Firebrand

Moralez didn't really think of himself as a cop, as much as the building resembled a police station, and as evocative as his title was. He was responsible for keeping the station secure and ensuring the safety of the people on it. He deployed teams of MPs to break up bar fights and to drag the offending personnel to the brig, he dealt with organizing the station's defenses during an enemy attack, and he was entrusted with keeping everything running smoothly.

His job was akin to balancing spinning plates. The Pinwheel was in a perpetual state of carefully moderated chaos, it was as large as a small town, with tens of thousands of people passing through in a given week. Soldiers, aliens, civilians. He was responsible for every person who set foot here, and every ship that docked.

It was early in the morning, but he could see that the workday had already begun. There was an especially surly Borealan sitting on a chair that was far too small for him in one of the waiting rooms. He was of the Equatorial variety, his smooth skin a dark shade of caramel, his fur a sandy blonde where it was visible beneath his Navy jumpsuit. His furry hands were concealed beneath a pair of specialized manacles that almost resembled a child's mittens, linked together by a sturdy chain, preventing him from making use of his claws. The room was being guarded by two MPs who were wearing white helmets and sashes on top of their black armor. Judging by the way that his nose was running and his puffy eyes were streaming tears, he had recently been maced.

"What have we got here?" Moralez asked, stopping by the door to get a look at the alien.

"Drunk and disorderly, Chief," one of the MPs replied from beneath his full-faced helmet. "Once we're done processing him, we'll throw him in the drunk tank until Raz can come down and pick him up."

The alien's ears flattened against his straw-colored hair at that, and he gazed down at the floor dejectedly. Raz was the unofficial Matriarch of the station, the most respected among the Equatorials, and the highest-ranked in their pack structure. She trained the newcomers, tempered them so that they could interact with humans, taught them how to suppress and redirect their more savage proclivities. Moralez had quickly discovered that having her pay troublemakers a visit was a far more effective form of punishment than any pay dock or suspension that he could mete out.

"Very good," he replied, "I'll be in my office if you need anything."

His office was at the far end of the hall, and he entered through the sliding door, flopping down into a chair in front of a bank of monitors. The room was sparsely furnished, but he found that the cramped space helped focus him. This was his control center, the readouts displaying information on the station and its operations. He fished his tablet out of his pocket and began to scroll through his alerts. It was mostly mundane stuff, but there was one alert requesting that he put a call through to the Admiral as soon as he arrived at work. There was always at least one of them on the station at any time, and they were the highest authority in the Navy.

He wasted no time, tapping into the vidphone on his desk and fiddling with his collar for a moment. Before long, a man wearing a pristine, white uniform appeared on his monitor from the waist up. The Admiral's breast was adorned with colored ribbons and UNN insignias, his matching cap sporting the organization's logo emblazoned in gold above the rim, a globe contained within a wreath. He was an older man, his clean-shaven face weatherbeaten, his blue eyes cold and intense beneath a pair of bushy brows.

"You asked to see me, Admiral?" Moralez asked.

"Good morning, Chief Moralez," the Admiral replied curtly. "Our timetable has been moved up, some of the ambassadors will be arriving a few hours earlier than anticipated. I don't think I need to tell you that I expect this security council meeting to go off without a hitch. I don't want so much as a road bump, you understand me? We have potentially valuable new allies petitioning for entry into the Coalition, and we need to show them that we run a tight operation, that we're as competent as they've been led to believe. Appearances are everything."

"Yes, Sir," Moralez replied. "I've already made arrangements to see to the security needs and accommodations of the ambassadors."

"There's something else," the Admiral continued, his tone becoming somewhat dour. "You were informed that a representative of the Jarilo colony would be attending the conference, is that correct?"

"Yes, Sir. Although I have to say, I didn't quite know what to make of it. I assumed that we'd be needing some extra security, so I saw to that already."

"I'm afraid that we may need some...special accommodations for this delegate," he continued. Moralez cocked an eyebrow, it almost sounded as though the Admiral was reluctant to give him any more information.

"How so, Sir?"

"You were told that the ambassador would be representing the Betelgeusian hive on Jarilo, but not that the ambassador hailed from that same hive."

