MARION “MOPS” ADAMOPOULOS’ twelve years in Hygiene and Sanitation Services had left her little time for sightseeing. At least, not the kind of sights any human in their right mind wanted to see.
Despite incidents like the semi-ambulatory brown mold on deck E, courtesy of a contaminated bottle of illegal shell-thickening supplements smuggled aboard by one of the Krakau crew, Mops had never complained about her work. She’d considered herself fortunate, one of the few humans to be given a second chance. Her species had turned itself into monsters. The Krakau had found a way to save some of them. In Mops’ judgment, she and her fellow humans owed the Krakau everything.
And then she’d learned how the Krakau and their cold-water cousins, the Rokkau, had been the ones to tear down humanity in the first place, and how they’d spent a hundred and fifty years covering it up.
Mops had complained quite a bit more after that.
Stealing the EMCS Pufferfish and searching for proof of the Krakau Alliance’s crimes had given her the opportunity to see so much more. Again, few of these sights were ones she would have chosen. Like the swarming lights that signified an incoming missile barrage from a Prodryan attack force, or the aftermath of explosive decompression on the ship’s algae tanks following a lucky A‑gun shot by an EMC scout ship.
But every once in a great while, she got to appreciate a sight like the one currently displayed on her monocle, a sight that filled her with awe and reminded her how vast and wondrous the galaxy truly was. She wanted to reach through the emptiness and touch the marvels floating before them.
To her left, Wolf said, “Those are some big damn space fish.”
And just like that, the moment was past, as dead as the bag of spikeshell snails Wolf had brought onto the shuttle for a crunchy snack.
“Yes,” Mops sighed. “Yes, they are.”
The big damn space fish were called Comaceans. The closest member of the herd drifted roughly ten kilometers in front of the Pufferfish shuttle. Far in the background, the gas dwarf Tixateq floated like a swirling red-and-yellow marble.
The Comacean that was their destination stretched almost a kilometer in length. Its blue-black skin shone in the light of the distant sun. Fins as long as an EMC cruiser extended outward from the tubelike body, not for navigation, but to help the creature shed excess body heat.
Reluctantly, Mops turned her focus to the far less awe- inspiring sight of the shuttle interior. “Prep for approach, people.”
Wolfgang Mozart—communications technician, would‑be soldier, and the largest member of Mops’ small crew—was stretched out on one of the fold-out metal benches running lengthwise through the cabin. Wolf sat up and brought a muscular hand to her mouth, smothering a yawn. Her brown hair was a short, unkempt mess. Moving at a lackluster pace, she brushed shell crumbs from the front of her black uniform, then secured the attachment points on her equipment harness to matching buckles on the cabin wall, locking her in place.
Sitting alone on the opposite bench, Vera Rubin double-checked her own harness. Rubin was a former security grunt who’d risked her life helping Mops in a shootout a while back. Dark scars marked the side of her face and neck. Around her neck, a clear teardrop- shaped pendant three centimeters wide held a tiny microbiome of water, algae, and a pair of pink alien maggots—two of the dozen or so “pets” she’d brought with her when she joined the Pufferfish crew. She tucked the pendant inside her uniform before tightening her harness.
“Anyone else find this creepy as hell?” asked Wolf. “That thing’s as big as the moon, and we’re gonna march into its belly?”
“The Comacean is only a fraction of the size and mass of Earth’s moon,” Rubin corrected. “And we’ll be meeting our contact in one of her lungs. That’s where the main biorefinery operation is set up.”
Wolf snorted. “What happens if the damn thing sneezes?”
“We’d be crushed and expelled through the blowhole, along with a substantial mass of crystalized mucus, but that’s highly unlikely. There’s only been one recorded Comacean sneeze in the past fifty years.” Rubin’s gaze appeared unfocused—probably watching the approach on her optical implant. “The Quetzalus install nerve blockers to prevent coughing, sneezing, vomiting, and flatulence. The real concern is hiccups. They haven’t found a cure for those yet.”
Wolf chuckled, then frowned. “You’re joking, right?”
Rubin ignored the question. “She’s beautiful.”
“How do you know it’s female?” asked Mops.
“She’s larger than the males, and her belly is smooth instead of ribbed. I wonder what her name is.”
“According to the briefing, ‘Biorefinery Eighteen,’ ” said Wolf.
