“Cap’n? Picking something on sensors,” Xuilan reported, two days after Gyrfalcon departed from Bzaachyojdham.

“Is it Yīqún?” Remi queried, as the bridge crew instantly went on high alert.

Working to clear up the signal, the pilot finally shook her head. “No, definitely not,” she reported, much to the relief of the others. “Signal return shows something much larger… battlecruiser, maybe.” She scowled as she worked to refine the data before looking back at her commander. “It’s Tu’udh’hizh’ak, and it appears to be drifting. I’m reading elevation radiation levels, signs of vented plasma, and its engines are offline.” She met Remi’s gaze. “It may not be Yīqún, but it looks like they tangled with them.”

The captain leaned back in his chair and considered that. “Any signs of life?” he asked her.

Xuilan shrugged. “Hard to say, Cap’n. Not getting any comm traffic, and I’m not seeing thrusters or anything else under manual control. It’s possible there are survivors, but there’s no way to tell from here.”

“What are you thinking, Cap’n?” Slavko inquired.

“I’m thinking it might be worth a look,” Remi mused. “Could be something of value aboard.”

“Too bad our cargo holds are full,” Xuilan pouted.

“If their databases are still intact, that could prove valuable in its own right,” he said thoughtfully. “Plus there’s bound to be a few odds and ends lying around we can find room for.” The pair grinned in anticipation as Remi thumbed the intercom button. “Isi, Mairead, suit up. A target of opportunity just presented itself.”

The other crew members commed their acknowledgment as he nodded at his gunner. “Slavko, you’re with me. Xuilan, slave his console to yours. If that ship powers up weapons, dissuade them.”

“With all of you on board?” she said apprehensively.

“If you could avoid killing us, that would be appreciated,” he grinned. “I’ll keep an open link so you can track us. Questions?”

“No Cap’n,” she answered. “Be careful.”

“We will,” he assured her, as the two men headed aft. They met Mairead and Isi near the airlock, the pair already donning suits. Entering his command authorization, Remi opened the weapons locker and started doling out boarding gear. Slavko accepted a riot gun with a drum magazine, checking its action before securing it to his harness, while Isi took a heavy plasma thrower. Mairead reluctantly procured a sidearm, strapping it down opposite her favorite wrench. Never entirely comfortable with firearms, the Tinker at least recognized her preferred weapon’s lack of range. Remi was handing out grenades when Genvass appeared in their midst.

“I overheard the message,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Salvage job,” Remi explained, lifting out his own weapons of choice; a slug-throwing sub gun and a beefy beam pistol, slipping them both into their custom holsters.

The Dharmist looked askance at the arsenal being parceled out. “... salvage?”

“Sometimes the original owners don’t like to share,” Slavko explained, clipping the grenades to his web belt.

“I see,” Genvass said carefully. He observed their preparations in silence until finally speaking up once more. “May I join you?” he asked.

The others froze. “Why would you want to do that?” Remi asked casually.

Genvass struggled to respond. “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I spent my entire life hidden away from the realities most Terrans face daily. Ever since the last mission, I’ve been trying to expand my boundaries, but there are still plenty of things I haven’t done.” He nodded at their gear. “Like this.”

Remi folded his arms as he regarded him. “You ever been part of a boarding action? Ever used a weapon… hell, ever held a weapon before?”

“No,” he shrugged.

“And yet you want to board a Tu’udh’hizh’ak battlecruiser, potentially filled with hundreds of Chell, ordered to fight to the last, and for what? The experience?” He shook his head. “This isn’t a pleasure cruise, and I’m not a tour guide. Forget it.”

“Captain, I can be of service,” he said in a rush. “I speak Chell fluently, remember? What if you need to communicate with the crew? Or decipher some bit of data you find?” Genvass pointed out, pleading his case.

“Not a lot of conversation during a boarding action,” Slavko chuckled, cradling his helmet, only to stare at his captain in alarm as Remi held up his hand.

“You realize if there are Chell aboard, they’re not likely to be in a talkative mood,” the captain pointed out. “It’s far more likely they’ll just shoot you full of holes, without bothering to say ‘Hi’,” he informed the Dharmist, approaching him. “Your inexperience could get you killed, or worse, get us killed, so you need to come up with a better reason than wanting to fill out your bucket list.”

