Voustrets’ ear flicked. “While I appreciate your concern…”

“Do it!”

“While I appreciate your concern, Dene, our efforts must be towards the stabilizing, yes?”

“Nothing’s going to be stable if that ship gets away! Do you know how much poison they have on there?”

“No. Nor do you.” said Voustrets sharply. “We do not know if they, heh, stabilized their chemical, or whether it will degrade immediately. Those who processed it are dead. Elistary is as well. We must look to our immediate needs, tend to the wounds of our injured Nerre companion and your Tompar friend…”

“That won’t matter!” barked Dene.

“Uh… wolfess?” said Siertes cautiously. “I can see why they don’t want to move kitty. I know you want us all out by the road, but kitty has been through a lot…”

He had. Kran, the biker wolf, looked more and more worried, tending Rai as Rai’s energy dropped, as he grew weaker. He wasn’t lying in a pool of blood- but that said nothing of what was happening inside him. He stared fixedly, his ears flattened. He panted. He didn’t protest or complain when Kran placed his ear to Rai’s chest.

“Is his heart supposed to be going like that? Like- bud-a-bud-a-bud-a-bud-a…”

“Very likely not.” said Voustrets. “You’re not to move him, Dene.”

This didn’t hold her for long. “Boodins!”

“Just a minute.” said Siertes. “Listen. Listen, crazy wolfess! Yes. You’re my naive darling, my fluffy thing. I don’t like seeing you this desperate.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it matters.” said Dene bitterly.

“You’re breaking your own heart, trying to fight something that’s impossible. Please. I love you. I want the beauty of you in what time I have left.”

“Well, then, I’m just being like you, because you used to try to fight the impossible. It showed in everything you did. Now it seems like you give up. Did you think I was just a decoration? A… a tongue cozy? Siertes!”

“We’ve got this saying,” said Siertes, “just a word- ‘is’- and it means, your doom is for you and is your most precious possession because it is yours…”

“If that’s true, then sit down and stop arguing with me. Come on! If you’ve really given up, prove it. Sit down by Rai and don’t do anything.”

Siertes’ eyes flashed, then gradually got very sad. It was hard to tell on so fierce-looking a creature, with the glower of her brows, the unforgiving contours of her reptilian face, but somehow the sadness got through- and she went quietly, and sat down by Rai, and looked inquiringly up at Dene.

“And shut the fuck up!” added Dene, trembling. “Boodins!”

“Yo!” said Boodins brightly, while Siertes muttered, “Because I’ve been noisy, I guess… right?”

“Follow me!” snapped Dene, and trotted off toward the highway, some distance off.

“What’re you doing?” called Siertes.

“Gonna stop a car!”

You couldn’t see the base from the highway, it was little more than a path leading into the woods at the foot of the mountains. Dene and Boodins studied the road. They were off the main high-speed conduit, on a road that led from nowhere in particular to nowhere else of importance, perhaps a precursor to the main highway, and even as they’d travelled here there had been few other travellers- just them, and the biker gang pursuing them.

At the time this had been an advantage, for Dene had to keep the car on the road and had little attention left to avoid traffic.

Now, it was more of a handicap.

“Do you think we need to go find a bigger road?” said Boodins. “I remember we got on this one after a while, and it was much more abandoned…”

“It would be a long walk.” fretted Dene. “Maybe we should run… hey, wait, see that?”

“Yeah! Siertes could read the license plate, I bet.”

“Siertes could count the hairs on the tip of the guy’s ears. She’s not going to do that, she gave up. I can’t give her up, so help me wave this guy down…”

“What’s going on? What’s the matter with her? It’s creepy to have her… well… peaceful.”

“That Xarnax ship’s getting away. When her people find out, they’ll kill her. I guess it finally just got to her…”

“Her Tompar people?”

“Pretty much.” said Dene. “We need to stop that happening, so we need to put the word out about the Xarnax ship. I don’t know why it was moving so slowly, but I hope it keeps it up, because it might give us time… okay, here he comes, wave!”

The two waved frantically, crying “Help! Help! Help! H… heh…” as the car shot by, engine roaring as the driver put on extra speed.

“That went well.” snarled Dene.

“Maybe we should yell something else?”

“Or I should show some leg? Do you think they’d stop if I was naked?”

Boodins laughed. “It would be awesome if you tried! Please?”

Dene bristled. “I don’t need to get YOU to stop! You’re already here!”

“Yeah, and they might not listen very well if they did stop…”

“Wolfess?” Siertes was approaching. So was another car.

“You’re going to help us?” said Dene.

“It’s Rai.” said Siertes, and looked unhappy.

