frame was like loosening all the strings on a lithrette.

  Genys sent a request for Treinna, via call code in her tool wristband, to meet her in her ready room. No need to get everyone within hearing range speculating by making audible contact.

  "Do you know what you did?" she asked Tress, as the lift stopped and swooshed open on the deck below the bridge.

  Security sensors wouldn't allow the child onto the bridge, so they had to take the access hall on the deck below and climb half a level to the ready room, half a level down from the bridge. Genys appreciated the precautions. The security regulations had helped innumerable captains through the decades say no to all sorts of pushy envoys and diplomats and passengers. The ones with an inflated sense of importance and the belief that "rules are for everyone else." Those regulations also prohibited the presence of children who could be trusted to come on the bridge and not touch every blinking panel and trigger an intergalactic incident.

  "I should have asked before I took a hoople. Are you really going to give them all to the Ankuar?" Tress's eyes got wide as she and Genys entered the ready room. "Isn't that mean?"

  "To who?" Genys muttered. "No meaner than putting hooples on a Nisandrian ship. Do you think they'll be any nicer to hooples than the Ankuar would be?"

  Tress pursed her lips in thought and settled down on the first chair in the sunken conversation pit to one side of the ready room. She sighed. "The Nisandrians are really mean to Aunt M'kar. And she says hooples don't have enough brains to feel if they got hurt, so …" She cringed as the door on the upper level swooshed open and Treinna stepped into the ready room from the bridge.