An elderly woman wearing a respirator, a long black polymer trench coat, and leather gloves and boots along with a person completely obscured by a level IV hazmat suit approached the guards in front of Holbrooke Academy.

“Halt!” a Threen shouted.

“Hello there!” the old woman said cheerfully. “We’re here to pick up Thomas and Elizabeth Glint.”

“This educational facility is quarantined! Nobody leaves!”

“Oh, that’s ok,” the woman said, her eyes smiling. “My friend here is a doctor and has a clinical scanner. He can clear them no problem!”

“That’s not how it works, human! By order of the Federation Emergency Council this place is quarantined until such time as it is cleared. Until released by the Planetary Emergency Committee nobody leaves!”

“I’m sure they are very busy,” the woman said pleasantly. “We can help! We have a clinical scanner and someone fully qualified in its use. We could clear the whole school if you want. We don’t mind!”

“No. Leave the area!”

“Look, it’s just two little humans. If they aren’t contaminated then what’s the harm?” she asked. “Maybe we could come to a little… unofficial arrangement? You guys can’t be getting paid that much, far less than you deserve. We are fully prepared to correct that injustice if you get my meaning.”

“Attempting to bribe a Federation officer is against the law. Are you trying to get detained?”

“Bribe? Oh you misunderstood me. I wasn’t offering a bribe! Perish the thought,” the woman said in a pleasant voice. “Last chance. You really want to hand over those kids,” she added in a less pleasant one.

“You humans are all alike,” the Threen sneered. “Too good for Federation regulations… and look where that’s gotten you.”

The Threen loomed over the small old woman in a threatening manner.

“Now leave before you get something else you have comin’.”

“Ok… Calm down. We’re going,” the woman smiled. “We just wanted to try to talk things over with you guys first before we… escalated the situation.”

“Escalate away, human. Cry to whoever you want. It won’t change nothin’!”

The old woman just smiled and walked away. As she left the walkway to the school and started to walk up the street she activated the com-link in her mask.

“They didn’t go for it. Light 'em up.”

***

“Roger that,” Shawn Vance said from the inside of an armored grav-dozer. He picked up the mic of a radio set.

“All teams. We are a go. Repeat. We are a go. Activate the signal jammers. All teams, start on my mark. Three… Two… One… Mark!”

The dozer’s massive thrusters engaged as it and two other vehicles started to move towards the school.

Vance looked over at a young woman next to him. She was breathing heavily.

“First time?” he asked with a paternal smile.

She just nodded.

“This is a good one to cut your teeth on,” he said as he looked at a screen in front of him. “We have overwhelming force. Those bastards don’t stand a chance. Just shoot anything that looks like it wants to shoot back and don’t get shot yourself. Pretty simple.”

She just nodded again and gave him a nervous smile as she gripped her gauss needler. Vance just chuckled and gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder.

“Just stick with me and you’ll be fine,” he said with a little laugh. “Don’t worry, we’ve done this sort of thing before.”

***

The guards looked at the construction vehicles curiously as they drove up.

“Is there any construction planned around here?” the leader of the group asked as the armored bulldozer and two armored grav-vans glided to a stop.

“No,” another Threen replied looking at a tablet. “But that doesn’t mean that these pork-”

He was cut short as a hellish stream of blinding white bolts spewed from the dozer. Three millimeter tungsten alloy needles accelerated to beyond hypersonic speed ripped through the air with a deafening roar. The needles, white hot and jacketed by the plasma created as they ablated in the air tore through the guard’s standard issue soft armor and once inside anything moist instantly flashed to steam.

The guards were literally blown apart from the inside.

The grav-dozer easily knocked over the barriers leading to parking lot and all three vehicles rushed in.

***

Vance, holding a European Union gauss heavy machine gun, kicked his way through the already shattered front doors. He nodded approvingly. Using the tungsten anti-personnel rounds was a good choice. The needles that missed what was left of the guards just disintegrated when they hit the doors, ripping them apart. There was very little over-penetration.

Flanked by his team he advanced into the hallway.

There were shouts and scrambling from an office ahead. He could hear a non-human voice shouting into a communicator in vain.

There was no help coming for these Feds.

Two Feds, holding blaster rifles, tried to rush into the hall. With an expert flick of the barrel, the gauss machine gun, now set to less than fifteen percent power (so he could fire it from the hip without the recoil sending him flying) sent a stream of glowing orange streaks into them both.