"A...Bug ambassador, Sir?" Moralez asked in disbelief. "You want to bring Bugs onto the station?"

"Watch your tone, Chief," he snapped. "It was not my decision alone, and it was not made lightly."

"Of course, Sir, I apologize. It just...caught me a little off-guard is all."

"In all fairness, I reacted the same way when the idea was proposed," he continued. "There will be no Betelgeusian entourage, a single Bug will be traveling to the station under heavy guard, and it will sit in on the security council meeting in order to plead its case. It will be staying on the station for the duration of the proceedings, likely several days. When it arrives on the station, it will be transferred over to the custody of your security team, and you will henceforth be responsible for its safety. Keep the damned thing out of sight of the general population where possible, we don't want to start a panic."

"Yes, Sir. If we need to move it around, we can access the maintenance tunnels and keep it off the torus. I'll put it in one of the vacant apartments under armed guard, get my guys to keep an eye on it."

"I've read through your service record, Chief," the Admiral said as he shifted his weight in front of the camera. He must be standing. "You're surely aware of the animosity that many in the Coalition feel towards the Betelgeusians?"

"That's an understatement, Sir. Practically everyone on the station has lost a friend or a colleague to them."

"Indeed. Nothing can happen to this ambassador, is that understood? Allying ourselves with a Betelgeusian hive might sound insane, but it represents a significant security interest for the Coalition, not to mention lasting peace on Jarilo. If we can gain access to their technologies and the inner workings of their hives, then that knowledge can be applied to better exterminating their cousins."

"If I may ask, Admiral, what's the situation on Jarilo? I've heard rumors, but I don't know what to believe. Any information that you can give me might help me do my job better."

The Admiral paused to consider for a moment, his wrinkled brow furrowing.

"Very well, I suppose there's no reason to refuse your request this late into the game. Jarilo is a remarkably Earth-like planet that was recently discovered by survey vessels, a veritable Garden of Eden. The surveyors also picked up signs of Bug activity, and so a fleet led by the UNN Thermopylae was quickly dispatched to claim it. They arrived before the Bugs had landed all of their troops and before the orbital defenses had been deployed, and were able to destroy three hive ships in the ensuing engagement. This starved the Betelgeusians of the resources and manpower that they required to establish a self-sufficient colony, so I'm told. There were a series of ground battles in which the enemy exhausted the remainder of their resources, and when they reached a stage where their defeat was inevitable, they surrendered unconditionally."

"They surrendered, Sir?" Moralez repeated in disbelief. "Will all due respect, I've seen Drones that had been cut clean in half by anti-personnel mines drag their bodies across the battlefield in an attempt to reach our lines, I can't imagine that a hive would ever surrender. I'm not sure they're even sentient, they're just mindless insects. Besides, how would they communicate that surrender? They lack vocal cords, and they have no written language. They only communicate through pheromones."

"As you may know, Betelgeusian hives war amongst themselves as much as they war with us," the Admiral explained. "I am told that, in rare circumstances, a hive may overcome another without actually destroying it utterly. In such a scenario, the defeated hive offers itself to the victor in the form of genetic material. If they fought well, then their genes might be of benefit to the conquering hive, and can thus be incorporated. This ensures the survival of their lineage."

"So that's what happened on Jarilo?" Moralez mused, scratching his stubbly chin with his prosthetic fingers. "The Bugs were put in a position where they were exhausted of resources, and then gave up, expecting us to assimilate them?"

"I suppose they're getting what they wanted if they're petitioning to join the Coalition," the Admiral added. "In a way, we'll be assimilating them into our own hive if we deem them to be of use to us. As for how they communicated their surrender, that's...a little more complicated. This information is on a need-to-know basis, so I don't want you repeating it. They took a Marine captive, one Sergeant Walker, and performed some kind of invasive medical procedure on him that gave him the ability to sense their pheromones. Over the days that he was kept in their hive, he learned to speak their language, if you can call it that. He delivered their surrender, and acted as a mediator in the aftermath."