Genvass stared at the deck, working his jaw. “The other clans have long accused us Dharmists of being traitors,” he said quietly, though they could hear the anger in his words he was desperately trying to suppress. “Collaborators, alien-lovers, sellouts, quislings, suck-ups, heretics… oh, I’ve heard them all. All the accusations we were taking the easy road, that we had abandoned humanity. No one ever says that about the Avatars, or the Proteans, no matter how queasy they might make them feel. No, they still get a pass, they’re still considered ‘human’. But not us.”

He lifted his head and glared back at the captain. “If my clan is to ever be accepted as equals, it will only come if they see us share the same hardships, take the same risks, hazard the same fate. I’m fighting for not only the lives of my people, captain, but their dignity as well.” He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. “I can be of use,” he petitioned the Corsair, “and I won’t let you down. Please… let me do this.”

The two men stared silently at one another, neither of them moving, while the crew looked on in morbid fascination while holding their collective breath. Finally, Remi reached into the locker and pulled out a compact beam pistol, holding it up to him. “This light shows green, it’s safe. Flip this switch here,” he pointed out, “and it glows red, which means it’s ready to fire. You stay in the rear, you do exactly as I say, and if you shoot one of us, it’ll be the last mistake you ever make.” His eyes bored into the Dharmist’s. “Are we clear on the rules?”

“Yes, captain,” he swallowed, “quite clear.”

Remi gave the Dharmist a final once-over, before handing him the weapon.

“Then gear up.”

Unsurprisingly, they had to hold Genvass’ hand as they transferred over to the Tu’udh’hizh’ak ship. Remi had considered taking the shuttle over, but if the Chell were still actively defending their ship, it made for a rather convenient target. Instead, they went EVA, with Xuilan piloting Gyrfalcon to a safe stand-off distance once she made the drop. Isi took charge of the Dharmist, shepherding him across the gap by tether, his calm and reassuring nature making the transit a much smoother journey for all concerned.

Remi and Mairead landed on the hull first, near an Emergency Airlock, followed by the others. “We’ve landed,” he informed the ship. “No problems yet.”

“Copy,” Xuilan replied. “Keep this link open.”

“Count on it,” he growled, glancing to confirm there was no one in sight before stepping aside. Mairead moved in to check the controls. “Power’s offline,” she announced. “It’ll take me a few minutes to engage the manual override.”

“As quickly as you can,” he urged her, before checking on the others. Slavko and Isi were old hands at this, and both were doing exactly what they were supposed to be. Genvass seemed to be looking in a dozen directions at once, no easy feat in a suit. Switching to a private comm channel, he spoke to the Dharmist directly.

“Do I need to leave you outside?” he demanded. “I’m not taking you if you’re having a meltdown.”

His breaths were quick and ragged as he struggled to respond. “I’m… okay,” he gasped. “Just… getting… my bearings.”

“Get it together,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for this shit.” He glared at the Dharmist, though he couldn’t see his expression through the tinted visor. His words seemed to have struck a chord, as he watched him struggle to regain control. Genvass’ movements became less frantic, his breathing now noticeably less like hyperventilating and better regulated. It still couldn’t be called good, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it was appreciably better.

“Got it!” Mairead announced as she cracked open the airlock’s outer door. Slavko joined her and helped muscle it completely aside as they entered the enclosed space one by one. The Tinker went to the inner door and plugged into its controls, examining the conditions inside.

“I’m reading some power, but it’s weak and sporadic,” she informed him. “If I had to guess, I’d say they were down to batteries. No air on the other side, though. Looks like this section’s been holed.”

“Copy that,” Remi nodded, as he started passing orders. “Once you get it open, Isi and I will take the lead. Slavko, you’ve got trail, and Mairead, you hang in the center. Genvass, you’re between them. Stay out of their way and don’t make me regret this.”

“Yes, captain,” the Dharmist said nervously.

There was a tremor beneath their feet as the inner door lurched open in fits and starts, before finally grinding to a halt just shy of a complete cycle. “Good enough,” Remi shrugged, as he and the purser stepped through the hatch, each immediately facing out as they swept the corridor.

Debris lay scattered throughout the space, while a handful of bodies were visible as well. Here and there electrical currents arced and sparked, further signs of just how badly damaged the ship was. “Clear,” Isi announced after a moment.

“Clear,” Remi confirmed. Taking his bearings, he gestured forward with his weapon. “Bridge is that way,” he informed them. “Move out.”