While the effect was less spectacular the result was the same.

Vance swept into the office from which they came. Less than two seconds later it was over. Everyone inside was dead.

“Security center is clear,” he said calmly into his mask. “Teams two and three secure the kids. Team one, we are heading to the admin office.”

“Team two, roger,” an elderly woman’s voice responded.

“Team three, roger,” a youthful male voice replied.

Vance, machine gun at the ready, walked down the middle of the hallway. His finger instinctively sought a faintly glowing icon on the touch panel mounted on the side of the weapon. The weapon’s powerful scanners switched on and a holographic array projected on the walls detailed images of the rooms behind them as he swept the muzzle back and forth.

“Woah!” the young woman said behind him.

Vance just smiled and kept walking.

“Med-team,” he said as he continued his march, “how are we looking?”

“Everything is clean so far,” a female’s voice responded. “No signs of the virus.”

“Thank God for that,” Vance replied as he reached the school’s main office. He swept the wall with the machine gun. There were six people inside.

It looked like they were hiding under desks.

He booted the door open and rushed inside.

“Everybody up and against the wall!” Vance shouted, “NOW!” People started getting to their feet.

“You too, Vulxeen!” he shouted at the xeno still cowering. “These needles will go right through that desk, no problem!”

The Vulxeen, wearing a Federation uniform, reluctantly got to his feet.

“Please…” the Vulxeen stammered, his fleshy mouth parts quivering. “Please don’t kill me!”

“Wasn't planning on it,” Vance replied, “but I am rather short on patience.”

He glared at the room.

“So what’s the deal? Why aren’t these kids getting scanned and released?”

“We don’t have a scanner,” a nicely dressed human female replied in a frightened voice.

“What? Then how are you testing them?”

“We are supposed to observe them and notify the Emergency Council if any develop symptoms.”

“By the time that happens they are already contagious!” Vance shouted. He turned to the Vulxeen. “This is your plan?!?! Just lock them up until they start dying and then let them?!?!? And you,” he shouted as he turned to the humans. “You just went along with this?”

“The Federation...” one of the humans stammered.

“Fuck the Federation!” Vance yelled. “Things are changing and fast. You little shits need to decide whose side you are on and you need to do it now! You-”

CrackCrackCrackCrackCrack

He was cut off by a burst from a gauss rifle. He rapidly turned to see the Vulxeen falling to the ground with a pistol in its hand.

He glanced back at the young woman behind him, gripping a gauss rifle in her shaking hands.

She looked like she was about to throw up.

“Thanks,” Vance said calmly and winced. He didn’t see the gun when he swept the room. That could have cost him.

“As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted,” Vance said in a calm, pleasant voice. “You need to decide if you are a Fed or a Human and you need to do it quick. ID. Now.” Vance said gesturing at one of the people.

When they handed it over he put it in a police issue ID scanner and then flipped their ID onto the floor.

“I got your name. Now we are going to leave a scanner behind. You will use it to scan these kids and release them. If you do not then your name will go on a list.” He smiled malevolently. “That list? It’s going to the clans. You don’t want to be on it.”

He started to back out of the room.

“Let’s go,” he said calmly. “Grab that pistol and those blasters the guards had. They’re better than those dime store needlers you are packing.”

He activated his radio.

“Status,” he barked.

“Team two. We have Elizabeth. She’s clean. We are heading to the vans.”

“Team three. Thomas is clean. We’re pulling out.”

“Excellent work,” Vance replied. “Team three, leave your scanner for these nice people.”

“Roger.”

“Let’s get out of here. Team four cover us until we are clear. All teams meet at rendezvous point theta. Team one out.”

There was a retching noise at his left. He turned to see the young woman tossing her cookies.

“It gets easier,” he said sadly.

***

Jon’s team was in the process of loading and securing their gear in the Wayward Soles. Jon looked over at Beth, one of the two man crew.

If looks could kill the cargo bay would be a very messy place.

Jon walked over to her.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Oh no problem,” Beth spat. “My ship is fucking infested with Terrans, that’s all. No problem… No fucking problem...”

Scales walked over with a worried look in his four eyes.

“Um Beth, maybe you’d like to maybe take a break on the bridge… or in your quarters… or...”

“No,” Jon replied. “I think we need to have this out and over with.” He turned back to Beth. “Are we going to have a problem?”