“Oh, shit… he died?” yelped Boodins. The car drew nearer. There was something odd about it.

“He’s passed out. We wondered if you knew anything about, you know, medical things…”

“With what?” barked Dene. “We have nothing to treat him with! We have to stop a car!”

“How?” said Boodins. “It’s not like we can just catch one…”

Dene whirled, and charged out into the road. Siertes’ jaw dropped, and she went after, but far too late… there was a screeching of tires, a thump, and Boodins stared in disbelief at Dene straddling the hood of the now-stopped car, a car that seemed to not have a driver, Dene staring in the windshield and looking back and forth in complete dumbfounded astonishment.

From inside the car, Faisand stared back, greatly distressed and silently expostulating behind closed windows, waving her paws, in the passenger seat. In the driver’s seat- Aine.

The window rolled down. “Don’t DO that!” cried Faisand.

“Well, we found them!” said Aine.

She hopped into Faisand’s lap, for Dene hurried to get in the driver’s seat, and the car roared off towards Rai and the others.

“Hey.. HEY!” yelled Boodins. “She forgot us!”

“Better start walking.” said Siertes. “You wouldn’t want her to forget twice, would you?”

“Nah. I don’t think she would, anyway.”

“She forgot me. That’s a fluff on a mission. She’s got some scheme in mind. Heh…”

“Come on! We’ll jog. You sound more cheerful now. Is it ‘cos Dene’s on your side?”

Siertes jogged easily. “I didn’t think it would matter. I don’t understand her, but I almost dare to hope.”

“Hope for what?” panted Boodins, who jogged awkwardly.

“That’s just it. It makes no sense. She can’t possibly help. But somehow…”

“You’re in love.”

“That’s good, is it?”

“Maybe it’s good for you.”

“Didn’t used to make me stupid.” said Siertes. “I guess I’m stuck with it, though…”

When they arrived, the scene was hectic activity. Voustrets was directing Kran the biker and Dene as they moved Rai into the car- the general agreement seemed to be that he had no broken bones, but his surgery had come apart in his fall from the tree, and he wouldn’t last long.

“I’ll drive.” said Dene grimly. There was no argument.

Aine was hugging Hallem, watched by Faisand, who fussed over the two children and scolded Hallem for his misbehavior. “Right, Mom,” he replied sarcastically, to which she retorted, “Well, you clearly could use at least one!” causing Aine’s ears to perk up. She put on a winsome look, which Hallem immediately labeled as Cute number Three, contradicted by Faisand who insisted that was nonsense, it was no better than Cute number Six or Seven…

Rai would ride up front, held by Kran. Dene would drive. Siertes, Voustrets, Faisand, Hallem and Aine would all cram in back. “All I ask,” said Siertes, “is that Voustrets doesn’t sit on my lap.” Hallem proved more acceptable, and Aine cuddled in Faisand’s lap, stubbornly working on increasing her cute quotient with the elderly, hard-to-impress courtesan.

With amazing promptness, they were back on the road, bound for Verss.

The car got up to speed. Siertes remarked over Dene’s shoulder, “I’ll let you concentrate on driving…”

“No. Faisand! Whose car is this? Is this yours?”

“You might say that, yes. Yes, it’s mine- it is now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Dene.

“We needed to go find you, dear. I don’t drive, and I don’t have a car. Aine said she could drive- so I bought one.”

“You bought one?”

“You needn’t sound so shocked. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah- it sure did. But I needed to ask you something about it. I could find it myself but I have to concentrate on the road and I don’t want to slow down…”

“Find what?” asked Faisand, quirking an ear.

“Get me the radio. Not music, I mean the two-way. There should be a way to place an emergency call, even without being signed up to a service.”

“Wait,” said Kran, “I think I can do that! Hang on…”

The biker wolf cradled Rai in one arm, and typed at the car’s instrument console with the other. It was awkward going, as he apparently wasn’t left-pawed and the car was barely stable over the disused road, but he persisted. Finally, a voice came out of the dashboard.

“Verss outskirts regional switchboard. Please state the nature of your emergency?”

“Badly injured…” began Siertes, but Dene cut her off. “Shut up!”

“Ma’am, fines for abusing emergency services are…”

“Not you! Listen. Give me police, quickly.”

“If you’re trolling that’s the worst thing I can do to you. Trace engaged. Coming right up…”

There was a clicking, and a male Runge voice came on. “Verss Police, Northwest. You’ve got a trace on your location, state your business. This call is being recorded…”

“Good, you’ll need my location. Can you monitor spaceship sub-orbital traffic? Like, I’m not sure what you have- who handles takeoffs and landings and stuff?”