Comaceans spent most of their lives in hibernation. Traversing the emptiness between Tixateq 1 and its sister planet took decades. It would be thirty-six years before the herd of more than a hundred Comaceans would reach Tixateq 2 to awaken to feed and mate. Then, once the planet’s orbit took them farther from the warmth and blue-white light of the sun, they would begin the long return journey to Tixateq 1.
In the interim, the Quetzalus harvested eighteen different substances from inside the largest of the creatures, including two mineral compounds, a raw form of a potent Glacidae narcotic, and a gel that had proven to be highly effective in fighting Krakau sucker-fungus.
Monroe twisted around in the cockpit, his white-haired head poking through the narrow doorway to the cabin. He was former infantry, and one of only two people on Mops’ team who’d proven they could get through the various piloting simulators without multiple casualties and/ or explosions. “I’ve got a yellow blinker on the communications console. Is that a problem?”
“That should be the landing beacon,” said Wolf. “Have they assigned us a docking platform yet?”
It wasn’t that Mops’ team was inexperienced. It was that their experience was with things like unclogging plumbing lines and swapping out filters in the ship’s environmental system. Nothing in their time keeping the Pufferfish relatively clean had prepared them for the work involved in running the entire ship. Four months of tutorials and on‑the-job practice couldn’t make up for official training and experience.
Monroe’s years with the EMC infantry had given him a slightly wider range of experience. A Prodryan grenade had put an end to his infantry service. Krakau surgeons had replaced his right arm, along with a good chunk of his torso. He wore his hair long over the right side of his head, hiding the scars where his ear used to be.
His sense of balance had never fully recovered, but his discipline had made him an invaluable second‑in‑command. More importantly, Mops trusted him.
“They’re sending us to platform three.” Monroe tapped the console, transferring an image to the green- tinted monocles worn by the team.
Mops studied their destination. Pinpoints of light surrounded a metal blister forty meters ahead of a dorsal fin. Two additional lights flashed at a circular platform to one side.
“I tried to acknowledge,” Monroe continued. “That should be the blue one, right? Nothing happened.”
“You’re still on intersystem communications. You need to switch to intrasystem.” Wolf unclipped her harness and squeezed through to take the copilot seat. “Move over.” After a moment’s silence, she added, “Sir.”
Rank and discipline had eroded since they’d turned their backs on the EMC, but there were limits to what Mops and Monroe would put up with. Wolf spent most of her time testing or skipping blithely past those limits.
“Landing instructions received and acknowledged,” Wolf announced. “Cut speed and close distance to two kilometers. They’ll bring us in from there using grav beams.”
A minute later, the shuttle jerked like they’d hit something. Mops gripped her harness as her internal organs tried to jump out from beneath her rib cage. For several seconds, she felt like she was falling in two different directions at once.
Monroe swore. “Forgot to synch the shuttle’s gravity with the Comacean grav beams. Hold on.”
The vertigo ended. Mops jerked back, banging her head against the wall.
“Sorry about that,” said Monroe.
“As long as we’re in one piece, I’m happy.” Mops lowered her voice. “We are still in one piece, right?”
“So far,” responded Doc, a personal AI unit who existed primarily as code etched into the layered memory crystal of Mops’ monocle. His voice came from the speakers in her uniform collar, pitched low so no one else would overhear. “Based on your previous missions, I estimate a sixty- three percent chance of that continuing.”
“I appreciate your confidence,” Mops said dryly. “Monroe, any sign of EMC vessels?”
“Nothing but the Comacean herd and a few Quetzalus transports.” Monroe popped a bubble of green gum, filling the cabin with the scent of cucumber and tomato. He’d been chewing salad- flavored gum lately. “The shuttle’s scanners aren’t as sensitive as the Pufferfish’s, but they’ll alert us to any deceleration signatures in the system. If the Alliance shows up, we’ll see ’em in plenty of time to pull out.”
“What’s so important we gave up searching for the Rokkau prison planet to come here, anyway?” asked Wolf.
“All Admiral Pachelbel told me was that it’s vital we meet with this person, for the sake of both Earth and the Alliance.” Mops had known Pachelbel for most of her life. The admiral couldn’t openly assist wanted criminals, but she sympathized with Mops and her goals. She’d done what she could to help them from the shadows.
Mops opened the collar of her uniform to pull out the flexible bubble-style helmet. “Everyone seal up.”
Mops secured the clear material over her head and sealed the edge to the front of her collar, then bent down to pull the tabs that would seal the...