"A turncoat, Sir?" Moralez asked suspiciously. "How can they be sure of where his loyalties lie if the Bugs were fiddling around in his head?"

"No, at least that's what the UNNI shrinks reported. His loyalties were certainly split, but they judged him to be of sound mind, despite the alien sense organ that the buggers had wired into his brain. Walker won't be serving as the ambassador, however. The hive has birthed a new caste dedicated to the diplomatic role, a Diplo-bug, if you will. I am assured that this...creature, has the ability and the authority to speak on behalf of its people."

"And you want me to prevent the first Borealan that sees it from swiping its head clean off its shoulders?" Moralez asked, leaning back in his chair. The Admiral nodded in reply. "Understood, Sir. I'll have a team guarding it twenty-four seven, people I trust. I have a couple of guys in mind who fit the bill. One more thing, Sir, if I may?"

"Go on," the Admiral urged with a nod.

"There aren't...colonists living on Jarilo, are there?"

"Well, we certainly wouldn't cede such a valuable planet to the Bugs, regardless of how friendly they proved to be. Jarilo is ours, and it's currently undergoing colonization. The Bug hive exists there with our permission, and the people living there are quite safe. If the fleet stationed in orbit hears so much as a peep from our guests, they're prepared to bring the boot down, as it were."

"That sets me a little more at ease, Sir."

"Very good, Security Chief. The first ambassador will be arriving at oh-nine-hundred hours. And, Chief? Do give the Valbaran delegation a bit of a show. They've never visited the station before, and first impressions count."

***

"This is flight control," a female voice rang out over the comms channel, Moralez interrupting his work to turn his attention to one of his monitors. "The Elysian vessel has exited superlight in proximity to the station, Sir," the operator announced. "Shall I patch the external camera feed into your terminal?"

"Roger that, flight control, I'd like eyes on them. Get a tug out there and guide the Elysians in, I wouldn't trust them to drive a forklift, never mind what appears to be a...frigate? What the..."

The feed from one of the cameras that was mounted on the station's exterior displayed in a window on his screen, and he watched as the angular vessel righted itself after its jump, the innumerable thrusters that were spaced out along its hull flaring with jets of blue hydrogen flame. It had once been a UNN railgun frigate, that much was obvious by its one hundred and fifty-meter profile, its armored plating arranged to provide a low radar cross-section. There were dome-like structures along its length that would open up to reveal the railgun batteries beneath, the windows along the subtly raised bridge near the aft catching the light from the system's star. The large main engines were located at the aft, currently out of view. But where once it would have been painted with a black stealth coating made from radar-absorbent materials, it now sported a garish red and gold, decorated with traditional Elysian hunting scenes that flowed across its hull like a tapestry. The aliens had apparently chosen flair over practicality. It was an older model, a junker by modern standards, but its owners might not know or care. Borealis was somewhat of a backwater, they had only recently begun manufacturing black powder weapons by the time the UNN had made contact with them, and the Patriarch who ruled Elysia liked his toys. The territory had been assembling a somewhat less than regulation fleet as of late, mostly sourced from disreputable used starship dealers. The UNN had it on good authority that the dealers were selling on many of the ships that they had been contracted to scrap.

"Yes, Sir," the woman in the station's control center replied. "I can have them towed into bay seventeen, but wouldn't it be prudent to have them send a shuttle over instead?"

"No, I want our techs to look her over when she lands," Moralez replied. "I'll sleep better if I can be sure that the ambassador will make it back home without the damned thing falling apart."

"Roger that, Sir. I'll contact engineering and have them dispatch a team to inspect the vessel."

"Just make sure that they arrive maybe an hour after the ship lands, we wouldn't want to inadvertently insult the ambassador. I'm on my way to bay seventeen, let the Admiral know that our guests have begun to arrive."

***

The cavernous hangar bay reminded Moralez of an underground cave, but made from silver metal and white hull material rather than uneven rock, the echoing of his footsteps only adding to that illusion. The ceiling must have been sixty feet above his head, and the distance between the flickering force field that kept the atmosphere in and the back wall must have been a good six hundred feet. There were elevated catwalks on the walls, engineers in their yellow jumpsuits walking back and forth along them, and embedded in the ceiling above were bright lamps spaced at intervals that lit the whole space in a pale glow.