“We’ve got that. Local spaceports do most of it. Why?”

“Can you monitor Xarnax raids? Is that part of what you do?”

“Hell, yes, but there’s nothing. Are you reporting a sighting? Ma’am, Xarnax activity is characteristic. Our computers flag any time anything makes any maneuver at robotic speeds. That’s defined as a ship’s acceleration or course change in excess of what would be survived by living passengers…”

“I knew it.” breathed Dene.

“And we haven’t got anything on the boards. There’s no Xarnax activity…”

“Like hell there isn’t. What do you have on the board near my location? You said you’ve got my location.”

“I’ve got one, some kinda freighter. Visuals don’t look Xarnax to me. Not much like a spaceship, either…”

“That’s no freighter.” snapped Dene. “That’s a Xarnax mothership. It’s transporting a lot of drones. They were picking up supplies and didn’t want to be noticed.”

“You’re right that it’s not a freighter.” said the cop. “What makes you think it’s a mothership? That’s seriously bad news if they’re doing that…”

“We don’t think, we know. I’m driving the survivors to the nearest Verss hospital. Now listen carefully, what you need to do…”

“Don’t worry, ma’am, we don’t mess around. I’m going to scramble every unit we’ve got to that area and…”

“No wait STOP!” yelped Dene.

“Holy SHIT!” barked the voice over the dashboard. There was a little silence, and then, eventually, the air around the speeding car was rocked by a sonic boom, a very loud one as if from a very large object.

“You sent the scramble out by radio, didn’t you?” said Dene, resignedly.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Yes, I did. It just… took off, as soon as I did. They were scanning for that, huh?”

“We’ll hope they didn’t get too much of a head start. What else have you got?”

The voice was grim. “I’ve got space patrol mobilizing right now. It doesn’t look good, their best heavy cruiser is in orbit around the near moon- but there’s another ship that was in the area, coming in for refueling. You say it’s a mother ship? Seriously?”

“Hundreds of drones, loading up on biological weapons… or would it be nerve weapons? It’s a long story. Trust me, this thing is a mother ship.”

“Okay, the guy is willing to go after it. We’ll get someone to rendezvous with him and refuel him in orbit. He’s gonna have to make it to orbit, but if he does, he’ll have a chance at it…”

The car howled along. Kran struggled with Rai a moment, for the Nerre, hit by a wave of pain, kicked and shook without regaining consciousness. Boodins looked on from the back seat, worriedly.

The voice out of the dashboard returned. “It looks like the guy might not be able to close with it. We think that if he puts on emergency power, he might not have many options once he makes orbit, but it may put him within firing range…”

“Do it.” said Dene, eyes fixed on the road. “You’re gonna have to blow the thing up. Can you nuke it? Reduce it to plasma?”

“That’s generally what would happen, yeah…”

“Do it at all costs. Those things were picking up biological weapons. It would be a really bad idea to have them rain down over most of the planet, so you need to turn them into their component atoms…”

“I’ll take your word for it. Talking to the captain…”

The radio went dead again. The car raced along, barely staying on the road- and then, slowing slightly, Dene made a turn onto the primary high-speed conduit to Verss, and the ride smoothed out, as Dene resumed absolute top speed.

“He’s doing it. The target is continuing to make robotic maneuvers but that’s slowing it- wait, it’s making a straight shot for space, now! The captain says he has missiles that can track the… yeah, he’s fired them… he’s spent, his fuel just ran out, I think he’s got escape velocity… if he can YEAH!”

In the sky, to the side and behind the car, a small star further lit the daylight.

“We got ‘em! We got ‘em!” shouted the cop over the radio. “Just a minute. I have to give the coordinates to space patrol, somebody’s got to rendezvous with this guy… yeah, he says he’s got a little over escape velocity… hah, he says it’s okay, they have sandwiches… sounds pretty pleased.”

“We’re really, really grateful he was there. Tell him that.” said Dene.

“Gotcha. This is amazing, I’ve never seen a Xarnax mothership before. It was the biggest ship I’ve ever seen make those maneuvers. Wow.”

“Yeah, we never saw one either.” said Dene. “Hope we don’t see any more, anytime soon.”

“Wow. Hey,” said the cop, “whoever you are, you’re some kind of hero, how did you know all this? I’m sure the newstapes are going to be talking to me because they’re all over sudden changes in flight plans, and when you add the nuke, they’re gonna be swarming me asking for the story. I have to tell them where I got the tip. If you don’t mind my asking, who are you?”

“My name is Siertes.” said Dene Tieschtet.

“Sounds Tompar.” said the cop. “Can you spell that for me?”

“Sure.” said Dene, as the car hurtled towards Verss.