The group cautiously made their way down the passageway, pausing to check the intersections and open hatches. Remi called a brief halt while he inspected a Chell corpse, the body’s condition telling him a great deal.

“Explosive decompression,” he said grimly, spotting bloody discharge from the eyes, mouth, and ears. A quick glance at the other bodies confirmed his suspicions. “None are in suits,” he observed. “The Yīqún must have ambushed them.”

“Typical,” Slavko grunted from the rear.

Glancing back at the team, he spotted Genvass hovering over the cadaver. “You still with us?” he snapped.

The Dharmist’s head snapped up. “Yes… I’m fine,” he swallowed.

“Uh-huh…” Shaking his head, Remi headed out once more, as the group… with one exception… moved like a well-oiled machine. They were forced to detour around one section where the ship no longer existed, as if some giant predator had come up beside it and taken a bite. It was far more likely an explosion had caused the damage, of course, but he couldn’t quite shake the mental image of some enormous space-shark swimming through the cosmos, attacking ships at random.

Terra knew it wouldn’t be the strangest thing he’d ever stumbled across in the Perseus Arm.

They worked their way through the Tu’udh’hizh’ak ship, pausing here and there to examine areas of interest, but nothing worth salvaging made an appearance. Actually, that wasn’t exactly true. There were a few items they might have grabbed under normal conditions, but given their current mission, the lack of space back on Gyrfalcon, not to mention Genvass tagging along, Remi kept them moving forward instead. They’d found no survivors, though they hadn’t checked the locked hatches. It was possible some were trapped in various locations throughout the ship, but they weren’t aboard on a rescue mission. If there were survivors, they were on their own.

There was one section of the ship Remi was intensely curious about, and after conferring with Mairead… or more accurately, once she’d plugged in and found some schematics… they’d taken an alternative route until they found what he’d been searching for. It was an enormous risk, but as they forced open the hatch, the group stared in horror.

While the mammalian Chell were the empire’s labor and military force, the amphibian Tu’udh’hizh’ak themselves were its true masters. The last time the Admiral had sent Gyrfalcon off on a special assignment, they’d uncovered many secrets, not the least of which was that “Masters” were telepaths, mentally coercing the Chell to do their bidding. They’d kept that hidden from the other races, though of course now the secret was out, thanks to them. Aboard ship, they lived in a carefully recreated aquatic environment, their every need seen to by their brainwashed slaves as they swam amidst the fronds of their faux lagoon.

The water had all boiled off, ablated away into space once the Master’s chamber had been exposed to vacuum. Dried mud caked the inside of the compartment, while scattered bits of plant life were spackled everywhere they looked. There were bodies here as well, both Master and servant, but that wasn’t what had left them nauseous and dismayed.

There were perhaps half a dozen of the Tu’udh’hizh’ak scattered across the chamber, their elongated bodies and triangular heads in stark contrast to the furry Chell…. and before each Master’s body lie a pile of their equally dead slaves, many of them clutching what appeared to be Emergency Rebreathers.

It was all too clear that none of the rebreathers had been used by the Chell.

“Holy Mother Terra,” Isi whispered, the normally sanguine purser thunderstruck at the sight.

“... they let themselves die,” Mairead said quietly, her voice threatening to crack. “They had life-saving oxygen in their very grasp, but…” she trailed off, unable to finish.

“But instead of saving themselves, they gave it to their masters,” Remi finished, shaking his head, “because they didn’t have a choice. Worse, it honored them to do it.” The others turned to him, as the true depth of the tragedy was made brutally clear. “It was all they knew.”

“As much as I wanna blame them for unleashing the Yīqún, after seeing something like this?” Slavko’s tones were hushed and subdued. “Man, I fucking get it. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate them,” he said in a rush, “… but I get it.”

Genvass had remained silent until now but could contain himself no longer. “No, the worst part is it didn’t make one damn bit of difference,” he said bitterly. “The Chell might have made it somewhere safe, a few of them at least… but the Tu’udh’hizh’ak? Even with that bottled air, they only survived a couple of minutes before the vacuum sucked them dry.”

“And by then, the Chell were already dead,” Isi said sadly. “What a goddamn waste.”

They stared at that awful tableau, frozen, until Remi finally snarled.

“... Fuck the Troika.”