Beyond the thin barrier of energy, he could see the velvet darkness of space, the stars seeming to rotate past sluggishly as the habitat spun to simulate gravity. Navy vessels had AG fields that generated artificial gravity, but the torus was simply too large for such conveniences. They had to rely on the power of physics alone.

This bay was mostly empty save for a solitary dropship that was currently refueling, a team of engineers milling about the vessel, glancing at tablet computers as they ran checks. There was a snaking pipe that emerged from a panel in the floor, hooking up beneath the small craft's wing.

The centerpiece was the Elysian frigate, which was now docked and sitting idle on the deck. The seven thousand ton starship was resting on a set of a dozen landing skids, the hydraulic cables that hung from the shadowy recesses in its underbelly, and the massive compression disks that were built into the struts giving some idea as to how they were able to support its immense mass. These vessels could fly in atmosphere, and even make landfall if absolutely necessary, but it was best avoided where possible. Judging by the presence of what looked like sand clinging to the struts, it appeared that the Elysians thought differently.

The tapestry-like reliefs on the hull were even more impressive up close, the thing was a veritable Sistine Chapel. It was a little like the damascene work that Zhari had done on his sidearm, but on a far larger scale. The regal, crimson undercoat was overlaid with intricate designs in shining gold, depicting scenes of hunting and warfare from their territory's history. There were Borealan figures wielding rifles as they engaged in combat and sport, depictions of alien animals that he didn't recognize, and elaborate representations of the planet's dense jungles. Everything had a somewhat odd perspective, giving it a Medieval vibe. It was a shame that the heat of reentry had stripped some of the artwork from the nose and belly of the craft, the Elysian craftsmen must not have accounted for that.

The landing ramp was already lowered, situated near the aft section, below the elevated bridge. A pair of giant, shining hydraulic pistons stood to either side of it like metal pillars, the interior too dark to be seen beneath the shadow of the vessel. Moralez waved his companions forward. He was joined by a dignitary who had been sent to greet the ambassadors, and they were flanked by two Borealan Shock Troopers who were clad in black combat armor, their feline faces obscured beneath their opaque visors. They were not here for backup, but rather to make the Elysian ambassador more at home. They were his countrymen, hailing from Elysia, and they should help to put him more at ease. The Elysians always appreciated a show of force.

A large figure lumbered down the ramp, his regal outfit giving him away as the ambassador. He was a head taller than the two Shock Troopers, with broad shoulders and rust-colored fur that was patterned with faded stripes. He was wearing what looked like a blend between a suit of armor and billowy fabric, extensively decorated with the same reds and golds that adorned his ship. His tunic was made from flowing, crimson material that was secured about his waist with a leather belt that sported a golden buckle, along with a pair of knee-length shorts in the same style. Sewn into the fabric of his tunic was another hunting scene, the golden threads woven into a depiction of alien figures chasing down unidentifiable animals.

Upon his shoulders were two large pauldrons, the heavy metal colored red with gold trim. They were strapped to him with more leather belts that formed a cross pattern over his barrel chest, adorned with golden studs and badges that resembled medals. His claws were sheathed in ornate thimbles, attached to rings on his thick fingers via delicate chains. Upon his back was a cape that trailed on the ramp behind him, the fur shifting hue with an odd iridescence as he moved. It looked like some kind of fur, almost like an oil slick in the way that it refracted the light.

He was not descending alone, however. To his right was another Borealan, this one a female. Her entire body was covered in a sleek, shiny layer of jet-black fur, thinner and slicker than the thick fluff of a Polar. She was a little shorter than her counterpart, her build far slimmer than his muscled frame, giving her the appearance of a gymnast rather than a bodybuilder. Unlike the Elysian, her attire was startlingly human. She wore a two-piece suit, its black color giving the impression that it was blending with her fur, complete with a jacket and a neat skirt. It gave her the air of a high-powered executive, although her lack of shoes somewhat diminished the effect. He couldn't help but notice her impressive bust. She was well-endowed, even for a Borealan.