“No,” she sneered. “We are your happy little taxi drivers! We’ll take you wherever, whenever. Whatever you assholes want we are delighted to oblige.”

“We are going to take good care of you,” Scales said firmly. “Regardless of how we might feel about you, we will do exactly what is expected of us.”

“How ‘we might feel about you’?” Jon asked.

“I will be honest with you,” Scales replied. “I hate you fuckers too. But, we owe the Cabal big time and this one job will make us square. We do this, no matter how distasteful we might think it is, and we are free of them for good… or at least in a much better negotiating position if they should ever want our services in the future.”

“So you don’t like us but you are following orders?”

“Pretty much,” Scales replied. “We owe the Cabal a considerable amount of credits as a result of… an unfortunate series of events that had us both completely without funds and in a very difficult position from a legal standpoint. The Cabal bailed us out, repaired and improved our ship, and made those legal issues disappear. As you can guess that wasn’t for free.” Scales made an unpleasant expression. “From time to time we are given ‘an opportunity’ to alleviate some portion of that debt. This one job will erase the remainder. We hold our noses, do right by you… people… and we are free and clear. That’s enough inducement. That and a combination of professional pride and a desire to not cross the Cabal guarantees your safety even if we both would be delighted to see you all perish.”

“I gotta check the engine room,” Beth snarled and stomped off.

“Since I guess we are going to be happiest keeping the chatting to a minimum,” Jon said with a smile, “let’s get this over with. What are your qualifications? I can guess that the Cabal didn’t just send any freighter.”

“You would be correct, Mr. Wintersmith,” Scales smiled. “Both Beth and myself are former Federation Navy, part of the Exploration and Navigation, division.”

“Special operations?”

“Yes, we primarily worked in observation and signal intercept, during our time in the Navy.”

“Trawlers?” Jon asked, rather impressed.

“Yes, I believe that is your quaint name for them.” Scales replied. “We flew deep penetration surveillance and signal intercept missions. We are… quite familiar with Republic space and know how to move through it without notice. You are in good hands with us whether we like it or not,” Scales smirked.

“How did two elite sailors wind up… well, where you have?”

“The same reason that so many of your people are now in the same occupation, the war,” Scales said. “The whole thing was bullshit and the way we handled it… and then to just roll over like we did… ugh… We were done. We could have crushed you. We should have crushed you!”

“Guess that’s easier said than done, huh?” Jon replied with a smirk.

“Done?!? We didn’t even fucking try!” Scales exclaimed. “We had both the ability and thanks to you asshats clear justification to fucking glass your miserable asses! Did we? No!”

“Yeah… but getting that ability in range and keeping it in range long enough would have cost you,” Jon smiled. “It might have cost you more than you could pay.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah...” Scales muttered, “We already heard that. Trust me. We heard that plenty! Fucking Admirals scared of a real fight! That’s all it was! They just sat there and masturbated to their AI’s and sucked off the Council by sending ships to every fucking system with a little bit of pull instead of where we should have been sending them while you assholes were happily hitting anywhere they didn't! Then instead of committing the resources to build the fleet we would need to do the job and could have built they just decided to roll over and quit! Fucking gutless! The lot of them! We just sat there like training hulks waiting for our turn to suck vacuum while they ate hundred credit lunches and bitched about the price of hull plates! Fuck them and fuck you too!”

“You do realize that one of the things we are trying to prevent is another war, right?” Jon replied.

“Oh thank you for protecting us!” Scales replied bowing low. “Whatever would we do without you big strong Terrans looking out for us little puny little Feds.”

“Well you are most certainly welcome,” Jon replied with a grin, “and I think you know perfectly well what you fucking Feds would do without us on this one, don’t you?”

“… I gotta check the scanners,” Scales spat. “Just stay down here and out of our way.”

With that Scales also stomped off.

Skippy laughed as she loped up.

“Could have found us bigger assholes?” Jon chuckled.

“We couldn’t find anyone who could both do the job and kiss your ass,” she laughed as she put her arm around him and nuzzled his neck. “They are assholes but they are the best. These guys can land you right in front of the Republic Parliament if you ask them to. I’m not kidding. They are that good.”

She broke out into giggles.

“Oh, you should have seen the looks on their faces when we told them. It was fucking hilarious! I thought the human was going to have an internal hemorrhage,” she laughed. “I knew you humans could curse but damn, that little thing can outdo a Xvli!”